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Maker is thine husband. Jer. iii. 14. Turn, O backfliding children, for I am married to you. Then GOD complains, ver. 20. Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her bufband, fo have ye dealt treacherously with me, O boufe of Ifrael, faith the Lord of hosts. It is the misfortune of ours, as of all arbitrary languages, to want

precision;

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openly revealed. To imagine, as many do, that this fundamental of true religion was referved to the days of the New Tefiament, is one of thofe confequences of ignorance with refpect to the Hebrew fcriptures, under which we Chriftians content ourselves.

* One great reafon of which is, the aptness of such languages to acquire new meanings by length of time. This is remarkably the cafe with ours; for inftance, the word knave formerly meant a boy-a male childthen a fervant boy, and by degrees, any fervant man. Thefe meanings are obfolete, and now it fignifies a petty rafcal, a fcoundrel, a dishonest fellow. See Phillips's Dict. and Johnfon. Other inftances of fuch mutation might be given. But this cannot be the cafe with the Hebrew language; if it could, it must cease to be the word of GOD, and become the word, the uncertain word, of man.

7

In fhort, it would amount to a creation of new laws, which still must vary with the new use of words, and thus, from time to time, create new offences, in proportion to words acquiring new meanings. But the mind of God hath been graciously delivered to us in a language as unchangeable and fixed as itself. Therefore, what the words meant when recorded by the facred penmen, they mean to this hour, and will mean for ever-for which very conclufive reafon, it is imposible that any word of the Old Teftament can acquire a new meaning under the New Teftament. Wherefore the word adultery, can never admit

of

or wrong.

so that when we speak of adultery, we include in it every idea which is usually affixed to the word by custom, whether right There is a precision in the Hebrew language peculiar to itself; every word is derived from fome fixed root, or is itself that root, which has a fixed and determinate meaning; and though the word branch itself into ever fo many different, and feemingly contradictory senses, yet the original idea contained in the root will always circulate, as the fame fap from the root of a tree, will always flow through the ftem to the feveral branches, be they ever fo many. From the want of fuch precifion in our language, we are apt to fix meanings to the words of scripture,

of any other meaning or conftruction, than it received in the books of Mofes and the prophets-what, that was, will appear in the fequel.

How arbitrary languages have always been fubject to change, by their being governed by fashion and cuftom, we may learn from Horace:

Mortalia facta peribunt, Nedum fermonum ftet honos, & gratia vivax. Multa renafcentur, quæ jam cecidere: cadentque Quæ nunc funt in honore vocabula; fi volet ufus, Quem penes arbitrium eft, & jus & norma loquendi. All things fhall perish, and shall words prefume To hold their honours, and immortal bloom? Many fhall rife, that now forgotten lie, Others, in prefent credit, foon fhall die, If custom will, whofe arbitrary fway Words, and the forms of language, muft obey.

which, when confidered in the original, they will not bear and in few are we more miftaken than in the meaning (the fcriptural meaning) of the word adultery.

The words of the feventh commandment

which we very properly - לא תנאף -are

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tranflate-Thou shalt not commit adultery. But what is the true meaning of the word adultery? The only certain way to know this, is to confider its uniform fignification throughout the whole Hebrew Bible; and whoever doth this, will find that it is never used but to denote the defilement of a betrothed or married wo* man; except in the figurative fense above mentioned, with refpect to idolatry, where the fame idea is exactly preferved.

* The learned authors of the Ant. Univ. Hift. vol. iii. P. 137. rightly obferve, that "adultery was punish

able with death in both parties, whether they were "both married, or only the woman." But, they add-"We cannot affirm the punishment of a mar"ried man to have been the fame, who committed

"adultery with an unmarried woman.' This folecism of "a married man's committing adultery with an un"married woman," arifes from the popular and improper ideas which are annexed to the English word adultery, and from not attending to the fingle and only idea annexed to the Hebrew N throughout the Bible. Confiftently with this, Anthonius Matthæus, the civilian, affirms, that "adultery cannot be com"mitted between a married man and an unmarried "woman." This is certainly true; because no trace of fuch an ufe of the word is to be found throughout the Bible.

29.

In Lev. xx. 10. we have an accurate and clear explanation of the fignificant word as well as of the commandment where it is found. If a man commit adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and adulterefs fball furely be put to death. What is here called committing adultery with his neighbour's wife, is called, Ezek. xviii. 11. defiling his neighbour's wife; and Prov. vi. going in to his neighbour's wife. If we turn to Deut. xxii. and confider the expofition of the feventh commandment which Mofes was directed, by the Holy Spirit, to deliver to the rifing generation, before their entrance into Canaan, from ver. 13. to ver. 29. inclufive, we shall find this idea uniformly preferved throughout. See alfo Lev.

xviii. 20.

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"Machatus eft, adulteravit, adulterium "commifit. Prov. vi. 32. per metaphoram-Idola co"luit. Fer. iii. 9. Differt a quod generaliter "fcortari fignificat, ut liquet ex Ofeæ iv. 14. at hoc "verbum non nifi in nuptam cómpetit. Mercer in "Pagn.

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"R. Solomon Jarchi notat dici tantum de nuptâ.” Leigh's Crit. Sacr. "To commit adultery with matrons. See Litt. Dict. Machor. to adulterate, to commit adultery "[with a married woman] Prov. vi. 29, 32-34+ "Metaphorically. To worship idols, Jer. iii. 9. It "differs from, which fignifies whoring in general, as is plain from Hofea iv. 14. But this word "only belongs to incontinency with a married woman. "R. Soloman

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So ftrict is this law with regard to this offence, that it even reaches to the defilement of a betrothed woman, who, in GoD's fight, is reckoned as the man's wife to whom fhe is betrothed. If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman; fo fhalt thou put away evil from Ifrael. Deut. xxii. 22. By thefe latter words we are taught, that the fin of adultery, like that of murder, was not to be looked upon merely as a perfonal offence, which was of no further confequence than to the parties committing it, but, if not punished as GoD commanded, brought guilt upon the very land itself, which could only be put away by the pu

"R. Solomon Jarchi obferves, it is only used where 66 a married woman is concerned."

Aben Ezra thinks, that it fignifies all illicit commerce, even whoredom-" But I fee, faith Grotius, on "Exod. xx. 14. that this word is taken by the He"brews in the fenfe of adultery only, and fo it is "tranflated in this and the other places where it is "ufed, by the Greeks, Latins, and other interpre"ters." See Leigh, ib. and margin.

The LXX always render it by μοιχένειν and μοι xãdas.

However, not to rely on the faithfulness of tranflators, the accuracy of lexicographers, or the wifdom of commentators, either critical or explanatory, we must have recourse to the word itself in the original; and if we find, that in all its connections throughout the Hebrew fcriptures, it never is ufed but in one fing le fenfe, we are not warranted to put any other upon it.

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nishment

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