“If the system be wrong, as we have endeavored to show, if it be at variance with our duty both to God and to man, it must be abandoned. If it be asked when, I ask again, when shall a man begin to cease doing wrong? Is not the answer, immediately? If a man is injuring us, do we ever doubt as to the time when he ought to cease? There is then no doubt in respect to the time when we ought to cease inflicting injury upon others.”
Abraham Booth, an eminent theological writer of the Baptist persuasion, says:—
“I have not a stronger conviction of scarcely anything, than that slaveholding (except when the slave has forfeited his liberty by crimes against society) is wicked and inconsistent with Christian character. To me it is evident, that whoever would purchase an innocent black man to make him a slave, would with equal readiness purchase a white one for the same purpose could he do it with equal impunity, and no more disgrace.”
At a meeting of the General Committee of the Baptists of Virginia, in 1789, the following resolution was offered by Eld. John Leland, and adopted:—
“Resolved, That slavery is a violent deprivation of the rights of nature, and inconsistent with republican government, and therefore we recommend it to our brethren to make use of every measure to extirpate this horrid evil from the land; and pray Almighty God that our honorable legislature may have it in their power to proclaim the great jubilee, consistent with the principles of good policy.”
METHODIST TESTIMONY.
John Wesley, the celebrated founder of Methodism, says:—
“Men buyers are exactly on a level with men stealers.”
Again, he says:—
“American Slavery is the vilest that ever saw the sun; it constitutes the sum of all villanies.”