Bishop Warburton preached a sermon in the year 1766, before the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel, in which he took up the cause of the
miserable Africans, and in which he severely reprobated their oppressors.
The language in this sermon is so striking, that I shall make an extract
from it. "From the free savages," says he, "I now come to the savages in
bonds. By these I mean the vast multitudes yearly stolen from the opposite
continent, and sacrificed by the colonists to their great idol the god of
gain. But what then, say these sincere worshippers of mammon? They are our
own property which we offer up.--Gracious God! to talk, as of herds of
cattle, of property in rational creatures, creatures endued with all our
faculties, possessing all our qualities but that of colour, our brethren
both by nature and grace, shocks all the feelings of humanity, and the
dictates of common sense! But, alas! what is there, in the infinite abuses
of society, which does not shock them? Yet nothing is more certain in
itself and apparent to all, than that the infamous traffic for slaves
directly infringes both divine and human law. Nature created man free, and
grace invites him to assert his freedom."

"In excuse of this violation it hath been pretended, that though indeed
these miserable outcasts of humanity be torn from their homes and native
country by fraud and violence, yet they thereby become the happier, and
their condition the more eligible. But who are you, who pretend to judge of
another man's happiness; that state, which each man under the guidance of
his Maker forms for himself, and not one man for another? To know what
constitutes mine or your happiness is the sole prerogative of him who
created us, and cast us in so various and different moulds. Did your slaves
ever complain to you of their unhappiness amidst their native woods and
deserts? or rather let me ask, Did they ever cease complaining of their
condition under you their lordly masters, where they see indeed the