but in vain! God forbid that its friends fhould even imagine it poffible! If it be true, that the fcriptures of the Old Teftament are able to make us wife unto falvation * 2 Tim. iii. 15. it must be because they contain the law and the gospel; for no man can be wife unto falvation without the knowledge of these. They certainly contain both-the gofpel was preached unto ABRAHAM, Gal. iii. 8; to the ISRAELITES under the Old Teftament, as well as to us under the New Teftament. Heb. iv. 2. We have the fame Spirit of faith, 2 Cor. iv. 13. and doubtlefs the fame object of faith, 1 Cor. x. 4. Numb. xxi. 9. with John iii. 14, 15. Wherefore it is

not to be conceived, that GOD fhould leave the heirs of falvation in a state of ignorance touching the original institution of marriage, or of the meaning of thofe pofitive laws which were to enforce it (and this after the giving of the law for 1500 years together) any more under the Old Teftament than under the New Testament. It must be as necessary for a Jew, in order to be wife unto falvation, to know GOD's mind and will on these interesting and important fubjects, as for a Chriftian. Each must be judged by the fame law-each faved, though under different difpenfations of it, by the fame gospel.

* The Apofle adds-διὰ πίςεως τῆς ἐν Χρισῷ Ιησού -through faith which is in CHRIST JESUS, i. e. believing Him to be the MESSIAH. For want of believing which, the apoftate Jews were not made wife unto falvation by the fcriptures of the Old Teftament.

As little probable is it, that He should allow His own beloved children to fly in the face of His authority, and live in the breach of His pofitive law, for fo long a period, without the least check or reproof, when part of His gracious covenant runs in these words, Pf. lxxxix. 30. If his children forfake my LAW, and walk not in my JUDGMENTS; if they break my STATUTES, and keep not my COMMANDMENTS; then will I vifit their offences with the rod, and their fin with fcourges. There are inftances enough of this for other things-witnefs DAVID's broken bones, Pf. li. 8. for his adultery with BATHSHEBA, and murder of URIAH. But where is there one instance of it for polygamy? Wherein did GOD ever punish it? DAVID died as really a Chriftian believer as St. PAUL did; witnefs his laft words, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5; and yet, amidst all the explicit confeffions he made in the most folemn hours of his repentance, he does not once * bewail the polygamy he lived in; nay, almost the last act of his life was an act of polygamy, in taking ABISHAG

* Which is very extraordinary, and indeed unaccountable, if to have more than one wife at a time be a mortal fin. The character alfo which we have of David, 1 Kings xv. 5. has, upon this principle, a degree of obfcurity, which must render it wholly unintelligible-for how can it be faid of a man, who lived and died in an open, avowed, wilful, and continued courfe of deliberate iniquity, that he did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, and turned not afide from any thing that He commanded him all the days of his life, fave ONLY in the matter of URIAH the HITTITE?

the

the Shunamite to lie in his bofom, his wife BATHSHEBA being then living. For though it be faid, 1 Kings i. 4. that he knew her not; yet it plainly appears, by what SOLOMON faid, 1 Kings ii. 22, 23. that he was fo betrothed or efpoufed to DAVID, as to be looked upon as his wife. Accordingly the belonged to the crown; was to be at the difpofal of the fucceffor; and therefore ADONIJAH, who was elder than SOLOMON, by afking for ABISHAG, the late king's widow, to wife, is treated as having a treasonable design against the crown itself, and is put to death as a traitor.

Is it then conceivable that polygamy, allowed of GOD uninterruptedly through fo many ages and generations with impunity and even approbation, should all of a fudden start up into a mortal fin, by the Seventh commandment's receiving a conftruction which it never before had-which was never before given to the words in which it was conceived? How could our lives and properties be fecure, if time could alter the meaning of our penal ftatutes?-who will draw the line, and fay how much or how little time is neceffary to effect this? But if fuch can be the cafe with the moral law of GOD, then was the Pfalmift mistaken in calling it perfect (Pf. xix. 7.) for it is changeable.

* Comp. Deut. xxii. 23, 24. where a betrothed virgin is called the man's wife, fo as to make it adultery to defile her.

Then is it lefs to be depended on than the laws of the Medes and Perfians. Efth. i. 19. -lefs facred than the decree of an earthly monarch. Efth. viii. 8. Dan. vi, 15. If this be the cafe, what man can have any fecurity for his peace?—In order therefore to avoid fomething worse than abfurdity, we must conclude, that the original inftitution of marriage, and the feventh commandment of the decalogue, mean neither more nor lefs, where Chriftians are concerned, than where the Jews were-or, in other words, they mean precisely one and the fame thing under the New Teftament as under the Old Teftament.

By taking texts here and there in the New Teftament, and detaching them from their reference to and connection with the Old Teftament, many herefies have arifen; as Arianifm, Socinianifm, and perhaps most others, Ye do err, not knowing the jcriptures. So with regard to marriage becaufe CHRIST faid-Some make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's fake: be that is able to receive it, let him receive it (Matt. xix. 12.); and St. PAUL, I Cor. vii. 1. and in other parts of that chapter, fpeaks in favour of a fingle life, with refpect to the then diftreffed ftate of the church (ver. 26) there were multitudes of people, in the early ages of Chrif tianity,

*

*There arofe in the church from antient times, fects "of heretics, who condemned wine, and the use of animal food, and marriage; and not only heretics, but "the orthodox also, ran into extravagant notions of the

fame

tianity, who took these things in a wrong fenfe, and found out that "marriage was a "carnal thing, and forbidden by the New "Teftament, as unbecoming the purity of "that difpenfation :" little reflecting, that the command of increase and multiply, and the inftitution of marriage as the means thereof, were the difpenfations of GOD Himself to our first parents when they were in a state of perfect innocence, and therefore could not be incompatible therewith.

That venerable man John Trapp, on 1 Cor. vii. 8. fays" The blemish will never be wiped off fome of the antient * fathers, "who, to eftablish their own idol of I know "not what virginity, which they themselves "had not, have written moft wickedly and

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bafely of marriage." To fay truth, I cannot conceive any man's confcience to be more taken captive by the devil (2 Tim. ii. 26) than

"fame kind, crying up celibacy and a folitary life be"yond measure, together with rigid and uncommanded "aufterities and macerations of the body. (Fortin, "Rem. vol. i. 278.)-Christ therefore, as we may con"jecture, was prefent at a marriage-feaft, and honoured "it with the miracle of turning water into wine, that it "should stand in the gospel as a confutation of these "foolish errors, and a warning to those who had ears to "hear, not to be deluded by fuch fanatics. St. John, "who records this miracle, lived to fee thefe falfe doc"trines adopted and propagated." Ib.

"Jerom, Ambrofe, and other fathers, have de"claimed against matrimony, and recommended monk"ifh abftinence almoft as much as Manes, and have employed almost as infignificant arguments." vol. ii. p. 69.

Id.

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