virgin) by putting her away, and taking "these idolatreffes; for I the LORD hate put"ting away." The confideration of the relation they stood in to JEHOVAH-He their common Father-they His profeffing children, was one argument against their feparatinganother was, that, as the LORD fought a godly feed in their offspring, by their being devoted to Him in their earliest infancy, then brought up in the nurture and admonition of the LORD, this defign would be defeated by their taking idolatrous women, who, instead of devoting the children to JEHOVAH, would be for bringing them up to the *worship of their idols, and an ungodly feed be the confequence. See Deut. vii. 3, 4. Laftly, GOD had forbidden divorce from the beginning, (fee Gen. ii. 24.) for He bateth putting away at any rate; but how much more to fee His own profeffing daughters put away, that His own profeffing fons might marry the daughters of a strange God? This was indeed doing an abominable thing which GOD hated. Jer. xliv. 4. This I take to be a clear, confiftent view of this famous paffage, and agrees exactly with what EZRA fays, chap. ix. 9. &c. and chap. x. 2. &c. who did not rend his mantle and garment, and pluck the hair off his bead We find that thefe idolatrous women laid a fure foundation for this, by bringing up their children in the knowledge of the heathen tongues of their feveral countries, fo that they could not understand the language of God's law. See Neh. xiii, 23, 24, and and beard, and fit down aftonished, because the people did what their fathers ABRAM, JACOB, DAVID, &c. had done without the leaft reproof, and had been conftantly, openly, avowedly practifed by the holiest of their forefathers, without the leaft * fcruple ontheir part, or condemnation on GOD's partbut because they had married heathen women, and, as appears by Mal. ii. 14. had dealt treacherously against the Jewish lawful wives, by putting them away in order to do it. Ás to the notion expreffed by commentators, in their apparently mifconceived ideas of this text of MALACHI-that because GOD created but one man and one woman at first, therefore he intended that "no man should have more "than one wife at a time ever after," I do humbly conceive, that, if God had meant fo, He would fomewhere have faid fo, and not have left it to the wifdom of men to put their interpretations on what He was pleased to When Jofeph was folicited by Potiphar's wife, he anfwered with abhorrence-How can I do this great wick edness, and fin against GOD? Gen. xxxix. 9. latter part. -But when Abraham's wife Sarah propofed her hufband's taking Hagar to wife, Gen. xvi. 2, 3. he does it without the leaft objection. So Jacob took Rachel after Leah, there being then no law against marrying a wife's fifter. This, and the many other inftances, clearly prove, that the wifeft and beft of God's faints never dreamt of polygamy's having any relation to the fin of adultery. + As to putting our conftruction on any acts of God, fo as to draw them into precedents, unlefs clearly inAructed by Him fo to do, it would in many cafes be at tended to do; for who hath known the mind of the LORD, and who hath been his counsellor? Rom. xi. 34. Some may argue, that because it was faid-" A man fhall cleave to his wife, not wives, therefore it is unlawful for a man "to have two or more wives in * fucceffion, tended with great mifchiefs-for inftance: Suppose we were to argue for brothers and fifters intermarrying, because this must have been the case among the immediate children of Adam and Eve? the creation of only one man and one woman, would at least be as good an argument for inceft, as against polygamy. But it can have no weight in either cafe, becaufe GOD, by a pofitive law, (Lev. xviii. 9.) prohibited the first, and by as pofitive a law (Deut. xxi. 15-17.) allowed the fecond. It pleased GOD, that the whole human nature fhould refide in one common federal head, who was to be the common representative of all his fubfequent naturally-engendered offspring; and by one woman taken out of himJelf, to convey that nature which was in him to his own immediate children, and by them to his pofterity, to the end of the world. Let any one read Rom. v. with attention, and confider in what respects Adam was a figure of Him that was to come (ver. 14.) and then it will be feen, that no man who ever was, or will be naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam, can have been, or be in the fame circumftances and fituation that Adam was. Wherefore a precedent against polygamy is no more to be drawn from him, than against natural generation from Eve's being made out of one of his ribs, or from his own being immediately formed out of the duft of the earth. *There was a time in the Chriftian church, when this was looked upon as only 66 a more fpecious and de"corous kind of adultery," and reckoned infamous. The Montanists affirmed fecond marriages to be as fcandalous and finful as fornication. In the three first ages of the church" fecond marriages were reputed fean"dalous, nay they were condemned by. fome perfons.' Dupin, Eccl. Hift. vol. i. 182. Engl. tranfl. But more of this hereafter. "and and can only have one fo long as he lives, "because Adam had but one." This fort of conceits is like fuppofing that GOD forbad the wearing cloth, or filk, or linen, because He cloathed our first parents with skins. Gen. iii. 21; or fuppofing, like thofe mad heretics of the fecond century, who called themselves Adamites, that Chriftians are to meet together ftark naked without any fhame, because it is faid (Gen. ii. 25.) ADAM and EVE were naked, and were not ashamed. If we take upon ourselves to interpret this or any act of GoD merely by our imaginations, we take upon us what does not belong to us. We are told, Deut. xxix. 29. SECRET THINGS belong unto the LORD our GOD, but those things which are REVEALED, to us and our children for ever, that we may do all the words of His law. That Gon might have created 10,000 men, and as many women, is certain. Why He did not, He hath no where told us, any more than why He created only one man and one * woman. This and all things elfe are to be refolved * Milton reprefents Adam as faying O why did GOD, Creator wife, that peopled highest heav'n Par. Loft, B. 10. Of Nature, and not fill the world at once With men as angels without feminine, Or find some other way to generate Mankind? We may presume that God made the reft of the ani-. mal creation by pairs, the male and female-Comp. Gen. i. 20-25. with Gen. vi. 19. Gen. vii. 2, 3, 9, 14-16: ΙΟ refolved into His own good pleasure, and the counfel of his own will. Eph. i. 11. Rev. iv. II. Our attempting to account for any of His holy acts or difpenfations, any farther than the revelation of His word expressly authorizes us, is to be wife above what is written, to involve ourselves in endless mazes of error, till-profeffing ourselves wife, we become fools. Rom. i. 22. GOD's bringing the woman to the man-that folemn denunciation-therefore shall a man leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh-form a conclufive argument against wanton and caufelefs divorce; and are expressly made use of by CHRIST for that purpose in His difpute with the Pharifees, Matt. xix. 4, 5; but it is no where, in the whole fcripture, made use of as an argument against polygamy. There 14-16: therefore, to draw arguments against polygamy (which, by the way, the fcriptures have no where done) from a fimilar creation of the human fpecies, would, if pursued to the utmoft, prove too much, and of course prove nothing. So when GOD was about to deftroy the earth by the deluge, he commanded Noah to come into the ark-" Thou and thy fons, and thy wife, and thy fons "wives with thee," in all eight perfons (fee 1 Pet. iii. 20) "and of every living thing of all flefb, TWO OF EVERY SORT-they fhall be male and female-feven pair of "the clean, and two pair of the unclean, the MALE AND HIS FEMALE.”—UN) UN-Virum & uxorem ejus. Mont. So that in the preservation of the brutal, as well as of the human fpecies, we read of them in pairs-and thefe pairs are described by the fame Hebrew words, which, in other parts of the fcriptures, we render a man and his wife. For the exact words of these abridged paffages, fee the fcriptures above referred to. -- were, |