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u should all answer as we could wish, if you should all answer consistently with reason, nature, and the revealed voice of God, what a dreadful argument will present itself against the commerce and slavery of the human species, when we reflect, that no man whatever can be bought or reduced to the situation of a slave, _but he must instantly become a brute, he must instantly be reduced to the value of those things, which were made for his own use and convenience; he must instantly cease to be accountable for his actions, and his authority as a parent, and his duty as a son, must be instantly no more_. Neither does it escape our notice, when we are speaking of the fatal wound which every social duty must receive, how considerably Christianity suffers by the conduct of you _receivers_. For by prosecuting this impious commerce, you keep the _Africans_ in a state of perpetual ferocity and barbarism; and by prosecuting it in such a manner, as must represent your religion, as a system of robbery and oppression, you not only oppose the propagation of the gospel, as far as you are able yourselves, but throw the most certain impediments in the way of others, who might attempt the glorious and important task. Such also is the effect, which the subsequent slavery in the colonies must produce. For by your inhuman treatment of the unfortunate _Africans_ there, you create the same insuperable impediments to a conversion. For how must they detest the very name of _Christians_, when you _Christians_ are deformed by so many and dreadful vices? How must they detest that system of religion, which appears to resist the natural rights of men, and to give a sanction to brutality and murder? But, as we are now mentioning Christianity, we must pause for a little time, to make a few remarks on the arguments which are usually deduced from thence by the _receivers_, in defence of their system of oppression. For the reader may readily suppose, that, if they did not hesitate to bring the _Old_ Testament in support of their barbarities, they would hardly let the _New_ escape them. _St. Paul_, having converted _Onesimus_ to the Christian faith, who was a fugitive slave of _Philemon_, sent him back to his master. This circumstance has furnished the _receivers_ with a plea, that Christianity encourages slavery. But they have not only strained the passages which they produce in support of their assertions, but are ignorant of historical facts. T
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