in the feventh commandment, as relating to the wife; that is to fay, as forbidding polygamy on her fide, but not to the bufband as forbidding polygamy on his.

Others would make the wife, holy, great, and good men, who were polygamifts, wholly ignorant of the law, as to the true meaning thereof, and fay-"The times of ignorance GOD winked at"-wrefting this text (Acts xvii. 30.) which speaks of the blind Gentiles who were without the written law of GOD, and making it relate to the Jews, to whom were committed the oracles of GOD. Rom. iii. 1, 2. But, waving this, was ABRAHAM, that prophet, Gen. xx. 7. whom God, from the familiar intercourfe He had with him, calls His friend? (If. xli. 8.)- was Jacob, who fpake with GOD face to face (Gen. xxxii. 30.) ignorant? Could MoSES, the facred penman and expounder of the law, be ignorant? fo ignorant, as not to know its true meaning? Could

GOD faith, Gen. xviii. 19. Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?-for I know him, that he will command his children and his houfhold after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do juftice and judgment. How Abraham could teach others to keep the way of the LORD, and yet be ignorant of it himself, cannot eafily be conceived. If the blind lead the blind, bath fhall fall into the ditch. Matt. xv. 14.

DAVID be ignorant? If fo, to how little purpofe was his ftudy in it all the day long? Pf. cxix. 97. Are we to fuppofe Solomon ignorant, to whom GOD faid-Lo, I have given thee a wife and understanding heart, fo that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee fhall any arife like unto thee? 1 Kings iii. 12. See r Kings iv. 2.9. &c. Comp. Matt. xii. 42. Luke xi. 31. Such a folution of the matter will more easily prove the ignorance of fuch commentators, than their affertions prove ignorance in the holieft and wisest men that ever lived under the light of the Old Teftament, where alone GoD's law is to be found, and on the authority of which the whole New Teftament can only* ftand. The kings of Ifrael were expreffly commanded to write a copy of the law with their own hand; it was to be with them, and they were to read in it

४

* Ignatius Epift. ad Philadelph. c. 8. introduces a few fayingἙαν μὴ ἐν τοῖς ἀρχαίοις ευρω ἐν τω Ευαγγελίω κ πιςεύω-nifi invenero in antiquis (vaticiniis) Evangelio non credo; which I heartily affent to, thus paraphrafed-" What I do not find "in Mofes and the prophets, I'll not believe in the "gospel." But there is no danger of this, no hazard of being put to fuch a trial; for certainly the New Teftament faith none other things than Mofes and the prophets did fay should come to pass. Acts xxvi. 22. See Rom. xv. 4. Luke xxiv. 44, 45.

daily. Deut. xvii. 18, 19. The Priests and Levites could not be ignorant; for their lips were to keep knowledge, and the people were to seek the law at their mouth. Mal ii. 7. As for the people, they not only heard the law conftantly, but were commanded to write it upon the very door, pofts of their boufes. Deut. vi. 9. Whatever elfe, therefore, their polygamy proceeded from, it could not be derived from ignorance. They could not be ignorant of the feventh commandment; and fuppofing that many of them, like their defcendents in later times, loft sight of its spiritual intendment, yet the meaning of its outward letter they could hardly be at a lofs for, efpecially as they muft obferve its uniform and unvaried use throughout the whole of their fcriptures. If, therefore, polygamifts finned against the feventh commandment, they did it with their eyes open; and whofoever can believe that fuch men as we have mentioned, could do this without any fcruple before-hand, or forrow afterwards, or the leaft fign of repentance, must believe. more than, for their fakes, and the fake of thousands of GOD's faints (who though not mentioned as polygamifts, doubtless, were fo) I could with even to furmife, or than is in the leaft confiftent with the account

3

account which we have of them in the holy fcriptures.

I fhall only observe farther on this head, of attributing the practice of polygamy by the Old-Teftament faints to ignorance, that we must charge ignorance on GOD's high-priest Jehoiada, who stands: recorded, 2 Kings xii. and 2 Chron. xxiv. as one of the wifeft, beft, and greatest characters that ever lived, as likewife one of the most exemplary promoters of GOD's honour, and a chief inftrument of the reformation of religion in Judah, in the reign of king* Jehoafh. If fo, our charge of ignorance will not ftop here, but even reach the Spirit of GOD Himfelf. For He fays, that Joash did right in the fight of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest, 2 Chron. xxiv. 2. or (as it is 2 Kings xii. 2.) all his days, wherein Jehoiada the priest inftructed him; and yet we are told, ver. 3. that Jehoiada took for him Two WIVES, and he begat fons and daughters. On whom fhall the com mentator fix ignorance? On Jeboiada the high-prieft, for teaching his pupil king Jehoafh to be a polygamist, by taking for him two wives? or on Jeboafe, who received them, and cohabited with them?

* Called JoASH alfo, 2 Chron. xxiv.

or

or on the Holy Ghoft, who bears teftimony to the rectitude of king Jehoah's conduct, all his days wherein Jehoiada the prieft inftructed him?

The learned Bishop Patrick, on 2 Chron. xxiv. 3. fays, that " Jehoiada did not "take thefe two wives for the king, but "for himself. Suppofing it to be so, the proof of the lawfulness of polygamy in Fehoiada's opinion is equally ftrong. But this fenfe of the Bishop's will hardly arife from the pofition and construction of the Hebrew text: for it does not ftand in the order of our translation-And Jehoiada took for him two wives-fo as to make him the relative to Jehoiada; but

wives two Jehoiada him to brought And So that the to him ftands as the rela tive to the chief fubject of the preceding verfe, which is evidently king Jehoah, whose history the facred penman is here recording, as a part of which this action of Jehoiada's is here related.

The Bishop is conscious of a difficulty

* The verb N certainly fignifies to take a wife for one's felf-but it alfo fignifies to take or bring a wife for another. See Ezra ix. 2, 12. Neh. xiii. 25; in which paffages the word NW is ufed in both these fenfes.

VOL. I.

H

in