"Judas Iscariot has rather a bad name in the Christian world: he is called 'The son of perdition,' in the New Testament, and his conduct is reckoned a 'transgression;' nay, it is said the devil 'entered into him,' to cause this hideous sin. But all this it seems was a mistake; certainly, if we are to believe our 'republican' lawyers and statesmen, Iscariot only fulfilled his 'constitutional obligations.' It was only 'on that point,' of betraying his Saviour, that the constitutional law required him to have any thing to do with Jesus. He took his thirty pieces of silver'— about fifteen dollars; a Yankee is to do it for ten, having fewer prejudices to conquer - it was his legal fee, for value received. True, the Christians thought it was 'The wages of iniquity,,` and even the Pharisees-who commonly made the commandment of God of none effect by their traditions—dared not defile the temple with this 'price of blood;' but it was honest money. Yes, it was as honest a fee as any American commissioner or deputy will ever get for a similar service. How mistaken we are! Judas Iscariot is not a traitor! he was a great patriot; he conquered his 'prejudices,' performed 'a disagreeable duty,' as an office of 'high morals and high principle;' he kept the 'law' and the ‘Constitution,' and did all he could to ‘save the Union;' nay, he was a saint, ‘not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.' 'The law of God never commands us to disobey the law of man.'

Sancte Iscariote ora pro nobis.

"Talk of keeping the fugitive slave law! Come, come, we know better. Men in New England know better than this. We know that we ought not to keep a wicked law, and that it must not be kept when the law of God forbids!

"One of the most awful spectacles I ever saw, was this: A vast multitude attempting, at an orator's suggestion [Hon. Mr. Hallett], to howl down the 'Higher law,' and when he said, Will you have this to rule over you? they answered, 'Never!' and treated the 'Higher law' to a laugh and a howl! It was done in Fanueil Hall; under the eyes of the three Adamses, Hancock, and Washington; and the howl rung round the venerable arches of that hall! I could not but ask, 'Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? the rulers of the earth set themselves, and kings take counsel against the Lord and say, Let us break his bands asunder, and cast off his yoke from us.' Then I could not but remember that it was written, 'He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.' 'He taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers before Him.' Howl down the law of God at a magistrate's command! Do this in Boston! Let us remember this but with charity."

"I do not believe there is more than one of the New England men who publicly helped the law into being, but would violate its provisions; conceal a fugitive; share his loaf with a runaway; furnish him golden wings to fly with. Nay, I think it would be difficult to find a magistrate in New England, willing to take the public odium of doing the official duty. I believe it is not possible to find a regular jury, who will punish a man for harboring a slave, for helping his escape, or fine a marshal or commissioner for being a little slow to catch a slave. Men will talk loud in public meetings, but they have some conscience after all, at home. And though they howl down the Higher law' in a crowd, yet conscience will make cowards of them all, when they come to lay hands on a Christian man, more innocent than they, and send him into slavery for ever! One of the commissioners of Boston talked loud and long, last Tuesday, in favor of keeping the law. When he read his litany against the law of God, and asked if men would keep the 'Higher law,' and got 'Never' as the welcome, and amen for response-it seemed as if the law might be kept, at least by that commissioner, and such as gave the responses to his creed. But slave-hunting Mr. Hughes, who came here for two of our fellow-worshippers, in his Georgia newspaper, tells a different story. Here it is from the Georgia Telegraph,' of last Friday. I called at eleven o'clock at night, at his [the commissioner's] residence, and stated to him my

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business, and asked him for a 'warrant, saying that if I could get a warrant, I could have the negroes [William and Ellen Craft] arrested. He said the law did not authorize a warrant to be issued: that it was my duty to go and arrest the negro without a warrant, and bring him before him!' This is more than I expected. 'Is Saul among the prophets?' The men who tell us that the law must be kept, God willing, or against His will — there are Puritan fathers behind them also; Bibles in their houses; a Christ crucified, whom they think of; and a God even in their world, who slumbers not, neither is weary, and is as little a respecter of parchments as of persons! They know there is a people, as well as politicians, a posterity not yet assembled, and they would not like to have certain words writ on their tomb-stone. 'Traitor to the rights

of mankind,' is no pleasant epitaph. They, too, remember there is a day after to-day; aye, a forever; and 'Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have not done it unto me,' is a sentence they would not like to hear at the day of judgment."1

Gentlemen, you see by the faces of this Honorable Court, and you know by what these honorable functionaries and their coadjutors have done out of its limit, how much I was mistaken in the notion that no Boston Commissioner would ever kidnap a man! Perhaps you will pardon me for the mistake. I will soon explain it by a quotation.

