No instance has, however, been particularized of any authority wherein this expedient was had recourse to. It certainly must have operated as a powerful restraint upon the Jewish females, so to live as to be exempt from the slightest taint of suspicion and it must have also restrained the cruel treatment of husbands, as the process must have been tried at the sanctuary, and occasioned considerable expense; and therefore would not be resorted to on slight occasions; and in this view it would undoubtedly prevent divorces for suspicion, or trivial offences; so that, in every sense, as a preventive regulation, it was productive of good.

In later ages, the crime of Adultery became so frequent and public, that the test was necessarily disused. Indeed, it was only of a nature to be applied in doubtful circumstances. Selden closes his remarks by this allusion; “Ex quo multiplicati adulteri, defuerunt aquæ

With regard also to the general punishment attaching to this offence, the same circumstance, the increase of crime, and the growing laxity of morals, occasioned the reduction of the severity of the first enactment to the most feeble and puerile consequences; and we find the Rabbinical glosses dictating the exchange

of a capital punishment for the exposure of the adulterer naked, in the summer season, to the flies and wasps, and in the winter, steeping him up to the chin in cold water, to quench the flames of lust.

But the Hebrew laws and customs, in relation to DIVORCE, Come now to be considered. And herein must be remarked the causes for which it was permitted, and the persons to whom it was indulged; observing, in the outset, that it was a measure rather connived at than enjoined (as the Jews thought it had been) by the divine law.

Divorce, strictly considered, is a deviation from the original institution of marriage, consequent on man's depravity, the inconstancy of his mind, and the impetuosity of his passions. We have already said, that we do not find it practised by any of the Patriarchs. The Jews, indeed, pretend that Abraham divorced Hagar, and Moses Zipporah, and thence conclude, that divorce was of an earlier date, and lawful on other accounts than those prescribed in the law of Moses; but these instances prove quite otherwise on examination. Hagar was not a wife, but a bond-woman; and her's was not a divorce, but an expulsion brought upon herself by her foolish conduct;

and as to the case of Zipporah, the words in the fourth chapter of Exodus are somewhat ambiguous; and, if she did go to her father's house for a short time, she returned very soon afterwards to Moses again. Calmet affirms that Moses never divorced his wife at all.*

Not one precedent of divorce can be found anterior to the Mosaic law. Afterwards, indeed, they became lamentably frequent, and furnished one among the many subjects against which the Prophets directed open reproofs. The Prophet Micah represents the Divine Being, saying, "The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses:"† and the Prophet Malachi; "The Lord is witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou dealest treacherously, yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy youth."

The Hebrew law itself thus limits and prescribes the liberty of Divorce; the whole passage is transcribed, as it will be the foundation of many subsequent remarks. It is from Deuteronomy: "When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she

* The writers of the Ancient Universal History, and Calmet's Antiquities.

↑ Micah ii. 9.

Malachi ii. 14.

find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her; then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it into her hand, and send her out of his house; and when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it into her hand, and sendeth her out of his house, or, if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife, her former husband which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife after that she is defiled, for that is abomination before the Lord."*

This is the celebrated passage in the Mosaic law, which relates to the matter of Divorce. That there is a clear permission of Divorce, need scarcely be observed; but it is equally clear, that such permission is environed with certain limitations and restrictions. Foreign as Divorce was to the original institution of marriage, necessity compelled its permission; and God was pleased, in the judicial law, (the magistrate's rule,) not totally to prohibit it, lest it might occasion the cruel treatment, or even murder, of those women who were not agreeable to their husbands. So the Saviour has interpreted the permission. "Moses suf

* Deut. xxiv. 1-4.

fered you, for the hardness of your hearts, to put away; but from the beginning," the original institution," it was not so." After the age of the Patriarchs, and during the period that intervened between them and the giving of the law, the impure connexion with Egypt had introduced a corruption of manners, and indulged a vicious and excessive polygamy, which greatly needed some restraint. Few solemnities of marriage were observed, and wives and children were dismissed from their homes at the arbitrary will and irresponsible pleasure of their lord. The husband possessed not only the power of repudiation, and that dependent on his personal motives and feelings, but also on his sole and personal execution. But by the law, personal caprice was placed under restraints, the licentiousness which had perverted the sound use of marriage was corrected, and the sanctity of its nature, and the durability of its obligations, were recognized. Those great crimes, which would naturally dissolve such a contract, Adultery, the violation of the nuptial vow, we have already shown were punished with death; and the causes which allowed of the exercise of Divorce, under the passage above quoted, are now to be considered.

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