Page:A memoir of Granville Sharp.djvu/143

Rh and continually wearing out, with a most shameful involuntary servitude in the British colonies! nay, and that by a public toleration, under the sanction of laws to which the monarchs of England, from time to time, by the advice of their privy counsellors, have given the royal assent, and thereby rendered themselves parties in the oppression, and (it is to be feared) partakers of the guilt!

Let us not forget, before it is too late, that the Almighty has not only declared himself ready to "hear the cry" of the oppressed stranger, but hath deigned to add to his glorious name Jehovah, a brief remembrance of his merciful interposition in behalf of an enslaved nation: "I am the Lord your God" (or Jehovah your God, said the Almighty to the Israelites) "which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." Exod. xx. 1. Thus the Almighty Deliverer from slavery vouchsafed to set his own divine example before the eyes of his redeemed people, to excite benevolence and thankfulness; and the like remembrance of that glorious redemption from slavery was very frequently repeated from time to time; which the Scriptures sufficiently testify: but alas! the Israelites profited so little by these wholesome lessons, that it became necessary, no less frequently, to remind them of the dreadful vengeance which would inevitably overtake them for their notorious oppressions of the poor; for their unjust exactions of involuntary and unrewarded service; and for exceeding the limitations of bondage (already recited)which the law expressly enjoined! "For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; and will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him," or "that would ensnare him." Psal. xii. 5. The princely prophet Isaiah plainly declared to them, that their public fasts and outward humiliations were not only vain, but even offensive to God, while such notorious oppressions continued among them, "Behold" (said he) "in the day of your fast, you find pleasure, and exact all your labors." lviii. 3. And again,—"Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is