"fo in many countries, even to this day, "that people use fkins by way of veffels "to contain wine."-On which fide the laughter of the company turned is not very difficult to imagine.

Something like this facetious gentleman's mifconception of things is likely to be our portion, if we form our ideas of the import of certain paffages of fcripture, from the found of words in our tranflation, without adverting to the fenfe of the original. So alfo, if we interpret the fcripture according to our own conceits, without duly confidering the times when-the places where-the occafions on which-and the fituations of the perfons to whom they are addreffed. These observations are peculiarly needful refpecting the portion of fcripture now before us, especially as we have popular mistake, vulgar error, and of courfe, prejudice of education, to contend with. Still all these cannot alter the truth of fcripture, or render it at all the more certain, that CHRIST here condemns, or indeed mentions, polygamy.

He was furrounded at this time by a great multitude of people, who, in principle, as living under the law of the Old Teftament, were polygamifts, and, doubtlefs, numbers of them were fo in practice -many there must have been among this great multitude of Jews, who had either married two wives together, or having one, Bb 3 took

took another to her, and cohabited with both. Had our LORD intended to have condemned fuch practices, he would fcarcely have made ufe of words which did not defcribe their fituation, but of words that did. It is very plain that— He that putteth away his wife, by giving her a bill of divorcement-could have nothing to do with the man who took two wives: together, or one to another, and cohabited alike with both. But we are apt, like the man and his bottles, to conftrue fcripture, by fuppofing perfons to whom particular things are faid, were in the circumstances then, in which we are now; but it was far otherwife they had no municipal laws against polygamy, as we have. So far from it, their whole law (as has been abundantly proved) allowed it.

It is to be obferved, that the fubjectmatter in debate was the bufinefs of divorce, which the Jews had carried to a fhameful height, and this is what CHRIST is oppofing. The occafion of the discourse feems to be this-what He had faid in His fermon on the mount, in Galilee, about divorce, Matt. v. 31, 32, had, doubtlefs, been carried to the Pharifees in Judea, by fome of their emiffaries, who were among the multitudes that followed Him from thence, Matt. iv. 25. moft probably by fome of thofe Spies, which were

fet

fet upon all his words and actions. See Luke XX. 20. The Pharifees were provoked, as what CHRIST had faid militated against thofe notions which they had received, and ftrenuously maintained among their difciples. On His return into the coafts of Judea beyond Jordan, He was alfo at ended by great multitudes, ver. 2. The Pharifees thought this a fair opportunity to entangle Him in His talk (as Mátt. xxii. 15.) and lay Him under difficulties, either that of difavowing what He had faid, or, if He perfifted in it, to reprefent Him before the multitude as an enemy to the law of Mofes. Therefore we read, ver. 3. The Pharifees alfo came unto Him, tempting Him-by propofing an enfnaring queftion, which they fuppofed would lay Him under one or other of the difficulties above-mentioned, either of denying what He had faid, or of appearing an adverfary to Mofes. They therefore afk Him-Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every caufe? His anfwer to this is not founded on any new law of His own, but on the original command of GOD, delivered by Adam, Gen. ii. 24. The Pharifees then bring their defign into full view, by quoting Mofes's authority against the anfwer which CHRIST had given, and in defence of their own opinion. The paffage which they referred to, was Deut. xxiv. 1. which they called a command;

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command; but our LORD corrects them, and calls it only a permiffion, and this-for the hardness of their hearts; not that it affected the matter in the fight of God, by vacating the marriage, for that a man who married a divorced woman, was as guilty of adultery in the fight of GOD, as if she had not been divorced, and fo was the divorced woman, who married again, living her bufband. That this was the scope of CHRIST'S reasoning upon the matter, appears from the answer which He gave to His difciples, Mark x. 10, 11, 12. when in the houfe, they afked Him again of the fame matter-Teρ T8 дUT8-about the felf-fame identical thing. He cannot be fuppofed to vary His opinion upon the fame point; therefore, in words which had the fame meaning, He repeats the fubftance of what He had before faid to the Pharifees.-He faith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her; to which He addsAnd if a woman fhall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.

As the Pharifees had referred CHRIST to the authority of Mofes, by way of anfwer to what He had faid, to prove the unlawfulness of divorces; He takes an opportunity to detect their abuse of that fcripture, Deut. xxiv. 1. &c. (for this is

the

the paffage evidently referred to) and proves, on the ground of ver. 4. of that chapter, the truth of all he faid upon the fubject; namely, that these permiffive divorces, which MoOSES fuffered (ETÉT PEJEV) for the hardness of their hearts, wrought no diffolution of the marriage-bond, but that the man who thus injuriously divorced his wife, caufed her to be defiled; and he who married her, defiled her; but yet, having married her, fhe could not return to her first husband, on a divorce from the fecond, without a fresh act of adultery. Defiling a man's wife, and committing adultery upon her, are fynonymous terms, as may appear by comparing Prov. vi. 29. with Ezek.xviii. 11, 15. Therefore OUR SAVIOUR fays no more in effect, than is faid Deut. xxiv. 4; He only enlarges upon, explains, and applies the doctrine there delivered, concerning the defilement and adultery which was the confequence of marrying a divorced woman, and has a view to the licentious practices of the Jews, under the fanction of

* The inftance of David's taking again Michal, Saul's daughter, after fhe had been the wife of Phaltiel, the fon of Laish, had nothing to do with this; for fhe had not been put away from David by bill of divorcement, or any other act of his, but violently taken away by her father Saul, and given to Phaltiel. Nor was it, probably, in her power to have gainfayed the imperious commands of her tyrannical father. See 1 Sam. xxv. 44. 2 Sam. iii. 13, &c.

thefe