one. 66 PASSAGES FROM PRINCETON ESSAYS AND WHITAKER. 119 There never was Symington's view-(the view of the marginal reading). A Hebrew tyro could not commit the blunder."* The discussion of the question of polygamy will still farther test the character of this censure. Meantime, I recommend to those who have the fancy that the men of these times, when our translation of the Bible was made, were tyros in scholarship as compared with some few men in the present day, the passage given in the note below,† and a perusal of the article in the "Princeton Review," from which the passage below is taken. I cannot help adding a remarkable passage from Whitaker-a passage as applicable to the writers of the present day as it was when first penned :— The highest value has always been attached to our translation of the Bible. Sciolists, it is true, have often attempted to raise their own reputation on the ruin of that of others; and the authors of the English Bible have frequently been calumniated by charlatans of every description: but it may be safely asserted, without fear of contradiction, that the nation at large has always paid our translators the tribute of veneration and gratitude which they so justly merit. Their reputation for learning and piety has not descended with them to the grave, though they are alike heedless to the voice of calumny, and deaf to the praise which admiring posterity awards to the great and the good. Let us not, therefore, too hastily conclude that they have fallen on evil days and evil tongues, because it has * Dr Eadie's Letter to the Editor of the Glasgow Chronicle. † From an able and learned article in the Princeton Essays on the English Bible, I extract the following passage: Was "The age in which our translation was made was pre-eminently a learned age. In science and the arts, that in which we live is, we admit, greatly beyond its predecessors. But so far as learning and scholarship are concerned, we do affirm there never has been an age equal to it. There never was an age distinguished by so many illustrious scholars in every department of classical and biblical learning. Where do we go for profound origina information on Latin, Greek, or Oriental Literature? Where are the great storehouses from which our modern bookmakers draw their Lexicons, their Grammars, their Commentaries ? Was Melancthon a mere Latin scholar'? Did Roger Ascham know nothing of Greek? Were Erpenius, and Golius, and Pococke, unacquainted with Arabic? Hebrew a dead letter to such men as Buxtorf, Morinus, Pagninus, Arias Montanus, Tremellius, Junius, Beza, Casteil, Walton, and Pool? Where is the public library, threefourths of whose volumes on sacred philology are not dated in the 16th and 17th centuries? We find in this period, among the magnates of oriental and classical learning, besides those already mentioned, such names as Budæus, Erasmus, Turnebus, the Scaligers, P. Manutius, Aidus Manutius, the younger, Casaubon, Fagius, the Moreles, Gesner, Fabricius, Morus, Glass, Capellus, Grotius, Usher, Lightfoot, Montfaucon, Vossius, Heinsius (father and son), Bochart, Meursius, Robert and Henry Stephens-all of them scholars of the very first order; to say nothing of the incomparable divines and illustrious authors of every sort and in every nation who flourished during the same period. Now, though all these were not living at the time our translation was made, yet a majority of them were contemporary with the translators, and they show the general character of the age-that it was the age of great men, especially of great scholars. The eighteenth century excelled it in science and works of taste. But for men of profound erudition, beyond all contradiction there never was such a period since the foundation of the world. The turn which the Reformation took, and the great controversy between the Papacy and its opposers, appealing at every step to the original languages of Scripture, made Greek and Hebrew what politics is now the great absorbing topic of the world. Critical editions of the Bible and of classical authors were published on a scale and in a style utterly unparalleled. The immense Thesaurus of the Greek language by Henry Stephens, the Rabbinical Lexicon of Buxtorf, the Arabic Lexicon of Golius, the Hierozoicon of Bochart, the twelve folio volumes of Meursius on Grecian antiquities, are but specimens of the thoroughgoing manner in which the scholars of that day handled every subject. It is impossible even to glance at their productions witbout a profound admiration of their scholarship, only equalled by the effrontery which would call it in question. Their very printers were learned men. Even their books of devotion are so crowded with Greek and Hebrew that many a sciolist of these days could not read a page of them without his lexicon and grammar, who yet would not blush to call himself a scholar, or to attempt, with some consulted aids,' to make a new translation of the Bible."-Princeton Essays. 120 VALUE OF THE AUTHORISED VERSION OF THE SCRIPTURES. occasionally happened that an individual, as inferior to them in erudition as in talents and integrity, is found questioning their motives or denying their qualifications for the task which they so well performed.* Their version has been used, ever since its first appearance, not only by the Church, but by all the sects which have forsaken her; and has been justly esteemed by all for its general faithfulness, and the severe beauty of its language. It may be compared with any translation in the world without fear of inferiority; it has not shrunk from the most rigorous examination; it challenges investigation; and, in spite of numerous attempts to supersede it, has hitherto remained unrivalled in the affections of the country." Section IX-Polygamy, and its bearing on this Question. 