The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus · Chapter 191"think Not That I Am Come to Destroy the Law or the Prophets; I Am Not Come to Destroy, But to Fulfil."
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And did the Head of the new dispensation, then, fall so far behind the prophets of the old in a hearty and effective regard for suffering humanity? The forms of oppression which they witnessed, excited their compassion and aroused their indignation. In terms the most pointed and powerful, they exposed, denounced, threatened. They could not endure the creatures, "who used their neighbors' service without wages, and gave him not for his work;"[6] who imposed "heavy burdens"[7] upon their fellows, and loaded them with "the bands of wickedness;" who, "hiding themselves from their own flesh," disowned their own mothers' children. Professions of piety joined with the oppression of the poor, they held up to universal scorn and execration, as the dregs of hypocrisy. They warned the creature of such professions, that he could escape the wrath of Jehovah only by heart-felt repentance. And yet, according to the ecclesiastics with whom we have to do, the Lord of these prophets passed by in silence just such enormities as he commanded them to expose and denounce! Every where, he came in contact with slavery in its worst forms—"horrible cruelties" forced themselves upon his notice; but not a word of rebuke or warning did he utter. He saw "a boy given for a harlot, and a girl sold for wine, that they might drink,"[8] without the slightest feeling of displeasure, or any mark of disapprobation! To such disgusting and horrible conclusions, do the arguings which, from the haunts of sacred literature, are inflicted on our churches, lead us! According to them, Jesus Christ, instead of shining as the light of the world, extinguished the torches which his own prophets had kindled, and plunged mankind into the palpable darkness of a starless midnight! O savior, in pity to thy suffering people, let thy temple be no longer used as a "den of thieves!"
[Footnote 6: Jeremiah, xxii. 13.]
[Footnote 7: Isaiah, lviii. 6, 7.]
[Footnote 8: Joel, iii. 3.]