to show that a man who neglects all
religious duty is very much like an atheist, and if he has had great
advantages, and the atheist very few, he may be much more guilty than an
atheist. And so, half the respectable men in our religious communities,
may be called atheists, with as much propriety as a slave-holder can be
called a man-stealer. Abolitionists have proceeded on this principle, in
their various publications, until the terms of odium that have been
showered upon slave-holders, would form a large page in the vocabulary
of Billingsgate. This method of dealing with those whom we wish to
convince and persuade, is as contrary to the dictates of common sense,
as it is to the rules of good breeding and the laws of the gospel.

The preceding particulars are selected, as the evidence to be presented,
that the character and measures of the Abolition Society are neither
peaceful nor Christian in their tendency; but that in their nature they
are calculated to generate party-spirit, denunciation, recrimination,
and angry passions. If such be the tendency of this institution, it
follows, that it is wrong for a Christian, or any lover of peace, to be
connected with it.

The assertion that Christianity itself has led to strife and contention,
is not a safe method of evading this argument. Christianity is a system
of _persuasion_, tending, by kind and gentle influences, to make men
_willing_ to leave off their sins--and it comes, not to convince those
who are not sinners, but to sinners themselves.

Abolitionism, on the contrary, is a system of _coercion_ by public
opinion; and in its present operation, its influence is not to convince
the erring, but to convince those who are not guilty, of the sins of
those who are.

Another prominent peculiarity of the Abolitionists, (which is an
objection to joining this association,) is their advocacy of a
principle, which is wrong and very pernicious in its tendency. I refer
to their views in regard to what is called "the doctrine of expediency."
Their difficulty on this subject seems to have arisen from want of a
clear distinction between the duty of those who are guilty of sin, and
the duty of those who are aiming to turn men from their sins. The
principle is assumed, that because certain men ought to abandon every
sin immediately, therefore, certain other men are bound _immediately_ to
try and make them do it. Now the question of expediency does not relate
to what men are bound t