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rally, according to our idiom, married to an bufband. Ifa. Ixii. 4. byan I & terra tua erit maritata. Mont.; and thy land fhall be married. Now ya fignifies to have, or take poffeffion, or authority over, as a participal noun 'O 'exov, he who bath. Hence it fignifies to marry, to take poffeffion of a woman, to have her, as we fay. See Deut. xxiv. I. xxi. 13. In Niph, to be married, taken poffeffion of as a wife. Ifa. lxii. 4. with liv. 1. See Parkhurft's Heb. Lex. by. So Calafio. "Significat dominium, magifterium, dominatus eft, habuit, poffedit

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ut dominus, maritus fuit, rem habuit "cum muliere." "It fignifies dominion, "the place or office of a* mafter or go66 vernor." "As a verb, he governed,

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had, poffeffed as a lord or master, he was "married, or, had to do with a woman. By all which, taken together, it appears that this last circumftance is that which brings her into the poffeffion, and reduces her under the dominion of the man, according to that of Gen. iii. 16. latter part. See Deut. xxii. 29. where it is expreffed by ny Compreffit eam. Mont.; He hath humbled her. English tranflation. Surely this affords an additional and conclufive proof, that a man's taking poffeffion of a woman in the

*Our English word husband hath this idea, according to Johnjon" Hofsband, mafter, Danish; from house and bonda, Runic, a master." See Dict.

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fenfe

fenfe above-mentioned, is in the language* of facred fcripture marrying her, or making her in his woman.

I fhould now proceed to confider marriage, or matrimony as it is called, in another point of view, namely under civil confiderations, and, as fuch, an object of human laws: but before this can be done in a proper manner, fome incidental points must be fully understood and difcuffed. Therefore the fubject of matrimony, as a civil contract controulable by human legiflature, muft be deferred for a feafon.

This appears alfo from Deut. xxiv. 1. where the word by is evidently used in this sense→

כי יקח איש אשה ובעלה

câ cum coieret & fæminam vir ceperit fi.

Pagninus. Mont. Marg,

Here the taking the woman, and lying with her, maft clearly appears to make her the man's wife, as the rest of the verfe and the three following demonftrably fhew.

CHAP.

CHA P. II.

Of WHOREDOM and FORNICATION.

WHEN GOD, the CREATOR and

LORD of all, was pleased to ordain and establish the means by which His creatures were to increafe and multiply, and replenish the earth, in which primary command His reafonable creatures were equally interested with the brute part of the creation, and in fome refpects, if we confider this world as connected with another, infinitely more, and therefore the command was particularly addreffed to them, Gen. i. 28.-it could not be but that the act, whereby mankind was to be propagated, must be totally innocent in itself: otherwise it could not have been confiftent with the ftate of innocence in which man was when

marriage

* We are told, Gen. i. 31. that GOD faw every thing that He had made, and behold it was TND 31 very good. We cannot, confiftently with this account of things, doubt that every endowment of the human nature, whether of body or mind, came under. this description; confequently, that thofe defires which were neceffary to lead man to the propagation and continuance of his fpecies, were without any evil whatsoever. We cannot fufficiently abhor the

folly

marriage was firft ordained. But that this act, innocent in itself as any other function of the body, might be kept within due bounds of order and decency, and all confufion and diforder avoided; GOD enacted certain pofitive laws for this very purpofe, to confine within fuch bounds as feemed good to Himself to limit, that natural, but violent paffion, which, for the great purpofe of propagating the human fpecies, was made an infeparable adjunct to the buman frame.

folly and blafphemy of Jerome and fome others, who fay, that "Adam's defire to know his wife was the "firft fin which made Gon repent that He had made

man, and was the occafion of turning him out of "Paradife." Coitûs præmium mors-fays Jerome contr. Jovinian.

No inconfiderable difficulty awaited this fcheme, which arose from the question-"How then was the "world to be peopled, if not by natural generation?” But this was cafily folved, by imagining that "the "earth would have been fupplied with men, as the "heavens are with angels, by the immediate creative power of GOD, without the interference of any 5.6 generation whatsoever."

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When fuch monftrous opinions can have been maintained by thofe who, in their day, were looked upon as fathers of the church, let it warn thee, Reader, against fearching for truth any where but in the bleffed word of God; dread as much to leave it for an inftant, as a blind man would dread to walk amidst pits and precipices without a guide, or a mariner to fail amongst rocks and fhoals without a pilot. Remember what the Pfalmift fays, Pf. cxix. 105. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

Thofe

I

Those who imagine that this appetite is in itself finful, either in the defire or act, charge GOD foolishly, as if He could ordain the increafe and multiplication of mankind by an act finful in itself: an abfurdity little fhort of blafphemy! Sin, we are told, on the most infallible authority, is the tranfgreffion of the law, i John iii. 4 ;—and where no law is, there is no tranfgreffion, Rom. iv. 15

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-when therefore this act is done agreeably to God's will, it is like all other acts fo done, good and not evil. In order to make it evil, it must be done against some precept of God's law, otherwise it is as innocent as fatisfying our hunger with eating, or our thirst with drinking. These may become finful by their abufe or excess; fo may the other; but in itself, and in its lawful ufe, it is as perfectly innocent as the two former.

We have obferved before, that where a man and woman become perfonally united to each other, they are one flesh, and are forbidden to put each other away. This is the ordinance of marriage, and the only one which is revealed in the facred fcriptures; therefore we may call it the only one which GOD ever ordained.

But when men corrupted their ways upon the earth, Gen. vi. 12. this ordinance of marriage, fanctified by GoD's bleffing, Gen. i. 28. and ratified by His own exprefs com

mand,

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