Page:The Bible Against Slavery (Weld, 1838).djvu/57

55 ushered in, by the day of atonement. What did these institutions show forth? The day of atonement prefigured the atonement of Christ, and the year of jubilee, the gospel jubilee. And did they prefigure an atonement and a jubilee to Jews only? Were they types of sins remitted, and of salvation proclaimed to the nation of Israel alone? Is there no redemption for us Gentiles in these ends of the earth, and is our hope presumption and impiety? Did that old partition wall survive the shock, that made earth quake, and hid the sun, burst graves and rocks, and rent the temple veil? and did the Gospel only rear it higher to thunder direr perdition from its frowning battlements on all without? No! The God of salvation lives. "Good tidings of great joy shall be to people." One shout shall swell from all the ransomed, "Thou hast redeemed us unto God by thy blood out of kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." To deny that the blessings of the jubilee extended to the servants from the Gentiles, makes Christianity Judaism. It not only eclipses the glory of the Gospel, but strikes out the sun. The refusal to release servants at the jubilee falsified and disannulled a grand leading type of the atonement, and was a libel on the doctrine of Christ's redemption. Finally, even if forever did refer to individual service, we have ample precedents for limiting the term by the jubilee. The same word defines the length of time which Jewish servants served who did not go out in the seventh year. And all admit that they went out at the jubilee. Ex. xxi. 2—6; Deut. xv. 12—17. The 23d verse of the same chapter is quoted to prove that "forever" in the 46th verse, extends beyond the jubilee. "The land shall not be sold, for the land is mine"—since it would hardly be used in different senses in the same general connection. As forever, in the 46th verse, respects the general arrangement, and not individual service the objection does not touch the argument. Besides in the 46th verse, the word used, is Olām, meaning throughout the period, whatever that may be. Whereas in the 23d verse, it is Tsēmithuth, meaning, a cutting off.

3. "." "Ye shall take them as an for your children after you to inherit them for a possession." This refers to the nations, and not to the individual servants, procured from these nations. We have already shown, that servants could not be held as a property-possession, and inheritance; that they became servants of their own accord, and were paid wages; that they