After the rescue of Shadrach, in my Sunday prayer I publicly gave God the thanks of the congregation for the noble deed. Perhaps that was a crime. I think Judge Saunders could make it appear that I was an "accessory after the fact," and then Judge Curtis could call the offence not a felony but a "misdemeanor," and "in misdemeanors all are principals." Nay, it might be "levying war" "with force and arms."

After the Hon. Judge Sprague had made himself glorious by charging the jury" to obey both" the will of God and the laws of men, which forbid that will; and after Commissioner Curtis had kidnapped Mr. Sims, while he still had him in his unlawful jail, on Fastday, April 10, 1851, I preached a sermon "of the Chief Sins of the People," and said,

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"He [Judge Sprague] supposes a case: that the people ask him,' Which shall we obey, the law of man or the will of God?' He says, 'I answer, obey both. The incompatibility which the question assumes does not exist.'

"So, then, here is a great general rule, that between the 'law of man' and the will of God' there is no incompatibility, and we must obey both. Now let us see how this rule will work.

"If I am rightly informed, King Ahab made a law that all the Hebrews should serve Baal, and it was the will of God that they should serve the Lord. According to this rule of the judge, they must obey both.' But if they served Baal, they could not serve the Lord. In such a case, 'what is to be done?' We are told that Elijah gathered the prophets together: 'and he came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.' Our modern

12 Parker's Occasional Sermons, pp. 298-300, 301, 302, 304, 305.

prophet says, 'Obey both. The incompatibility which the question assumes does not exist.' Such is the difference between Judge Elijah and Judge Peleg.

"Let us see how this rule will work in other cases; how you can make a compromise between two opposite doctrines. The king of Egypt commanded the Hebrew nurses, When you do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, if it be a son ye shall kill him.' I suppose it is plain to the Judge of the Circuit Court that this kind of murder, killing the new-born infants, is against 'the will of God;' but it is a matter of record that it was according to the law of man.' Suppose the Hebrew nurses had come to ask Judge Sprague for his advice. He must have said, 'Obey both!' His rule is a universal one.

"Another decree was once made, as it is said in the Old Testament, that no man should ask any petition of any God for thirty days, save of the king, on penalty of being cast into the den of lions. Suppose Daniel - I mean the old Daniel, the should have asked him, What is to be done? Should he pray to Darius or pray to God? 'Obey both!' would be the answer. But he cannot, for he is forbid to pray to God. We know what Daniel did do.

prophet

"The elders and scribes of Jerusalem commanded the Christians not to speak or to teach at all in the name of Jesus; but Peter and John asked those functionaries, 'Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.' Our judge must have said, There is no 'incompatibility;'' obey both!' What a comfortable Scripture' this would have been to poor John Bunyan! What a great ethical doctrine to St. Paul! He did not know such Christianity as that. Before his time a certain man had said, 'No man can serve two masters.' But there was one person who made the attempt, and he also is eminent in history. Here was 'the will of God,' to do to others as you would have others do to you: 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' Here is the record of the law of man: ' 'Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he [Jesus] were, he should show it that they might take him.' Judas, it seems, determined to 'obey both,' — 'the law of man' and 'the will of God.' So he sat with Jesus at the Last Supper, dipped his hand in the same dish, and took a morsel from the hand of Christ, given him in token of love. All this he did to obey 'the will of God.' Then he went and informed the Commissioner or Marshal where Jesus was. This he did to obey the law of man.' Then he came back, and found Christ, — the all agony over, the bloody sweat wiped off from his brow presently to bleed again,—the Angel of Strength there with him to comfort him. He was arousing his sleeping disciples for the last time, and was telling them, 'Pray, lest ye enter into temptation.' Judas came and gave him a kiss. To the eleven it seemed the friendly kiss, obeying 'the will of God.' To the Marshal it also seemed a friendly kiss,-obeying 'the law of man.' So, in the same act, he obeys the law of God' and 'the will of man,' and there is no 'incompatibility!'

