Leviticus 25:42,43

Leviticus 25:42, &c. For they are my servants, &c.— A great distinction is made between native Israelites and strangers in the case of servitude; and the reason urged is, that the meanest Israelite, as well as the richest, was redeemed from Egyptian bondage, and had this honour, to be the peculiar servant and worshipper of the true God: the dignity therefore of his character, and his relation to God the common master, entitled him to good usage from his brethren, and was to secure him from oppressive slavery and rigour, like that which the Egyptians exercised over the Israelites. Exodus 1:13. In consequence of this their external privilege, the Jews always valued themselves as a free people, according to a distinction which their rabbis make between internal and external liberty; averring that the latter may be lost, but the former never can: but, alas! how little did those rabbis know of the fall of man! And is not every one a slave internally, who is in subjection to irregular passions and appetites? But it must be granted, that human laws or external coercion cannot restrain the movements of the mind. May we not just hint, that if the appropriation of the Israelites to one common master and deliverer was a sufficient reason why they should never make slaves of each other, certainly that relation, in which all men now stand to the great Lord and Redeemer of the world, is a sufficient reason universally to abolish the unchristian practice of slavery at present?