ture will neceffarily fall under farther confideration hereafter, I will now return to the history of LAMECH.

Whether he did right or wrong does not appear, for it is only faid-LAMECH took him two wives. His being " of the degenerate race of CAIN" made it not a jot the worse, or a tittle the better, any more than the fame thing done by JACOB made it either the one or the other, because he was "of the bleffed race of "SETH." The invention of music, which was afterwards made fuch confiderable ufe of in the temple of GOD-of agriculture and the care of cattle-of working in brass and iron, were all found out by LAMECH'S children; ; yet I cannot conceive that they are the lefs innocent in themselves, or lefs useful to mankind, than if they had been found out by ABRAHAM, ISAAC, and JACOB. We can only fay of fuch obfervations on fcripture, that they are very filly; but if the word of God is to be corrupted, in order to ferve as a foundation for them, they are very wicked. See Deut. iv. 2. xii. 32. I only mention Mr. Henry, but I might name others one who goes fo far in corrupting the text, that he represents it as the command of GOD, that "two, and no more, "fhould be one flesh, Gen. ii. 24." The

words

Et erunt-והיו לבשר אחר words fimply are

in carnem unam. Καὶ ἔσονται οι δυο εις σάρκα píav. Matt. xix. 5. They twain shall be one felis. The words ἔσονται οι δυο—they two fhall be, &c.-relate to the man and his wife, mentioned in the fame verse, and answer to the 11 Gen. ii. 24. which fignifies they shall be-meaning the w and in the man and his wife, Gen. ii. 24. So that though here be a small variation between they shall be, and they twain fhall be, yet it is merely verbal in point of quotation; the fenfe is just the fame, whether, fpeaking of a man and woman, we fay-they, or they twain: but adding the word only, or they two and no more, is a very material alteration, fo material, as to alter the whole sense of the paffage, and to make every polygamist that ever lived, an offender against the original institution of marriage. Rather than fail in this, even the learned Beza himself will condefcend to talk nonsense. On 1 Cor. vii. 16. where the apostle cites our LORD's words -Two fhall be one flesh-" this & duo,” fays he," is not mentioned by Mofes, but " is rightly added, as well in this place "as in Matt. xix. 5. and Mark x. 8. “because there is only mention made of "a man and of one wife, but not of "wives; nor is it true that a polygamist

" is one with each of his several wives, "when he is rather divided into as many

parts as he has wives." Though this learned man reprefents a polygamist as Judges xix. 29. reprefents the Levite's concubine, whom he divided, together with her bones, into twelve parts, and fent her into all the coafts of ISRAEL, yet the polygamifts which we read of in fcripture were as entire individuals, in a moral as well as a natural fenfe, as those who had but one wife; otherwife each woman could not have called the man her husband, 1 Sam. i. 8, 22. nor could each woman be called his wife, ver. 2. Now whatever parties, being united, in God's account are man and wife, they are also one flesh, therefore it is true," that a polyga- · mift is one with each of his feveral "wives”—that is to fay, in the legal sense above-mentioned; nor can all the reafonings of men prove them otherwise, 'till they can prove themselves wiser than He is who declares them to be fo. And I do verily believe, that if a man had seduced any wife of a polygamist, and had

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Even as CHRIST, the husband of the church (Comp. If. liv. 5. with 2 Cor. xi. 2.) is as really one with every feveral believer, as with the whole church collectively; or as the head is one with each and all the members of the body. See poft.

been arraigned before the judges of Ifrael on that statute, Deut. xxii. 22. be muft, as well as the woman, have been condemned to die, notwithstanding what Beza has faid, or what all the reafoners in the world could have faid on the fubject of polygamy, in arreft of judgment.

But there is a text in the Old Teftament, which is looked upon by fome to be a direct forbiddance of polygamy; for it stands in the margin of our Bibles-Thou fhalt not take one wife to another. If this be right rendering of the Hebrew, then the faints of old time finned against light, knowledge, and law with a witness! But it is tranflated in the text-Neither halt thou take a wife to her fifter, to vex her, in

Ipfos quoque Judæos hanc legem de polygamia haud accepiffe, perpetua confuetudo plures fibi ex hac gente jungentium uxores oftendit. Non autem videntur tanto impetu per vetitum nefas ruiffe, præcipué legis divinæ cætera ftudiofiffimi, fi expreffo hujufmodi mandato hac de re cautum fuiffet. Tympius in Nold. p. 30, note r.

"That the Jews themfelves did not understand "this law as concerning polygamy, their conftant "practice of marrying a plurality of wives demon"ftrates; for it is not probable that they should "have rufhed with fuch violence into prohibited "wickedness, efpecially thofe who were most ob"fervant of the divine law in all other refpects, "if cautioned against it by fo express a commandsment."

ber

her life-time. Lev. xviii. 18. First, I would obferve, that the marginal reading -" one wife to another"-difunites entirely the 18th verfe from the preceding context to which it belongs; this only treats of marriages which are unlawful with refpect to affinity and confanguinity. The brother's wife had there been spoken of, ver. 16; here, most naturally, as a neceffary part of the prohibition of inceft, the wife's fifter. Secondly, This rendering of the text is agreeable to the grammatical sense of the Hebrew, which the other is not. This is demonftrably shewn in Tympius's note on Lev. xviii. 18. in Noldius, Heb. Part. p. 30. But as I find the meaning of this important paffage better explained by the learned Bishop Patrick on the place, than I can express it in any words of my own, I will transcribe the Bishop's note as it stands:

"There are a great many eminent "writers, who, following our marginal "tranflation (one wife to another) ima

gine that here plurality of wives is expreffly forbidden by GoD, and they "think there is an example to justify "this tranflation, Exod. xxvi. 3. where

Mofes is commanded to take care that "the five curtains of the tabernacle were "coupled together, one to its fifter, as

"the