eyes:

may OBTAIN CHILDREN BY HER. And ABRAM kearkened unto the voice of SARAI: and SARAI, ABRAM's wife, took HAGAR her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to ABRAM to be HIS WIFE (s) and be WENT IN UNTO HAGAR, and fhe conceived; and when she faw that she had conceived, her miftrefs was defpifed in her and SARAI faid unto ABRAM, My wrong be upon thee; I HAVE GIVEN MY MAID INTO THY BOSOM, and when fhe faw that fhe had conceived, I was defpifed in her eyes; the LORD judge between me and thee. This fcripture is too plain to need any comment. I will therefore, after obferving. that p' no more fignifies power, than it fignifies an horse, only add, that if SAUL'S wives had not been given into DAVID'S bofom, in the plain and * ufual fenfe of that expreffion, the circumftance itself could not have afforded that striking aggravation, fo beautifully intimated in Nathan's parable, of the rich man's Sparing

filled, ver. 15. Now for all this to happen, in fupport of, and as a bleffing upon, a polygamous marriage, if fuch marriages were finful, and of courfe abominable in the eyes of GOD, is, I freely own, past every notion which I have conceived of the Jeripture-character of the holy GoD of Ifrael. See Gen. xvii. 20.

* Deut. xiii. 6. рnux Uxor finas tui. Mont. The wife of thy bofam.

to take of his own flock, and his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him, but taking the poor man's lamb, &c.

The learned Dean, as well as fome other commentators on this famous paffage, go ftill farther, and tell us, DAVID could not enjoy these widows of SAUL as wives, becaufe in fo doing he would have committed inceft, they being mothers-in-law to MICHAL, SAUL'S daughter, who was DAVID's wife. But where is fuch an union forbidden? I have carefully examined the degrees of affinity and confanguinity wherein marriage is forbidden, and do find a man must not marry his own mother-in-law, (Lev. xviii. 8.) but as to his wife's mother-in-law, there is not a trace of fuch an impediment. As for MICHAL's own mother, she, if living, must be put out of the question. See Lev. xviii. 17.

These things being confidered, the obfervations of fuch commentators evaporate into juft what NATHAN's parable and remonftrance must do, fuppofing fuch criticisms to be true; that is to say, intonothing at all. DAVID'S ingratitude to GOD, and to his * WORTHY URIAH

* 2 Sam. xxiii. 39.
I 4

were

were not fo marked by NATHAN, because DAVID had a number of women whom he could not enjoy; but because he might have enjoyed them whenever he pleased: therefore his taking URIAH's wife was the more inexcufable, and his rebellious ingratitude against GOD, who gave him fo many women into his bofom, the more aggravated.

Thefe truths have not failed univerfally in their influence, but have forced themselves into the confciences of fome; who, not being able to refift their conviction, have confeffed that " Polygamy "was allowed of GOD to the Jews, but yet "it is forbidden to Chriftians"-which is just as true as if it was faid, that "the

66

people under the Old Testament were
men and
and women,
women, but Chriftians + are

"not;

* Polygamy is prohibited among Chriftians, but was allowed, by Divine appointment, among the Jews. Chambers, Tit. Polygamy.

+ Or to fay with fome of the antient fathers, who were wiser than the fcriptures, that the crefcite & multiplicamini of the Old Teftament has nothing to do with Chriftians under the New TeftamentQuia hodie, repleto mundo, non tam neceffarium quam olim; and again-hoc dictum pertinere ad tempora ante Chriftum, non ad nos qui alio vivimus ævo-mundum jam non defiderare illud crefcite & multiplicamini.The command-Be fruitful and "multiply, &c. is not neceffary, as once it was, "becaufe

not;" for to fuppofe that the human fpecies is changed, is not more abfurd, than to fuppofe a change either of the original defign of GOD in the inftitution of marriage, or of the sense and meaning of the feventh commandment, as forbidding or condemning that now, which was not forbidden or condemned, either by the one or the other, for fo many ages before. As for the pofitive law of the seventh commandment, it is attended with fuch pains and penalties in the breach of it, that it is impoffible but that fome instance of GOD's difapprobation of polygamy muft have been met with, had that been within the meaning of it; otherwife the abfurdity must follow, of fuppofing a fufpenfion of this law for 1500 years after it was ordained of GOD, delivered to Mofes, and by him to the people at Mount Sinai—and all this for the indulgence of mortal fin in one fex, while it was punifhed with death in the other.

In the first place, I would observe in general, that polygamy, in its proper sense, as practifed under the Old Teftament by the people of GOD; that is, the taking

because the world is filled with people.-That "belonged to the times before CHRIST, not to us "who live in another age-the world now wants "not that-Increase and multiply."

two

*

two wives together at once, or one to another, and cohabiting with both, is not fo much as mentioned any where, that I can find, from the first chapter of Saint Matthew to the last of the Revelation of Saint John, inclufive: therefore it cannot be faid to be + condemned. The fa

mous paffage in Matt. xix. which has been already confidered, and will be more fully hereafter, certainly relates to divorce, and, properly speaking, not to polygamy; for this, fimply confidered, does not come in question. The people there, fo far from intending polygamy, meant nothing lefs, for they meant to have but one wife at a time; elfe why were they for divorcing one, in order to take || another? Their fin was this, not the taking

*Unless incidentally, 1 Tim. iii. 2. 1 Tit. i. 6. where nothing is faid, either good or bad, as to the matter itself.

+ Judge Blackstone fays, very gravely-Comm. vol. i. p. 436. "Polygamy is condemned by the law "of the New Teftament."

So our tranflators undoubtedly thought; for in the fummary of the contents printed at the head of the chapter, they only fay-" CHRIST anfwereth the Pharifees concerning divorcement." ver. 3-10, So Mark x. 2. "Touching divorcement.”

Here the word dan, Matt. xix. 9. is fuppofed to fignify another (i. e. any other woman) according to our translation. But that this may not be the fense of it, fee after.

and