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"Of old it was said, 'Thou canst not serve God and mammon.' He that said it, has been thought to know something of morals,—something of religion.

"Till the fugitive slave law was passed, we did not know what a great saint Iscariot was. I think there ought to be a chapel for him, and a day set apart in the calendar. Let him have his chapel in the navy yard at Washington. He has got a priest there already. And for a day in the calendar set apart for all time the seventh of

March!"

“Last Thanksgiving day, I said it would be difficult to find a magistrate in Boston to take the odium of sending a fugitive back to slavery. I believed, after all, men had some conscience, although they talked about its being a duty to deliver up a man to bondage. Pardon me, my country, that I rated you too high! Pardon me, town of Boston, that I thought your citizens all men! Pardon me, lawyers, that I thought you

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had been all born of mothers! Pardon me, ruffians, who kill for hire! I thought you had some animal mercy left, even in your bosom! Pardon me, United States' commissioners, marshals, and the like, I thought you all had some shame! Pardon me, my hearers, for such mistakes. One commissioner was found to furnish the warrant [Mr. George T. Curtis]! Pardon me, I did not know he was a commissioner; if I had, I never would have said it!

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Spirits of tyrants, I look down to you! Shade of Cain, you great first murderer, forgive me that I forgot your power, and did not remember that you were parent of so long a line! And you, my brethren, if hereafter I tell you that there is any limit of meanness or wickedness which a Yankee will not jump over, distrust me, and remind me of this day, and I will take it back!

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"Let us look at the public conduct of any commissioner who will send an innocent man from Boston into slavery. I would speak of all men charitably; for I know how easy it is to err, yea, to sin. I can look charitably on thieves, prowling about in darkness; on rum-sellers, whom poverty compels to crime; on harlots, who do the deed of shame that holy woman's soul abhors and revolts at; I can pity the pirate, who scours the seas doing his fiendish crimes — he is tempted, made desperate by a gradual training in wickedness. The man, born at the South, owning slaves, who goes to Africa and sells adulterated rum in exchange for men to retail at Cuba, -I cannot understand the consciousness of such a man; yet I can admit that by birth and by breeding he has become so imbruted he knows no better. Nay, even that he may perhaps justify his conduct to himself. I say I think his sin is not so dreadful as that of a commissioner in Boston who sends a man into slavery. A man commits a murder, inflamed by jealousy, goaded by desire of great gain, excited by fear, stung by malice, or poisoned by revenge, and it is a horrid thing. But to send a man into slavery is worse than to murder him. I should rather be slain than enslaved. To do this, inflamed by no jealousy, goaded by no desire of great gain, only ten dollars!-excited by no fear, stung by no special malice, poisoned by no revenge,-I cannot comprehend that in any man, not even in a hyena. Beasts that raven for blood do not kill for killing's sake, but to feed their flesh. Forgive me, O ye wolves and hyenas! that I bring you into such company. I can only understand it in a devil!

"When a man bred in Massachusetts, whose Constitution declares that 'All men are born free and equal;' within sight of Faneuil Hall, with all its sacred memories; within two hours of Plymouth Rock; within a single hour of Concord and Lexington; in sight of Bunker Hill,-when he will do such a deed, it seems to me that there is no life of crime long enough to prepare a man for such a pitch of depravity; I should think he must have been begotten in sin, and conceived in iniquity, and been born with a dog's head on his shoulders;' that the concentration of the villany of whole generations of scoundrels would hardly be enough to fit a man for a deed like this!"

