TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
The original text used the character ſ (long-form s); these have beenreplaced by the normal s in this etext.
The cover image was created by the transcriberand is placed in the public domain.
A few obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have beencorrected after careful comparison with other occurrences withinthe text and consultation of external sources.
All misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage,have been retained.
EXAMINATION
OF
The Rev. Mr. HARRIS’s
SCRIPTURAL RESEARCHES
ON
The Licitness of the Slave-Trade.
By the Rev. JAMES RAMSAY.
LONDON:
Printed by James Phillips, George-Yard,
Lombard-Street.
M.DCC.LXXXVIII.
ADVERTISEMENT.
THE following Examination was drawn up inthe country, from a casual perusal of Mr.Harris’s Scriptural Researches, with a view of puttingthem into the hands of any person, who mightbe employed in answering that very extraordinarywork. But on coming up to town, and understandingthat Mr. Harris’s reasoning had producedeffects on certain people, who had not studiedthe scriptures, or attended to that spirit of freedom,which runs throughout the Old and NewTestament, and who hitherto had suffered themselvesto be reluctantly dragged along by the presentprevailing enthusiasm in favour of freedom,but now eagerly seized on a pretence for abandoningthe cause, it has been judged proper to giveit at once to the publick. Mr. Harris affectsto proceed mathematically in the treatment of hissubject, and therefore establishes certain data. Ihad thought it sufficient to contradict their particularapplication, in my examination of the subject;but others thinking it necessary to takemore direct notice of them, I have subjoined thefollowing short observations.
Dat. 1, 2. “The scriptures of the Old andNew Testament are of equal authority, and containthe unerring decisions of the word of God.”
Observation. Certainly: but it will not bedisputed, that there are many things, not indeeddeserving the name of decisions, but that passwithout censure, and are seemingly allowed there,which we know to be forbidden to us, and whichwill not apply to the improved state of mankind.Laws must be adapted, not only to the state ofsociety, but to the present state of the improvementof the human mind, which we know hasbeen gradually advancing from the earliest ages.
Dat. 3, 4. “It is criminal to refuse assentto what the scriptures decide to be intrinsicallygood or bad.”
Obser. Suppose this. Yet may we not inquireif a thing or practice be really so declared, andif it concerns our salvation, to form a decidedopinion on it? Are we not liable to mistake practices,arising out of circum