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His miniftry, but left that, as He did all other moral actions of men, upon the footing of that law under which He was made, and to which He, for us men, and for our falvation, became not only fubject, but even obedient unto death. Phil. ii. 8.

Upon the whole, I take the truth to be, that the first general inftitution of marriage, accompanied with the first general bleffing, is to be found in thofe words of Gen. i. 28, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.The fpecial manner of this, together with the indiffolubility of the obligation created by it between the parties, is revealed, Gen. ii. 24. where it is faid-A man fhall be joined-p προσκολληθήσεται-agglutinatus erit—to his woman-and they, as in confequence thereof, fhall become one flesh, i. e. infeparable from each other. Gen. iii. 16. reveals the entire fubordination and subjection of the wife to the buf band-and the reft of the Bible fhews us, that virgins could not be feduced, and taken as appetite might prompt, and then abandoned and forfaken as licentioufnefs might inclinebut that monogamous and polygamous contracts were equally valid and binding, equally lawful as to the inheritableness of the iffue, and all other marks of legitimacy, that is to say, on the man's fide; but that, on the woman's, polygamy was, for the most apparently-wise reafons, forbidden under pain of death.

While this fyftem was reverenced and obferved, we read of no adultery, whoredom, and common proftitution of women among the daugh

ters of Ifrael: no brothels, fireet-walking, * venereal difeafe: no CHILD-MURDER, and thofe other appendages of female ruin, which are too horrid to particularize. Nor were these things poffible, which, fince the revocation of the divine fyftem, and the establishment of human fyftems, are become inevitable. The fuppofing our bleffed Saviour came to deftroy the divine law, or alter it with respect to marriage, is to fuppofe Him laying a foundation for the mifery and deftruction of the weaker fex; whereas no being lefs wicked than Satan himself, could ever have devised the almoft total departure from God's LAW, which, from even the earliest ages of the church, fince the Apoftles' times, is to be found among the Chriftians.

I now put an end to this long chapter, in which polygamy, divested of all the nonfenfe of human reafonings, is fet in its true fcriptural light, as not finful in itself, but, in fome cafes, highly expedient-in others-duty; and

*Much has been faid concerning the antiquity of this difeafe. The fubject is ably handled, and indeed exhaufted, in that learned and laborious work of Johannes Aftruc, de Morb. Ven. lib. i. I will only here observe, that as the divine law punished adultery, or the defilement of another's wife, with death in both parties-and whoredom was, on the part of the woman, alfo a capital offence -the confequences of prostitution muft of course be prevented, by the prevention of the thing itfelf. Befides, the almoft univerfality of marriage among the Jews (for celibacy was a difgrace) and the fixing the virgin on the man who first took her, fo that he could not put her away all his days, left little room for prostitution, had their laws been even less fevere against it. VOL. I.

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in this last view of it, forming one link in that divine chain of heavenly legiflation, on which the fecurity and protection of the weaker fex is fufpended; it being, upon the footing of GoD's law, as highly criminal for one man as another, to feduce and abandon to prostitution and ruin, thofe who have a most indefeasible claim upon him for their fafety and fupport.

If among us, as among the Jews, and as formerly in France, and now in fome other parts of the world, a fingle man, be his rank and station what they may, was constrained to * marry publicly the woman he feduces; and if the fpirit of the divine law was fo far complied with, as to compel the man already married, to give fecurity for the maintenance and provifion of fuch woman as he feduces, and, if his prefent engagement shall determine, to marry publicly her whom, in God's account, he has married privately-it would be such a check upon the licentiousness of mankind

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*In the book for the reformation of the ecclefiaftical laws, in the time of Edward VI. it was propofed," that "those who corrupted virgins, were to be excommuni"cated if they did not marry them, or, if that could not "be done, they were to give them the third part of their goods, befides other arbitrary punishments." Burnet, Hift. Ref. vol. ii. p. 198. This, and many other falutary propofals, fell to the ground by the death of that excellent young Prince, Edward VI.-Had Queen Elizabeth paid attention enough to the mifchiefs accruing to her fex from the want of fome fuch regulation, to have had it paffed into a law, it might justly have been reckoned one of the glories of her reign.

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fuch a restraint upon what is called gallantry fuch a fecurity for female chastity-and fuch a prefervative against prostitution, as might make those who live to fee it fayJam redit & virgo, redeunt Saturnia Regna.

VIRG.

Now Justice and the Golden Age again return. Doubtless, irregularities there always were, and always will be, while human nature is buman nature. Still, a vaft difference there must be found, between a fyftem which is formed as a check to the luft, treachery, and cruelty of mankind, and one which, in numberless inftances, lets them loose to act without control.

APPENDIX TO CHA P. IV.

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INCE the preceding chapter went to the prefs, the author has been favoured with a tranfcript from a tract in the British Museum, which contains the whole of * Bishop Burnet's opinion on polygamy. The reader has before feen it partially quoted; but the whole is here inferted verbatim.

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"IS polygamy in any cafe lawful under the gofpel?

"For ANSWER. It is to be confidered, that
marriage is a contract founded upon the laws

Bishop Berkely thought polygamy agreeable to the law
See Lond. Mag. for June 1754, p. 267.

of nature.

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of nature, its end being the propagation of "mankind; and the formality of doing it by "churchmen, is only a fupervenient benedic

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tion, or pompous folemnizing of it; and "therefore the nature of marriage, and not any form used in the celebration of it, is to "be confidered. It is true, the cafe is harder, "when any is married by fuch a † form, as "binds

+ The Bishop here doubtlefs alludes to that part of our form, where the priest is to ask the man-" Wilt thou "have this woman to thy wedded wife-&c.—and, "forfaking all other, keep thee only unto her, fo long as both fhall live?

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"The man shall answer,
"I WILL."

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Here is no decent qualification, as in the ordination of minifters" I will endeavour fo to do, the LORD being 66 my helper"-" I trust so”. "I think fo”. "I have "fo determined, by God's grace"-or the like; but, with the peremptorinefs and confidence of a Stoic, who held—ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἐσιν ὅσα ἡμετερα έργα- “ all our own actions "are in our own power"-ill fuited to a frail and fallible creature, who knows not what a day may bring forth(fee Prov. xxvii. 1. comp. Jer. x. 23.) the answer is to be-I WILL-I-REX DOMINUSQUE MEI-I WILL.

The man is afterwards to take her-" for better and "for worse"-but, be fhe ever fo much worse than he took her for, fhort of actual adultery, ftill he is to groan under the fore bondage of what is called HIS vow; which his fellow-creatures have juft as much right to impofe upon him, from any authority in fcripture, as another fet of people had, to make a man vow voluntary povertyperpetual chastity-and implicit obedience to a fellow-mortal-on becoming a monk.

There was a time when, if fuch a one had married, the law (fee 31 Hen. VIII. c. 14.) would have fent him to the gallows, and no doubt the church would have sent him to the devil. TEMPORA MUTANTUR-well if we could fay—as touching all the foolish and unscriptural fnares,

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