drefs his victuals well, or if he found any other woman he liked better." Akiba was ftill more indulgent than Hillell, for he affirmed that "it was fufficient caufe “for a man to put away his wife, if she "were not agreeable to her husband."

Jofephus and Philo fhew very fufficiently, that in their time the Jews believed divorce to be lawful on every trivial caufe. That the Pharifees had learnt to explain the toleration of Moses in a like extensive manner, may be gathered from the queftion which they put to our SAVIOUR. The above observations may therefore ferve as a key to the scripture under confideration. The Pharifees (who afked, whether it was lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?) feem to have been deeply tinctured with that pofition of Hillell, and to have adopted that particular cause of divorce mentioned by him, that of feeing a woman they liked better, lo putting away one whom they liked lefs, in order to take another whom they liked more. Against this CHRIST may be understood to level his anfwer-Whosoever putteth away his wife, except for the caufe of fornication, and marrieth another, committeth adultery, &c. not as condemning polygamy in itself, against which there was no law, but under the particular circumftance of unlawG 2

ful

ful divorce to effect it, against which the law of GOD was from the beginning. Such a thing was not contained in Mofes's permillion, nor mentioned therein, but was contrary to the very inftitution of marriage; and, as our LORD fhews clearly, ver. 4, 5, 6, virtually forbidden by the very words of it. It was as unlawful for a man to put away or divorce his wife for another woman, as for a woman to put away or divorce her husband for another man: the marriage-bond being equally binding as to the matter of putting away. We may also obferve, that though the faints of GOD, of whom we read fo much in the Old Teftament*, practifed polygamy, yet they

.

did

*The example of the Heathens and Mahometans ઃઃ may indeed be of no great force in the argument for polygamy, becaufe it appears that thofe people are guilty of many violations of the law of nature; "but the polygamy of the fathers under the old coveεσ nant, is a reafon which ingenuous men must confefs to be unanfwerable." See Puffendorf, lib. vi. c. I. $ 18.

Some have thought, that the examples of Abraham, Jacob, and the other Old-Teftament faints, are too far removed into antiquity, to ferve as proofs for the lawfulness of polygamy. But did ever any one object to the hiftory of Cain, as an example of the criminality of murder, or of GOD's thoughts on that fubject? or does the Apostle, in the epiftle to the Hebrews, fcruple to recapitulate, by name, those heroes of antiquity, who did fuch mighty works by

the

did not put away one wife in order to make room for another. This was as directly forbidden them by the law of GOD, delivered by Mofes, as by CHRIST, on the authority of that law, to these Pharifees.

Here I would observe, that our translators of the Bible seem to have paid too much attention to the Scribes and Pharifees, in the rendering the paffage referred to for the juftification of their doctrines about divorce. The Pharifees fay, Mofes COMMANDED to give a writing of divorcement, and put her away. Thus the rabbies conftrued, Deut. xxiv. 1, &c. in the. imperative mood; and we, by doing the fame in our tranflation of that paffage,' have juftified their mifinterpretation, and even justify the divorced woman's going to be another man's wife. She may go, and be another man's wife; fo we tranflate, verfe 2. No marvel, if this be the case, that CHRIST is fuppofed to condemn fomething which was before allowed; whereas the whole paffage is fuppofitory or hypothetical, and only introductory of that

the power of faith, as examples to us? In fhort, doth he not affure us, Rom. xv. 4. That wHATSOEVER THINGS were written afore-time, were written for our learning? But what can we learn from either the precepts or examples of old time, if we are to sup-.. pofe that God has changed his mind upon the fubjects which they hold forth to us? G 3

pofitive

pofitive law, ver. 4. The whole fhould be rendered thus, if we would avoid the abfurdity of fuppofing Mofes to command, what GOD pofitively forbad, and to confign a married woman into the arms of an adulterer, in the very face of the feventh commandment, by saying, " She may go and be another man's wife." ver. 2. This would be establishing adultery by a folemn Jaw.

The Hebrew text should be renderedWhen (or if) a man hath taken a wife, or woman, and married her, and it come to pass that he find no favour in his eyes, becaufe be bath found fome uncleanness in her, and (IF) be write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his houfe, and she shall have departed out of bis house, and (IF) he go and be another man's wife, and IF the latter husband hate her (here we explain the by an IF, why not before?) and write her a bill of divorcement, &c. or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife, her former husband, which fent her away, may not take her again to his wife after that he is DEFILED, for that is abomination before the LORD, and thou shalt not cause the land to fin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inberitance,

Thus

*

Thus the Greek interpreters exprefs the fenfe of thefe four verses, and the Vulgar Latin, yea, and the Chaldee paraphrafe may be fo understood. So Tremellius renders the words, and Vatablus explains them, Scripferitque ei libellum repudii & dederit Ei in manu, ejeceritque, &c. IF be shall have written her a bill of divorce, &c. "This is not an absolute sentence,' faith Vatablus, "but ought to be joined "to the words following, which fhew that IF fuch things happened, that IF

a man divorced his wife, and IF ano"ther took her, the former husband

might not take her again, the having "been defiled." Which proves the fame thing contended for by our LORD, in His difcourfe with the Pharifees, that

To the teftimonies here mentioned, for this interpretation of the Hebrew text, we may add that of the learned Buxtorf; who observes, that in the words of Mofes, Deut. xxiv. 1-4. this one prohi bition only is contained," That a man fhall not re"ceive again to his bed, a wife which he hath once put "away" but that the cuftom itfelf of putting away wives, is, in that place, neither approved by Mofes, or plainly condemned, but left as it were indifferent. And the obfervation of our Saviour, that this permiffion was given by Mofes, because of the hardness of their hearts, fufficiently makes it appear, that the Mofaical indulgence doth not amount to an approbation, but fignifies only a bare toleration, or connivance, exempting from civil punishment. See Puffend. b. vi. c. 1. § 23.

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