POLYGAMY AMONG THE AFFGHANS.

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gamy was lawful, a man had no great need to put away one wife to get another; because he might have had them both. But because he knew that two were unlawful, he wished to get quit of the first to get at a second. If any one will read Hume's short and vigorous Essay on Polygamy,* and the picture he gives of its brutalising, disgusting, and cruel effects, he will blush to own the doctrine that God himself ever sanctioned a system so abominable; and will find that the reputed atheist rebukes some Christian moralists.t

If I have succeeded in proving that polygamy was never held lawful in the sight of God, but was a violation of his law in every case in which it occurred, then what has been called by Dr Robinson "the historical difficulty" to the reception of the marginal reading in our Bibles has been removed also. It is too much to assume that because polygamy existed even in the case of men, whom God of his grace highly favoured, therefore it could not be forbidden in Lev. xviii. 18.

CHAPTER IV.

THE EFFECTS OF THE OPPOSITE OPINIONS.

If there be force in the preceding arguments, and the illustrations adduced in their support, to prove the unlawfulness in the sight of God of marriage with the sister of a deceased wife, it may be expected that they will receive confirmation from a brief consideration of the effects of the opposite opinions, both in relaxing the law on the subject in question, and in publicly declaring, either by the law of the state or of the church, that such marriages are no longer to be considered unlawful in the sight of God or

man.

There are two aspects in which these effects may be contemplated. One, the effects on the principles of religion and morals. Another, the effects, actual or probable, on social morality and social peace, happiness, and safety.

* Hume's Essays, vol. iii.

·

The following passage from a modern writer throws some light on the effects of polygamy:-"The Affghans generally think nothing of the death of a wife. When my husband was in Affghanistan, he was several times asked, Are you married?' 'No; my wife is dead.' 'We hear you are very sorry when your wives die; did you weep?? Yes, I did.' Whereupon they were struck dumb with astonishment that any one could feel the death of a wife so strongly. Why should we grieve?' said they, there are plenty of others;' and yet these are men of warm feelings, capable of strong attachments and sympathy; but this only makes the fact more evident, that any violation of the law written in the hearts of all, or of the arrangements of the Creator, to say nothing of his revealed aws, brings with it its own punishment. Polygamy has destroyed every thing like domestic and family ties. Sometimes nature reasserts her right, and produces strong attachment between husband and wife, brother and brother-but this is the exception; and that this state of things is produced by polygamy, and not merely by ignorance of true religion, is proved by the example of the ancient Romans during the period when divorce was unknown, and when the wife, being the sole and lifelong partner of her husband, gave him not only a help-meet, but a home and domestic hearth,-ideas unknown to Mahometans. There must be a mater familias before true family ties can exist."-Life in the Mission, the Camp, and the Zenana.

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EFFECTS OF OPPOSITE OPINIONS ON PRINCIPLE.

Section I.-Effects of opposite opinions on the principles of Religion and Morals.

In regard to the first of these, viz., the effects of the opposite opinions on the principles of religion and morals, no one can have looked into the writings, speeches, and arguments of the advocates of the lawfulness of such marriages without being struck with the opposite and inconsistent grounds on which they endeavour to base their arguments and reach their conclusions, and with what reckless disregard of the effects of such inconsistencies the hired agents of the parties seeking a change in the present opinions and laws of the church and state in Great Britain pursue their end. Judging by their conduct, they seem to care little for anything else than its attainment. Many of them seem only anxious to exhibit the proofs of their zeal and success, so that they may earn their reward from their employers. It is impossible not to reflect with severity on the facility with which many ministers of the gospel give their names and opinions to serve them, when it is plain to every man who has studied the question that they are utterly incompetent to give any intelligent decision on the subject.

