If the cafe of the man be fo with his wife, it is not good to marry-i. e. "If a man cannot get rid

of his wife when he pleases, he had better "not marry at all." This conclufion must have been made from their understanding CHRIST to speak of divorce, for it is totally foreign from the matter of polygamy ;-How could they poffibly mean that a man had better have no wife at all, if he could not have more than one at once? It must likewise be fuppofed, that they did not mifunderstand their Mafter, for if they had, He would doubtlefs have fet them right in his reply (Matt. xix. 11, 12) and not have there faid, what clearly fhews them to have understood Him aright.

Now let us confider Matt. xix. 9. ftill more closely, taking it in connection with his fubfequent explanation of it to the difciples in the house. Mark x. 10, 11, 12.

I fay unto you-Whosoever shall put away his wife-nas yauyon arany-and shall marry another; ana muft here have a reference to the preceding yuvama, which we render by the word wife-therefore yuvana must be understood as following the word daaŋy, and this may be conftrued in the fenfe of αλλοτριαν yoraind another man's wife, i. e. a divorced woman. We find the word days, fo used, 1 Cor. x. 29. ύπο άλλης συνειδησεως—which we rightly tranflate another man's confcience. The learned Wetstein takes an in this fenfe, in his note on Matt. xix. 9.-His words are Αλλην] i. e. Αλλοτρίαν ab alio itidem viro

repudiatam

repudiatam-vel ab illo divertentem, ut Herodias & Salome." Another] that is-an"other man's wife, who has been repudiated

by him, or who has left her husband; as "did Herodias and Salome." He mentions

*Salome was fifter to Herod the Great. She is faid to have been the first woman who repudiated her husband. Herodias left her husband Philip, and married the faid Philip's brother, Herod Antipas; for which John the Baptift feverely reproved him, faying-it is not lawful for thee to have her. Matt. xiv. 4. For faying this, he had a double authority. First, as to the inceft, Lev. xviii. 16. Secondly, with regard to her being another man's wife, Lev. xx. 10. Herod's fituation was just what our LORD condemns in the paffage of Mark x. 11, 12. He had put away his first wife, who was the daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia, that he might take his brother Philip's wife, with whom he had fallen in love; and he did this at the request of Herodias herfelf. This was putting a wayhis wife, and marrying dλany, i. e. daλolpıæv, another's, which was adultery; as was Herodias's leaving her husband, and marrying Herod. All this (except the inceft) fell directly under the condemnation of the divine law, as explained by CHRIST to the difciples, and doubtless was meant by what he faid before, in the prefence of the multitude, to the Pharifees; and may ferve as a proper illustration of the doctrine of the divine law, as set forth by our LORD, with refpect to unlawful divorces, taking άλλην in the fenfe of ἀλλοιαν.

See alfo the cafe of Drufilla, a daughter of Herod Agrippa, who forfook Azizus, king of Emefa, and married Felix-(fee Acts xxiv. 24.) alfo of her two fifters.-Berenice, the eldest, left her husband Polemon, king of Pontus, to go to others and Mariamne, the youngeft, was married to Archelaus, and forfook him to marry Demetrius, an Alexandrian Jew. Ant. Univ. Hift. vol. x. p. 643, and note E.

The above-mentioned women were of high rank and dignity; but doubtless others practifed the fame, who were of too low a degree to be subjects of the historian's

pen.

afterwards

afterwards a difficulty he was under from this interpretation of day-as it feems to make the text say the fame thing* twice over; and on ε duтy, Mark x. II. he has the following note, which I will lay before the reader in English, referring the learned to the original. Against her.] "There are some "who interpret this to relate to the second 66 or latter wife, on whom the husband might "commit adultery, properly fo called; which " he cannot be faid to commit if he should marry a virgin, or a widow, but only by 66 marrying a woman who had been in like "manner (i.e. unjustly) divorced by another 66 man. But there is an + objection to this interpretation,

66

*This objection is at an end, if the latter clause is to be left out, as in the Cambridge, and many other copies. See Mills and Wetstein on Matt. xix. 9.

