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SECTION III. Scriptural Researches on the licitness of the Slave-Trade, shewing its conformity with che principles of the Chris∣tian Dispensation delineated in the Sacred Writings.
I. THE Christian Dispensation, called frequent∣ly the Christian Law, the Law of Christ, the Christian Religion, the Law of Grace, the New Law, and the New Covenant or the New Testament, is that most sublime and perfect System of Faith and Mora∣lity, which the Eternal Wisdom of the Father, Christ Jesus our Lord, both preached in Person, and sealed with his precious blood. As this New Law and Gos∣pel of salvation is to remain in full force until the consummation of all things, or till time shall be no more, it is not in the power of any creature to ascertain the exact time of its duration and existence from the first promulgation of it; for Of that day, and that hour knoweth no man, no not the Angels which are in Heaven, neither the SON, but the FATHER.(a) 1.1
II. THE principal transactions relative to this New Law are registered in the several inspired Writings, that compose the Sacred Volume commonly styled The New Testament. The principles and moral duties of perpetual obligation respecting Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice, registered in this Sacred Volume, being evidently dictated by the Holy Spirit of God, and God himself, cannot consistently with the essential infallibility of his eternal Wisdom, bear the least oppo∣sition to the principles and moral duties of perpetual obligation respecting, in like manner, Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice, dictated by the same