*

make men's traditions, and not God's word, the rule of their faith.

Befides the evils which have been noticed as the confequences of our fuperftition on the fubject of polygamy, the utter extinction of families might alfo be mentioned; whereas, fooner than this should be the cafe in Ifrael, we find God enacting a peculiar pofitive law, in order to prevent it; which faid law was certainly a virtual command of polygamy in many, perhaps in moft, cafes, as it was very rare to find an unmarried man among the Jews. The law to which I allude, is that of Deut. xxv. 5. where the husband's brother was to marry the widow of the deceased, if he died without childrenthat his name might not be put out of Ifrael. Though all the reasons of this law do not now fubfift, therefore the law itself, as far as those reasons have ceased, hath itfelf ceased; yet it ferves to fhew us, that

Among the fooleries of the fixth century, an entire abftinence from marriage was held the fureft way to Paradise. Women were not even fuffered to approach the altar, nor touch the pall which covered it, unless when, by the priests, it was delivered to them to be washed. The eucharift was too holy to be touched by their naked hands, they were therefore ordered, by the canons of the church, ta have a white linen glove upon the hand in order to receive it. See Alexander's Hift. of Wom. vol. i. P. 166.

GOD

GOD did certainly allow polygamy, and even command it, fooner than fuffer inheritances to fail by the extinction of famiLies.

Among us, if a man be married to a barren woman, he cannot take another wife while fhe lives, but must content himself with letting his nobility, titles, honours, and family be annihilated, and his eftates efcheat to the crown, under pain and penalty of being adjudged a felon if he marries a fecond wife (living the first) who might be the means of continuing and transmitting all these things to a long and numerous pofterity.

This foolish fuperftition is like that of the Jews in the days of Mattathias, who fuffered themselves to be flaughtered by the enemy without refiftance, because it was the fabbath-day, 1 Mac. ii. 32, 38. or like that of the Carthufians, who live entirely on fish, and would not eat a piece of other meat even to fave their lives.

The modern Jews are wifer, for though they in general coincide with the government where their lot happens to be caft, fo that they are polygamous or monogamous, according to the laws of the country they live in; yet if a few be married ten years to a woman, and has no child by her, he is at liberty to take another,

another, that he may have an heir to his fubftance; and in fo doing he certainly is juftified by the law of GOD; which law we have fet afide, and established our own fuperftition in its place, which not only tends to the annihilation and extinction of families, and of course to depopulation; but is, as elsewhere is more fully obferved, the fource of endless ruin and deftruction to the weaker fex, whose feducers, if married men, are totally exempt from making them that amends, and doing them that justice, which God's law commanded, and which, among us Chriftians, is looked upon as duty to withhold, or rather, as a mortal * fin to comply with.

Bellarmine, that great champion for The Man of Sin, faith-Lib. 4. de Rom. Pontific, "Si Papa erraret præcipiendo vitia, & prohibendo virtutes, teneretur ecclefia credere vitia effe bona, & virtutes malas, nifi vellet contra confcientiam pec❝ care."

"If the Pope fhould err in commanding vices, " and in prohibiting virtues, the church would be "bound to believe that vices are good, and virtues "evil, unlefs fhe would fin against confcience." And again, Cont. Barel. c. xxxi. "In bono fenfu "dedit CHRISTUS Petro poteftatem faciendi de pec"cato non peccatum, & de non peccato peccatum." "In a good fenfe-CHRIST gave Peter" (and of courfe the Pope) "a power of making that no fin "which is fin, and to make that to be fin which is "not a fin." What better principle do we proceed upon in the matters here mentioned?

As

As thefe points are fully treated in other parts of this book, I will now proceed to fhew, that the wild notions about marriage, which were introduced into the church, bear an earlier date than the days of Tertullian, and thofe other fathers mentioned before.

"There were others," fays Mr. Broughton-Hift. Lib. tit. Marriage-" who fimply exclaimed against marriage as unlawful under the gospel. This doctrine was first taught by Saturnilus, a fcholar "of Simon Magus and Marcion, but af"terwards better known amongst the "Encratites; to thefe may be added the

Apoftolics or Apotactics, the Manichees, Severians, and many others. The "church had great ftruggles with these "antient heretics, who inveighed bitterly against marriage under the gospel

ftate, and wrought upon many weak "minds, to be guilty of great irregula"rities, under pretence of a more re"fined way of living.

"The church had also another conteft "with the Montanifts and Novatians, "about fecond marriages, thefe beretics rejecting them as utterly unlawful."And indeed the ecclefiaftical hiftories inform us, that this madness (for I can call it nothing else) was carried fo far, as that

2

Second

fecond marriages were ftyled no better than whoredom; and ecclefiaftical perfons were forbidden to be prefent at them on pain of excommunication. This in the very face of the scriptures of GOD, which declare just as much for fecond marriages as for firft. Rom. vii. 2, 3. 1 Cor. vii. By all this we fee what work may be made with the scriptures, when the imaginations of men are let loose, instead of comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual, and making GOD the interpreter of His own word.

39.

As for the practice of polygamy amongst the first Christians, it was probably very frequent; if not-why did PAUL (1 Tim. iii. 2. and Tit. i. 6.) recommend the

* So it fhould feem to have been in times long after them, not only among the laity, but the clergy alfo; for Pope Sylvefter, about the year 335, made an ordonnance, that every priest fhould be the bufband of one wife only.

So in the fixth century, it was enacted in the canons of one of their councils, that if any one is married to many wives, he fhall do penance. Alex. Hift. Wom. vol. ii. 217, 272.

See

The cafe of Philip Landgrave of Heffe, as determined by the fix reformers, is well known. But all these things prove nothing, with refpect to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the matter in the fight of GoD: I only mention them, to fhew that Chriftians have, by no means, thought always alike on the fubject. The tranfactions of an infpired apoftle are certainly good evidence-to thefe let us attend.