ment against the polygamy of the people. If this was not done, or ío much as hinted at, under the Old Teftament, why are we to conceive it to be done under the New, when the fame things and perfons are equally reprefented under both?

Had polygamy been intended to have been

condemned under the New-Teftament difpenfation, I should humbly suppose that OUR LORD would have put the matter out of queftion by words too plain to admit of the leaft difpute: that He whofe loins were girt about with faithfulness (If. xi. 5.) would have been at least as faithful to His hearers of the loft fheep of the house of ISRAEL, to whom He was so immediately fent (Matt. xv. 24.) and fpoken to them in as plain and unequivocal terms as John the Baptift did to Herod, upon the fubject of his brother Philip's wife (Matt. xiv. 4.) There cannot be the least doubt, that numbers of our LORD's multitudes of hearers were polygamifts-all in principle--many in practice; nor can it be doubted, that if this was against the law of marriage, the law of the Seventh commandment, or any other pofitive law of GoD, it must be a mortal, damoable *fin, involving the man as well as the woman

in

St. Auguftine, lib. xxii. c. 47. against Fauftus, fays of polygamy Quando mos erat crimen non erat." "When it was a custom, it was nò crime."-How this great man could be capable of fuch an abfurdity is aftohifhing. The idea of a finful act lofing its criminality from custom, or the frequency of the commiffion of it, leaves little room for God's command, Exod. xxiii. 2.

in deftruction and perdition. Paul could declare openly, that if a woman, living her bushand, be married to another, fhe fhall be called an adulterefs, and vouches the law of GOD for

Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil. Nunc propterea crimen eft, faith he, quia mos non eft." Now it is a "crime, becaufe not cuftomary.

St. Chryfoftom's account of the matter is much more confiftent with fcripture and common fenfe, when, fpeaking of Abraham and Hagar, he says-ETW yáp Taula Tole nexwλulo-Thefe things were not then forbidden. Indeed Auguftine, in other parts of his writings, fpeaks much in the fame manner. "There was (fays he) a "blameless cuftom of one man having many wives-for "there are many things which at that time might be "done in a way of duty, which now cannot be done but licentiously-because, for the fake of multiplying pofte"rity, no law forbad a plurality of wives." See Grot. de Jur. vol. i. p. 268. note .

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St. Auftin, like others of the fathers, feem to have fuppofed that the command, Be fruitful and multiply-and the allowance of polygamy, as a means of fulfilling it, went hand in hand together:-that as that command"Ratione multitudinis liberorum, pertinuit ad tempora

ante CHRISTUM : non ad nos qui alio vivimus ævo"quia hodie, repleto mundo, non tam neceffarium fit

quam olim-mundum non defiderare illud crefcite & "multiplicamini"-therefore the allowance of polygamy ceased with the neceffity of the command which it accompanied.

Thus, as is ufual, one abfurdity begat another. Those who could be perfuaded, that the command for the propagation of the human fpecies was only obligatory on former ages, might very confiftently fuppofe, that even marriage itself had very little to do with Chriftians, and that therefore polygamy became an evil, which they allowed to have been a lawful thing, and even duty, in times paft. Such are the pawdlers pubor-the aniles fabellathe old women's ftories-which the fathers told, till they believed them, and, on their authority, they are believed to this hour!

his authority, Rom. vii. 1, 2, 3. How is it that CHRIST did not openly fay the fame thing on the part of the man?-Because, if He had, He could not have vouched the law of GOD for his authority; and for the fame reafon, that he could not fay it, he could not think it, for GOD's law was within his heart, Pf. xl. 8. and no thought could ever be in the pure and perfect heart of CHRIST, but what was exactly conformable, in all things, to the pure and perfect law of GOD. Let us then carry what OUR LORD faith against divorce, Matt. xix. 9. to the law and to the teftimony, and it can no more conclude against polygamy, fimply confidered, than it concludes against bigamy, or a man's marrying a fecond wife after the death of his first, and being twice married. Some of the primitive fathers cited it, to prove that every fecond marriage was adultery; but here their learned and pious advocate, Dr. Cave, does allow, that " they stretched "the string till it cracked again."

I might also observe, that, if polygamy was a fin, and even a national fin, an epidemical tranfgreffion of the law of GoD, it is very extraordinary that OUR LORD's fore-runner, John the Baptift, who came to preach repentance, fhould not mention, nor even hint at it; for his commiffion ran thus-Luke i. 17 To turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, the difobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the LORD. It is faid of him, Matt. xvii. 11.

that he should restore or reform (arouαTαYE) all things.

No man could have a fairer opportunity. to bear his teftimony against a national fin, than the Baptist had; for it is faid (Matt, iii. 5.) Then went out to him Jerufalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan; and among the numbers who were baptized of him in fordan, confeffing their fins (ver. 6.) there were many harlots (chap. xxi. 32.) Sa that it is evident he did not fpare to inveigh most sharply against the fin of fleshly uncleannefs; had polygamy been of this kind, he doubtlefs would have preached against it, which, if he had, fome trace would most probably have been left of it, as there is of his preaching against the fin of whoredom, by the barlots (a* opvar) being faid to believe on him; which they certainly would not have done, any more than the Scribes and Pharifees (Matt. xxi. 32.) if the preacher had not awakened them to a deep and real sense of their guilt, by fetting forth the heinoufnefs of their fin. He exerted his eloquence alfo against public. grievances, fuch as the extortion of the public officers of the revenue-the publicans-Tewa -tax-gatherers-likewise against the oppref five methods used by the foldiery, who made it a custom either to take people's goods by violence, or to defraud them of their property,

* The word opvat may fignify lewd women of all forts.

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by extorting it under the terror of falfe accufation. These were public grievances, against which the Baptift bore fo open a teftimony, that the publicans and foldiers came to him, faying-What shall we do? This being the cafe, is it conceivable that a man of the Baptift's character, who was fo zealous for the honour of the law, as to reprove even a king to his face for adultery, fhould fuffer, if polygamy, be adultery, a whole nation, as it were, of public adulterers, to ftand before him, and not bear the least teftimony against them? I do not fay this is a conclufive, but it is furely a very ftrong prefumptive argument, that in the Baptift's views of the matter, polygamy, whoredom, and adultery were by no means the fame thing.

Having finished, for the prefent, what I had to fay on the fubject of polygamy, as fuppofed to be condemned by the New Teftament, Imust return back to the Old Testament, to fhew that polygamy was not only allowed in all cafes, but in fome commanded. The firft inftance of this which I fhall mention, is with refpect to the law, Deut. xxv. 5-10. If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead fhall not marry without unto a ftranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's

*

*They are faid to dwell together, not only who were in the fame family, but in the fame country. Gen. xiii.

5, 6.

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