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a fingle inftance where polygamy was for-
bidden*. However the law of Mofes for-
bad what our SAVIOUR mentions, just as
much as His words do. If a man once
took a woman, he never (except for adul-
tery) could put her away all his days; and
though Mofes fuffered, in order to avoid
worfe confequences, divorces, by not bring-
ing the offenders to condign punishment in
every inftance, yet there never was an in-
stance when the law of GOD did not con-
demn them. As for polygamy, Jofephus
fays, and the Bible proves what he fays to
be true, that-" It was the custom of
"the Jews to live with a plurality of
"wives; he calls it TaTpov-the custom
"of their country derived from their fa-
"thers."-The fame hiftorian, writing
the account of God's giving the deceased
Saul's wives to David, obferves, that,
"GOD gave David many wives, which
* he might justly and lawfully have." The
Peficta, on Lev. xviii. calls it, "notifi
"mum"a thing moft notorious,
"that
"He who faid it was forbidden to have

more wives than one, was entirely igno-
"rant of the law." See Grot. de Jure,
lib. ii. c. 5. § 9. in the note k.

Is it then, without the highest abfurdity,
to be imagined, that CHRISTIhould mention

* Unless we understand Lev. xxi. 13, 14. to for-
bid it in the cafe of the high-priest, as the Jews com-
monly understood it.

Dd 2

and

and condemn polygamy in the presence of fuch multitudes of Jews, and in a settled dispute with His bittereft foes, the Pharifees, who only difputed with Him to enfnare Him, and to have whereof to accufe Him to the people as an enemy to Mofes (for this was their grand point in their appeal to Mofes's writings) and yet that we should not meet with a fyllable of reply to what He advanced, when they might have quoted the whole Old Teftament against Him? that He should declare a thing to be adul tery, without a single teftimony from Mofes to fupport Him in what he faid? and this, when He never on any other occafion taught any doctrine but on the authority of the Old Teftament, and conftantly appealed to it for the truth of what He declared? Laftly. Is it conceivable, as CHRIST muft be supposed to speak in Hebrew, that He fhould give a meaning to the language of the Old Teftament, which, in all the writings of Mofes and all the prophets, it never had? Now, wherever the verb моха qua is ufed in the Greek tranflation of the ομαι LXX, it conftantly answers to the Hebrew

; and therefore there is no room to doubt, that wherever, in our SAVIOUR'S difcourfes, as recorded by the Evangelifts, we meet with the word uoxαTα, N was the very Hebrew term ufed by him but no where, throughout the whole Hebrew Bible, is this word applied to a man's mar

rying a fecond wife, living his first, unless fuch fecond was either betrothed or mar ried to another, or to any thing elfe, than only to the defilement of a betrothed or married woman. This is its fingle idea throughout the whole. Therefore it is figuratively used to describe the people's forfaking GOD, and turning to idols. See before, p. 57:

CHRIST faid to the Jews, John v. 46, 47. Had ye believed Mofes, ye would have believed me; but if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? It is not easy to conceive words more forcible than thefe, to exprefs an abfolute and unreferved appeal to the Old Teftament for the truth of all CHRIST faid and taught in His prophetical character. In this character He stood before the great multitudes of the people and the Pharifees, while he was delivering, on the authority of the fcriptures, the fenfe of thofe fcriptures upon the matter of unjust divorce, and proving the criminal confequences of it to all parties concerned. He fo proved His point, that His adverfaries had not a word to reply. He filenced them as He did the

* Let any one take up an English concordance, and look at the word adultery, and he will not be able to find a fingle inftance where it is applied to polygamy in any part of the Old Teftament, nor in any other

נאף manner than the Hebrew

devil,

devil, Matt. iv. 10, 11. by the word of GOD. But had He faid polygamy was finful, from which of Mofes's writings would He have proved this? The Pharisees might have retorted upon Him His own declaration and appeal to the writings of Mofes 3 they might have faid-" Thou hast said, " that if we believed the writings of Mofes,

we should believe Thy words-Thou hast "faid, that if a man having a wife, mar"rieth another" (for thus they might have put it, had they understood Him to have condemned polygamy) "he committeth a"dultery; but where doft Thou find this "in Mofes's writings? they are filled "with the allowance of what Thou con"demneft, without a fingle exception : "therefore, because we believe Mofes's "writings, we do not believe Thee."

From all that has been faid, I do conclude, that CHRIST was not a destroyer of the old law, nor a giver of a new onethat therefore the bufinefs of polygamy, and all other points relative to the com merce of the fexes, were fully adjusted and fettled by the divine law, fubject to no alte→ ration or change whatsoever, by * any power

ZUINGLIUS, in his letter on the subject of King HENRY's divorce, fays very truly-that "the apostles "had made no new laws about marriage, but had " left it as they found it." See BURNET, Hift. Ref. vol. i. p. 93.

in EARTH OR HEAVEN. For thus faith the SPIRIT-Ecclef. iii. 14. Whatsoever GOD doeth, it shall be for ever, nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it.

Having now finished what I had to say on the subject of this chapter, I shall next proceed, on the footing of the divine law, to confider another material point relative to the commerce of the fexes, which is Di

orce.

APPENDIX TO CHAP. II.

THE

HE celebrated Martinus Bucerus, in enarrationibus ad cap. 19. Libri Judicum, has left us the following obfervation concerning concubinage; which, as it tends to throw fome light on the fubject, would have been inferted in its proper place, (fee before, p. 53, 54.) had I met with it time enough. It has fince come. to me by the hand of a friend; and as it is well worth inferting, as the testimony of one of our excellent and learned ret formers, I hope the reader will not be difpleafed at my giving it a place by itself.

"Concubinæ erant legitimæ etiam uxores: "fed hoc a matronis differebant, quod fine "dote & fine folenni fanctificatione reci" piebantur :

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