TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. The original text used the character ſ (long-form s); these have been replaced by the normal s in this etext. A few obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the 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 in the country, from a casual perusal of Mr. Harris’s Scriptural Researches, with a view of putting them into the hands of any person, who might be employed in answering that very extraordinary work. But on coming up to town, and understanding that Mr. Harris’s reasoning had produced effects on certain people, who had not studied the scriptures, or attended to that spirit of freedom, which runs throughout the Old and New Testament, and who hitherto had suffered themselves to be reluctantly dragged along by the present prevailing enthusiasm in favour of freedom, but now eagerly seized on a pretence for abandoning the cause, it has been judged proper to give it at once to the publick. Mr. Harris affects to proceed mathematically in the treatment of his subject, and therefore establishes certain data. I had thought it sufficient to contradict their particular application, in my examination of the subject; but others thinking it necessary to take more direct notice of them, I have subjoined the following short observations. Dat. 1, 2. “The scriptures of the Old and New Testament are of equal authority, and contain the unerring decisions of the word of God.” Observation. Certainly: but it will not be disputed, that there are many things, not indeed deserving the name of decisions, but that pass without censure, and are seemingly allowed there, which we know to be forbidden to us, and which will not apply to the improved state of mankind. Laws must be adapted, not only to the state of society, but to the present state of the improvement of the human mind, which we know has been gradually advancing from the earliest ages. Dat. 3, 4. “It is criminal to refuse assent to what the scriptures decide to be intrinsically good or bad.”