Mr Dwight gives the following graphic description of the inconsistencies of American writers. It is every whit as applicable to writers in this country:

"The most natural and obvious mode of conducting this discussion would be simply to ascertain what marriages are pronounced incestuous by the Scriptures. This course I would gladly take, were it possible; but those who advocate innovations on the ancient law of incest have supported their scheme by very different arguments. Some of them contend that the incest prohibited in the Scriptures is merely incestuous fornication or adultery, and that no marriage can be incestuous; others, that consanguinity is the sole scriptural ground of incest, and that it cannot exist in any case of mere affinity; others, that the Levitical prohibitions were intended merely to preserve the natural supremacy of the husband; others, that the Levitical law prohibits marriage with certain women while they are the wives of other men, but not after they become widows; others, that the law of incest was either merely ceremonial, or merely the national law of Israel, and in neither case binding on us; others, that incest is merely a positive offence, and therefore not a crime in its own nature; others, that we are subject to no law of incest whatever, but that all marriages are lawful; others, that marriage with a wife's sister is authorised in the Scriptures, and is in itself particularly proper; and others, that it is in vain to amend the laws of any one state, and leave those of the other states as they are."

It is obviously impossible for the great proportion of ordinary minds to peruse the documents of the London Society, which seeks its ends by all these ways of argumentation, without having their beliefs utterly unsettled on the most important principles of Bible truth and authority, and on the most essential principles of civil government and social purity and peace. They are labouring hard to unsettle the belief and confidence of the people in the authoritative obligation of any principles or laws relating to the intercourse of the sexes at all; and such questions as the lawfulness of polygamy, and of the grossest incestuous connections, are being tossed into their

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crucible, and resolved on such principles as to leave it in doubt, at least, if the hideous crimes enumerated in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans be crimes at all. We know that with human beings, whom all heathenism shows, by the corruption of human nature, to be little better, when without God's law, than brute beasts, to doubt, in matters where brutal passion drives them on, is absolute destruction. The astonishing thing is that society in Great Britain does not raise a storm of indignation against men advocating the principles we have had occasion to review. Popery, as it has always done, has grievously injured the truth and law of God by its unauthorised additions; and infidelity swings to the opposite extreme. The question at issue in this controversy we believe to be the turningpoint between unauthorised prohibitions on the one hand, and licentious indulgence on the other. There are certain things which the Jewish writers style premunimenta, or outposts of the law, on this subject. The question in debate we believe to be one of the munimenta,-a part and parcel of the citadel itself. Much as we dread the fatal effects, practically, of legalising the marriages in question, we dread infinitely more the fatal consequences of the principles by which such an issue is sought to be attained. The principles of the Libertarians go to the subversion of all the barriers set up by the law of God to deter men from abominations that have ever been at once the cause and the effect of debasing the understanding, corrupting the heart, and exciting the ferocity of humanity-in a word, destroying man, both soul and body, and filling society, not only with impurity, but cruelty and bloodshed. I believe that the Libertarians cannot maintain their argument without totally setting aside Scripture altogether, as containing any law on the matters of incest, polygamy, and kindred abominations; or, what is infinitely worse, establishing an universal system of unbridled lust on Scripture authority. Mr Binney and others may talk as they please of the "holy and purified instincts of Christianity," or of "the present condition of English society," or "modern delicacy;" but the floods of human passion, even in the breasts of Englishmen, if we are to believe themselves, and to judge from their crimes of the deepest dye, will not be rolled back by any such trashy sentimentalism. Whatever be the present tone of English society and every one knows it needs all its elevation-it owes all to very different principles than those of such an Antinomian NeologicoPuseyite character as are maintained by such writers as Mr Binney.

I believe and any one who will attentively peruse their writings must see- -1. That the principles of the Libertarians subvert the Old Testament as a rule of faith and manners altogether, and, by consequence, the New also. Their common mode of speaking of Moses, as legislating, as any mere human legislator, on practices and principles peculiar to orientals and special classes and nations, at the very time that God speaks in his own name, and that, too, in regard to those relations of human society that are permanent and universal, evidently reduces the Word of God to the level of an ordinary code of principles and morals of no higher authority than the laws of Menu, Zoroaster, or Mahomet.

2. They argue the question on principles that are subversive, not only of the Old Testament, as being of any divine authority to bind the consciences of Christians, but on principles that are subversive of the moral law, and thus of all social morality. Here I refer not merely to such Antinomian principles as those of Mr Binney, which declare that the Christian is not under law to God, but is to be left to the direction of his own

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PRINCIPLES PERNICIOUS IN MANY RESPECTS.

inner life, or "purified instincts;" but to the fact that they set aside the plain, undeniable original law of God, as declared by our Lord himself, by pleading the examples of those who, at the best, were fallible and sinful men, and were themselves, as much as any other man, only debtors to the grace of God, and the righteousness which is by faith, for being delivered from the wrath to come.