“Last Thursday night, when odious beasts of prey, that dare not face the light of heaven, prowl through the woods, those ruffians of the law seized on their brother man. They lie to the bystanders, and seize him on a false pretence. There is their victim they hold him fast. His faithless knife breaks in his hand; his coat is rent to pieces. He is the slave of Boston. Can you understand his feelings? Let us pass by that. His 'trial!' Shall I speak of that? He has been five days on trial for more than life, and has not seen a judge! A jury? No,—only a commissioner! O justice! O republican America! Is this the liberty of Massachusetts ?

"Where shall I find a parallel with men who will do such a deed, -do it in Boston? I will open the tombs, and bring up most hideous tyrants from the dead. Come, brood of monsters, let me bring you up from the deep damnation of the graves wherein your hated memories continue for all time their never-ending rot. Come, birds of evil

omen! come, ravens, vultures, carrion-crows, and see the spectacle! come, see the meeting of congenial souls! I will disturb, disquiet, and bring up the greatest monsters of the human race! Tremble not, women; tremble not, children; tremble not, men! They are all dead! They cannot harm you now! Fear the living, not the dead! "Come hither, Herod the wicked! Thou that didst seek after that young child's life, and destroyedst the Innocents! Let me look on thy face! No; go! Thou wert a heathen! Go, lie with the Innocents thou hast massacred. Thou art too good for this company!

"Come, Nero! Thou awful Roman Emperor! Come up! No; thou wast drunk with power! schooled in Roman depravity. Thou hadst, besides, the example of thy fancied gods! Go, wait another day. I will seek a worser man.

"Come hither, St. Dominic! come, Torquemada! - Fathers of the Inquisition ! Merciless monsters, seek your equal here! No; pass by! You are no companions for such men as these! You were the servants of atheistic popes, of cruel kings. Go to, and get you gone. Another time I may have work for you, not now; lie there You are not yet quite wicked and corrupt enough for this comparison. Go, get ye gone, lest the sun turn back at sight of ye!

and persevere to rot.

"Come up, thou heap of wickedness, George Jeffreys!-thy hands deep purple with the blood of thy murdered fellow men! Ah, I know thee! awful and accursed shade! Two hundred years after thy death, men hate thee still, not without cause! Let me look upon thee! I know thy history. Pause and be still, while I tell it to these

men.

·

"Brothers, George Jeffreys began in the sedition line." 'There was no act, however bad, that he would not resort to to get on.' 'He was of a bold aspect, and cared not for the countenance of any man.' 'He became the avowed, unblushing slave of the court, and the bitter persecutor and unappeasable enemy of the principles he had before supported.' 'He was universally insolent and overbearing.' 'As a judge, he did not consider the decencies of his post, nor did he so much as affect to be impartial, as became a judge.' His face and voice were always unamiable. All tenderness for the feelings of others, all self-respect were obliterated from his mind.' He had 'a delight in misery, merely as misery,' and 'that temper which tyrants require in their worst instruments.' 'He made haste to sell his forehead of brass and his tongue of venom to the court.' He had 'more impudence than ten carted street-walkers;' and was appropriately set to a work which could be trusted to no man who reverenced law, or who was sensible of shame.' He was a 'Commissioner' in 1685. You know of the 'Bloody assizes' which he held, and how he sent to execution three hundred and twenty persons in a single circuit. The whole country was strewed with the heads and limbs of his victims.' Yet a man wrote that 'A little more hemp might have been usefully employed.' He was the worst of the English judges. There was no measure, however illegal, to the execution of which he did not devotedly and recklessly abandon himself.' 'During the Stuart reigns, England was cursed by a succession of ruffians in ermine, who, for the sake of court favor, wrested the principles of law, the precepts of religion, and the duties of humanity; but they were all greatly outstripped by Jeffreys.' Such is his history.

"Come, shade of a judicial butcher! Two hundred years thy name has been pilloried in face of the world, and thy memory gibbeted before mankind. Let us see how thou wilt compare with those who kidnap men in Boston! Go seek companionship with them! Go claim thy kindred, if such they be! Go tell them that the memory of the wicked shall rot,— that there is a God; an Eternity; ay! and a Judgment too! where the slave may appeal against him that made him a slave, to Him that made him a man.

"What! Dost thou shudder? Thou turn back! These not thy kindred! Why