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