He that is mighty hath done to me great things, and holy is his name.

And His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation. He hath fhewed ftrength with His arm, He hath fcattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their feats, and hath exalted them of low degree.

He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath fent empty away.

He hath holpen His fervant Ifrael, in remembrance of his mercy, &c.

The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girt with ftrength-the wicked fhall be filent in darkness.

The adverfaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces-the LORD maketh poor and maketh rich, He bringeth low and lifteth up.

They that are full have hired themselves out for bread, and they that were hungry ceased.

He fhall give ftrength unto His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed.

The conclufion of all which appears to be, that either we do not worship the fame GOD which the Jews did, or the GOD we we worship doth not difallow nor difapprove polygamy. Miraculous bleffings bestowed of God, in answer to the prayers of people living in open breach of His law, are totally contradictory to the whole fcripture-character of GOD. The way of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, but the prayer of VOL. I.

U

the

the upright is His delight. Prov. xv. 9. He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination. Prov. xxviii. 9. Comp. Pf. lxvi. 18, 19, 20.

3;

In what has been faid on the subject of this chapter on polygamy, I fhould think arguments enough have been brought to prove that it was not finful in the fight of GOD, under the Old Teftament, and that the blessed GOD, by becoming man (1 Cor. xv. 47.) and condescending to appear on earth for us men, and for our falvation, in the likeness of finful flesh, Rom. viii. made of a woman made under the law, Gal. iv. 4; came not to destroy the law, by leffening the fecurity which it was evidently made to afford the weaker fex against the ftronger. That the treachery which was fo pofitively forbidden, and fo amply provided against, among the Jews, fhould be allowed to Chriftians (who are children of the fame Heavenly Father, fubjects of the fame Almighty King) and even commanded them in fome cafes, is a monftrous fuppofition! -repugnant to the pofitive inftitution of GOD, They fhall be one flesh-contradictory to all found reafon-and abhorrent. from. every generous, honourable, and humane principle. Whatever the fituation of the

man

man may be, the danger arifing to the woman from the confequences of feduction and dereliction is equal, therefore equally provided against by the law of GOD.

How polygamy became reprobated in the Chriftian church is eafily accounted for, when we confider how early the reprobation of marriage itself began to appear. The Gnoftics, whom Epiphanius derives from Simon Magus, condemned marriage in the moft fhocking terms, faying that it was "of the Devil;" but this was to fupport themselves in their horrible tenet, that all women should be

common amongst them." Better people foon afterwards condemned marriage as unlawful to Chriftians, and this under a wild notion of greater purity and perfection, in keeping from all intercourfe with the other fex. This opinion divided itself into many fects, and gave great trouble to the church before it was difcounte

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nanced. Still fecond marriages were held infamous, and called no better than lawful whoredom. Nay, they were not afhamed to write, that, "a man's first wife being "dead, it was adultery, and not marriage, "to take another." Amidft all this, polygamy muft neceffarily receive the feverest anathema-for if it could be fuppofed

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unlawful

unlawful for Chriftians to marry at all, and then fo deteftable to marry a fecond time, after the death of a wife, the having two at once must be, a fortiori, accounted more horrible than all the reft. All these several opinions had texts of fcripture preffed into their fervice, by the ingenious zeal of their feveral abettors: the Old Teftament was of no authority in the matter; the New Teftament was made to speak what it did not mean, concerning what it does mention'; and conftrued fo as to condemn what, when rightly understood, it does not mention. The two first of these conceits about marriage have been long exploded, except with refpect to the Romish clergy, who, to this hour, are forbidden to marry. polygamy throughout the Chriftian church, the western part of it at leaft, is looked upon as a fin against the seventh commandment, though there is not a fyllable in the whole Bible which makes it fo. When I mention polygamy, I would always be understood to mean on the man's fide, for on the fide of the woman, the whole fcripture fhews it to be a capital of◄ fence.

But

Why this diftinction fhould be made, HE best knows who made it; but, in part, we may fuppofe, from the confe

quences