+ Since the first edition of this book, I have confidered very deeply this objection of Wetstein's, as well as the ground on which it ftands. He certainly, when writing on Mark x. 11, 12. had the claufe of Matt. xix. 9. in his mind, infomuch as to confound it with Mark x. 12; but, on the most attentive confideration, I cannot think, with St. Austin and others, that the latter clause of Matt. xix. 9. viz. He that marrieth her that is put away committeth adultery, has the least tautology, even taking the αλλην in the former claufe in the fenfe of αλλότριαν-because the whole verse, taken together, is no other than a complete refutation of the Jews doctrine of divorce for every cause, and a full establishment of the truth which CHRIST is contending for-viz.-that no cause, but that of adultery in the wife, is any ground of divorce from the bond of marriage, fo as to exempt the man who fhould marry her, living her husband, from the crime of adultery. In this view the whole will stand thus-viz.

-Whofoever shall put away his wife (except for fornication, which is the only thing which can diffolve the

contract,

"interpretation, which is, that by this "method of interpreting the paffage, the "fame

contract) and fhall marry another (yuvaixa, wife or woman unjustly divorced) committeth adultery (upon fuch woman

dun-Mark x. 11.) no unjuft divorce diffolving her contract with the man who put her away.

Thus far the firft claufe-on which it might be fuppofed, that, as the firft man had not only put away his wife by a bill of divorcement, but also married another divorced woman, and by that committed adultery, such an act released the first woman entirely from him, and therefore any other man might innocently take her to wife, as a woman divorced juftly and entirely, the bond being vacated by the husband's adultery.-But our LORD declares it to be otherwise settled by the law; nothing but adultery in the wife could diffolve the bond of marriage, therefore, the act of the husband above mentioned, did not bring the wife into the state of a fingle woman, so as that fhe might marry again, living her husband-wherefore CHRIST adds-that whofe married a woman under fuch circumstances of unjust and invalid divorce (TONEauμerny-that had been put away in this manner) committed adultery, no act of the husband's fetting her free from him.

This latter clause seems therefore as neceffary as the former-in order to elucidate the whole doctrine of divorce, and to prove, that no one real cause or ground of it, fo as to diffolve a marriage, exifted on the footing of the divine law, but fornication or adultery in the wife z which appears alfo to be clearly laid down Matt. v. 32. with the spirit and fenfe of which scripture, this paffage of Matt. xix. 9. exactly harmonizes.

In this view of the matter, this fcripture, fo far from condemning polygamy, rather establishes it; otherwise a man's taking a fecond woman, if fuch taking was adultery against the firft wife, would fet her free, and if fo, a man who married her would not fin, for adultery is certainly a release, a vinculo matrimonii, with respect to the party against whom it is committed.

It may also be obferved, that no poffible cafe can be put of a man's actually committing adultery, but by in

tercourfe

"fame thing would be faid twice over, once "at this ver. II, and again at ver. 12."

Here I cannot help diffenting from this learned and judicious man; for furely a man's putting away his wife, and marrying another divorced woman, and a woman's putting away ber husband, and marrying another man, are very different ideas. In both cafes adultery is committed, whether the woman be unjustly put away from her husband, or she put herself away; but when we confider, as in the cafe of Herodias and Salome, that this last was growing into a cuftom-for Salome's example was foon followed by others, as Jofephus writes-it was natural for CHRIST to condemn this in as exprefs terms in one cafe as in the other, both being equally oppofite to the law of God.

*

The Jews at this time had much intercourse with the Romans, Judea having been long reduced to the fituation of a Roman province, and no doubt, in the very corrupt ftate in which the Jews univerfally were, the Roman manners eafily infinuated themselves among the Jewish women. See before, p. 364, n. Divorces, though allowed very early in Rome,

tercourse with the wife of another; for which reafon it is a folecifm to talk of his committing adultery upon or against his own wife, in any other fenfe, than by caufing, tempting, or prevailing on her to commit it, which is the cafe put Matt. v. 32.

* See Ant. Univ. Hift. vol. iii. p. 149, at the bottom of the note.

were