66 The validity of the argument for the lawfulness of marriage with the sister of a deceased wife, depends entirely upon the ability of those who maintain the affirmative to prove that polygamy was lawful in the sight of God, and being lawful cannot be condemned in Lev. xviii. 18, and that the phrase, a wife (a woman) to her sister," must mean two natural sisters, or sisters by blood. Both these propositions they affirm. The question is, Can they be made good? Unless they can, their whole Scripture argument falls to the ground. We affirm that they cannot be made good; and if even this negative affirmation can be maintained, though we could not make good the positive affirmation on the other side, their argument is shaken to its foundation. With the assertion that the phrase " wife (woman) to her sister," must mean two sisters by blood, and that the verse is a prohibition of the simultaneous marriage of such, while it actually warrants their marriage in succession, we have already dealt, and have the conviction that none but those who are sorely in want of an argument would peril a grave question on the narrow basis of the criticism of Robinson and Bush on the point. Bush himself does not. The assertion that polygamy was lawful under the Old Testament dispensation, must now be discussed. The question, then, is,-Has the doctrine of the lawfulness of polygamy any divine warrant in any part of the Old Testament? And is this so clear as to warrant the rejection of the marginal reading of Lev. xviii. 18? We assert the negative in both of these questions. Because, I. God originally declared and enacted that a man should have but one wife at a time, and vice versâ. The Lord Jesus Christ, who, in fact, was the original Lawgiver, expounded this enactment, and confirmed it as a statute that had never been repealed (Matt. xix.), and ought never to have been violated. This being the original law of marriage, and continuing, as all must admit it did, to be the law downwards from the creation to, at least, the time of Moses, it follows that the conduct of all polygamists whatsoever, previous to the time of Moses, was a violation of that original law; and our Lord held it to be so. Be their conduct or character in other respects what it may, certain it is that, in so far as they were polygamists, they were transgressors of that law of God under which they lived, and to which they were amenable, and to that extent, at least, were condemned thereby. The mere fact of their violating the law "could not make it of none effect." Even had Dr M'Caul not told us that "the law of Moses plainly sets forth that polygamy is opposed to the original constitution of *The italics are Whitaker's. BEARING OF POLYGAMY ON THE QUESTION. 121 marriage," we should have known, on the authority of God himself, that just as "the law which was four hundred years thereafter could not make the promise made to Abraham of none effect," so no more could the law of Moses, which was twenty-five hundred years after the enactment of the original law of marriage, and four hundred years after the violation of it by the latest polygamists previous to the time of Moses, disannul the condemnation which that original law, under which these polygamists lived, and which they had violated, had passed upon their conduct, or make that which was sin in them-" for sin is the transgression of the law"an approved example to any others, or a proof that what they did was no sin at all. The assertion to the contrary would be such an outrage on all common sense as well as on all Scripture principle, that it would require to be supported by something stronger than an inference drawn from a text the meaning of which is disputed. This is our first argument. - II. Our second is, that the law, as laid down by the same Supreme Lawgiver, the Lord Jesus Christ, undeniably now is, that polygamy is contrary to the will of God, and has been so from the time of Christ's manifestation in the flesh. He cannot be held a Christian who will dispute this. III. Our third argument is, that there is no evidence to warrant the belief or assertion that God, in the Mosaic code, repealed his own original enactment, or that Jesus Christ promulgated a new enactment, or reenacted a statute that had been divinely repealed; and without evidence to that amount, there is and can be no evidence that polygamy ever was at any time, or in any circumstances, or to any extent, sanctioned by divine authority. IV. Lastly, there is nothing in the character of the polygamists during the time of the Mosaic dispensation, from its beginning to its close, or in God's dealings with them, that warrants the conclusion that their conduct and example are of more authority in the sight of God than those of the ante-Mosaic polygamists, to set aside the authority of God's original enactment by an ex post facto effect, or to prove that the authority of the same Lawgiver, as asserted after that dispensation had come to a close, had not any application to the same effect in the intermediate period of that dispensation's existence. The argument contained in these four heads exhausts the question, and if it can be maintained, will settle the dispute. Section X-Polygamy Unlawful before the time of Moses. I. I request the reader's attention to the first argument, which, as it is of some length, I do not here repeat. The first statement it contains is in substance, that the Supreme Lawgiver, the Lord Jesus Christ, or, if you will, the I AM, Jehovah, of the Old Testament, prohibited polygamy at the first institution of marriage, in the following terms :-Gen. ii. 18, 22-24— "And the Lord said, It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make an help meet for him. . . . And the Lord God brought the woman unto the man, and Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his WIFE; and they shall be one flesh." Our Lord himself explains its meaning in Matt. xix. 3-6:-The Pharisees tempting him said, Is it lawful to put away his wife for every cause?" The answer is, 122 POLYGAMY UNLAWFUL BEFORE THE TIME OF MOSES. 