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.”
Obser. Suppose this. Yet may we not inquire if a thing or practice be really so declared, and if it concerns our salvation, to form a decided opinion on it? Are we not liable to mistake practices, arising out of circumstances connected with the first formation of society, and therefore not positively censured, for such decisions of intrinsical goodness? Thus the eating of swines flesh was allowed before the promulgation of the law of Moses; that law strictly forbad it; the Christian law allows it again as at the beginning: or, the Jews were alone restrained from the use of it; while they continued under a particular œconomy, and their transgression of this law was only a crime, because it was enjoined them; not because it was in itself a thing unlawful, as murder, adultery, and the like.
Dat. 5, 6. “Every scriptural decision, however incomprehensible, must be assented to as a declaration of the word of God.” We must consider the circumstances under which that decision is made; how far it is agreeable to our benevolent religion, and how far it is applicable to ourconduct, before we imitate it. The drunken incest of Lot is not censured. It was the means of producing two mighty nations; from which, according to the author’s manner of reasoning, he ought to conclude it was approved of; yet I suppose he will not recommend the imitation to any person in these days.
Dat. 7. “The slave-trade must be believed to be intrinsically just and lawful, if the scriptures give a sanction to it.” Suppose the slave-trade to have this sanction (which yet is not true) unless the author can shew how it can be carried on without infringing on our Saviour’s golden rule, of doing as we would be done by; unless he can instruct us how we can go to the coast of Africa, and by every fraudulent, violent, oppressive method, rob, murder, and enslave innocent people without a crime; then are we to keep our practice, if not our opinion, suspended.
Dat. 8. “No abuse of a lawful pursuit, can make that pursuit criminal.” It is lawful for a man to provide for his family; but not to rob and murder on the highway under such a pretence. Whenever a man’s industry is connected with such practices, the actual exertion of it is a crime in him, though to provide for his family in an honest way would be laudable. That there is an unlawful slavery noticed in the scriptures, is clear, from the punishment that Pharaoh brought on himself and Ægypt, for enslaving the Jews. The author should distinguish, and mark the difference between the slavery that (page 41) is almost commanded, and that which brings down divine judgments on the oppressor, and shew that his patrons of Leverpool practise only the first.
Dat. 9. “No private or publick advantage will ever justify the slave-trade, till it be proved essentially just and lawful in its nature.” Here we are sincerely agreed; and according to the distinction proposed for datum 8, he has only to set heartily to work, and prove the Leverpool slave-trade to be that particular sort of slave-trade, “which God hath commanded as being essentially just and lawful in its nature.”
Dat. 10. “No argument drawn from abuse, can prove the intrinsic deformity of the slave-trade, unless it be proved essentially unjust.” These are words without meaning. We are not combating an ideal slavery; but slavery accompanied with robbery, oppression, misery, murder. Wherever we find slavery so attended, it becomes a horrid crime, be it intrinsically never so just.
Dat. 11. “If abuses committed in the prosecution of a lawful pursuit can be prevented, then the advantages arising from it, ought to have a powerful influence against the abolition.” But if these abuses cannot possibly be prevented (for are we to oppress and murder according to law?) then the greatest advantages attending any practice must be abandoned, till a method shall be discovered, of separating them from iniquity and blood-shed.
Dat. 12. “If the slave-trade is to be abolished, because of the abuses committed in it, then every other branch of trade, in which abuses are committed, ought to share the same fate.” Most certainly in turn, in proportion to the atrociousness of each. Let us once get this staring monster subdued, and we will be obliged to the author for pointing out any other iniquitous traffick that deserves to follow immediately in the trainof the Leverpool slave-trade. The fallaciousness of this author’s reasoning, is exceedingly well exposed, in the Critical Review of April, 1788, to which I refer the reader.
From this view of the author’s data, it will appear, that he has totally confounded times and circumstances. The law of Moses was enacted in aid of natural religion, till the perfect religion of Christ should be given to the world. The doctrines of this last, enjoin us to consider and treat all men as our brethren; and its effect was gradually to take away all burthensome ceremonies, all oppressive distinctions. Why are we then sent back to less perfect institutions for the rule of our practice? We are to go on to perfection, refine sentiment, and extend benevolence. What has raised Europe above the rest of the world, but the abolition of domestick slavery? What degrees of opulence and prosperity might it acquire, if the abominable, contracted, branch of trade in the bodies of our fellow creatures of Africa, were changed to a fair, equitable intercourse of productions and manufactures!
J. R.