66 "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning, made them male and female; and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh ? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." And to the captious question of the Pharisees cleaving to their corrupt tradition and ̄more corrupt practice, v. 7, "Why did Moses then COMMAND to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?" He replied, v. 8, Moses, because of the HARDNESS of your heart, SUFFERED you to put her away; but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery." The married_man and his wife are ONE, and no human authority must part them. "Let not man put asunder." It is a unity that neither of the parties can convey to any other parties without its destruction, and, consequently, without destroying the law of God. This is, and was at the first, God's constitution of marriage. Polygamy destroys it, and therefore runs in the face of the law of God. "Man" is prohibited by God from any such impiety. What God has done, let not "man” undo. Many important remarks might be drawn from this great original law of marriage. They are not necessary for our present argument, and I forbear. They will be found in Dwight; from whom I copy the following: 66 e-that "This is equally evident from the comment of Christ. After admitting that Moses permitted divorces, and assigning the reason for it, he first declares that the original law of marriage did not permit them; and then, with a single exception, abrogates the Mosaic permission. The original law did not allow of divorce in any case. He allows it in oneof incontinence. With this exception, he places the law of marriage on its original footing; and declares, in language which cannot be misunderstood, its real force and meaning: He who putteth away his wife, except for incontinence, and marrieth another, committeth adultery.' But in what does the adultery, thus committed by the husband, consist? Not in the mere putting away. That might be cruelty, but it is not adultery. Not in the mere marriage contract. If it had stopped at that, there would have been no adultery. It consisted in the fact, that, having one wife, he marries and has intercourse with another, before the first is dead or lawfully divorced. By the original law of marriage, therefore, as thus explained by Christ, the man who, having a wife, marries another, before the first is lawfully divorced, is guilty of adultery. But every polygamist does this: every polygamist therefore is guilty of adultery. Of course polygamy, according to the original law of marriage, is adultery." * On this permission of divorce, I remark, that our Saviour does not say that divorce was lawful for every or any cause. He says, the original law was, that husband and wife were one, and could not be parted; and this must continue throughout all time. When was this law enacted? When Adam was in innocence. It is, therefore, as much the law of God to all men, as is the law, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself." What was the import of the permission in the time of Moses? Not a sanction of divorce, or to any extent a repeal of the original law, but a relief to a woman unjustly and cruelly oppressed; not the relief to the man, as the Pharisees held it, from the law of God, * Dwight's "Hebrew Wife," p. 9. JUDGMENT OF OUR SAVIOUR-MALACHI II. 14-17. 123 which still remained in force, but a relief to the woman from the wickedness of man; for surely it will not be pretended that the "hard-heartedness" of a ferocious husband is a justification of that which God, under the Mosaic dispensation, declared he hated, viz., "putting away?" The original law remained then, and our Lord tells us remains still in all its force, unrepealed; but a relief to a poor woman from the oppression of man, now a sinner and violator of God's law, and an obligation that when his “hardheartedness" drove her away to make certain provisions for her protection, is no proof of a repeal of the original law, but the reverse. When the original law was made, there was no "hardness of heart," and the original law never was repealed. "Hardness of heart" in man could not make lawful a violation of God's law. Moses did not, as the Pharisees and other corrupters of the Word of God, by their traditions, said, "command.” to put her away. He commanded "to give her a written divorcement;" but our Lord says, he only "suffered" to put her away, because of the "hardness of their hearts"—to escape from her husband's brutality. But neither the original law, nor any other law, ever sanctioned the brutality; and the act, on the part of him who practised it, was a criminal violation of the law. She was left free to marry another man, because she had done no wrong; but the man who put her away was not permitted, in any circumstances, even though her second husband were dead, to marry her again, This is pronounced an abomination-Deut. xxiv. 1-4, "When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife: her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the Lord and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance." : : In connection with this particular subject we have to observe, that great light is thrown upon it by the prophet Malachi, proving that he at least did not consider the original law repealed, whether as regards polygamy or adultery. In chap.ii. 10-16, he, or rather God by him, reproves the Israelites with great severity, for their numerous divorces, and cruelty to their wives. His words are,- "Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the Spirit. And wherefore one ? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the Lord of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously. Ye have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?" This passage declares against the Israelites as plainly as language can do, both against their polygamy-that they had violated the original law, by which he |