3. By arguing that the law of the levirate, Deut. xxv. 5-10, is universally applicable, or, which is the same thing, involves a principle that is universally applicable,-viz., that what God permitted and enjoined in that case cannot be sin in any other case, they maintain a principle which is as applicable to the immediate descendants of our first parents as to that of the levirate, and that teaches, as Maimonides says, "many incests,”— even an endless succession of them.

4. By teaching that polygamy had no sin in it, but was permitted and sanctioned by God in ancient times, then, on their own principle, that God would not permit or sanction any thing sinful, they teach that polygamy is not sinful, or contrary to the divine will now; and it will not be easy to see how they who believe and teach such a doctrine will not be polygamists, so soon as it suits themselves, and the laws and customs of the country where they happen to dwell will permit. Nay, as polygamy is legalised in Eastern lands, there is nothing to prevent men of wealth going there to marry several wives, as they now do contrary to law, in the case of a sister-in-law.

5. On the principle that in these respects men have rights and privileges above women for some mysterious reasons, at which Dr Eadie, Mr Binney, and others hint, but ordinary men cannot discover, they degrade woman into the position of a Turkish slave of the harem, the effects of which it would not be very pleasant for Christian men to describe.

6. Many of them directly teach-and the whole of the agitators for the repeal of the present law of marriage avail themselves of those teachers and their teaching to effect their ends-that the Bible has no laws against incestuous marriages. Nothing is wanting, therefore, to sanction, and ultimately to legalise, the most abominable incestuous marriages of the heathen, but the frequency of the practice of them.

7. By encouraging men and women to break the law of their country, at the instigation of passion or personal convenience, and without any moral obligation to constrain them, on the pretence or even belief that there is no law of God to prohibit such marriages, they are subverting the obligation of law and government, as an ordinance which God hath ordained for his own glory and the good of man; and all who aid and abet in such a cause are highly guilty before God.

8. By searching out, by means of a regularly organised and well-paid agency, cases of such marriages in the lowest and most degraded classes of the community, and parading them as necessities of society, they destroy natural modesty, outrage common decency, and actually confer a bounty on such parties to publish their shame. Let a bounty be offered to men and women to make known their shame, not only with impunity, but with an air of virtuous freedom, and the lists of crimes and criminals will soon be extended enough.

9. By pleading the number of parties who have brought themselves into distress and difficulties by breaking the law, and then asserting the badness of the law, because it is so frequently broken, and evil consequences have accrued to its violators, they furnish a plea that is as good for sanctioning

ACTUAL EFFECTS PERNICIOUS.

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fornication and adultery, and every other crime, as for sanctioning the marriages in question. The same agencies, with the same means, and among the same parties, can easily supply the legislature with a greater number of cases of the former than of the latter sort.

Conscientiously holding these views, and believing that the preceding discussion fully warrants them, I cannot but hold the principles by which these men seek to gain their end to be most perilous, unchristian, immoral, and debasing, and therefore to be detested and strenuously resisted.

Section II.-Effects actual or probable of Legalising such Marriages.

There is another aspect in which the effects of legalising the marriages in question may be viewed,-viz., as actual or probable,-on social morality and domestic peace, happiness, and safety.

It is a well-known fact, exhibited in many frightful instances in the Bible, recognised even as a principle of law in modern times, verified in the history of mankind, and awfully demonstrated in the records of criminal courts, that cruelty and lust, impurity and bloodshed, are fearfully allied. Every thing that tends to break down the just and reasonable barriers which God has raised to restrain the gratification of impure passions, is not only a restraint and check upon impurity, but upon cruelty and violence. Every one who can read and observe, knows what multitudes of murders and acts of violence are the fruit of impure passions, and the danger, consequently, of diminishing the horror of their indulgence. To go no farther, look at the cases of Rush and the Mannings in England, Kirwan in Ireland, and the late Glasgow murders in Scotland.*

One, among many others, of the wise, and holy, and beneficent ends of the prohibitions of marriage within certain degrees, is to extend, as many writers, both Jewish and Christian, have well observed, the blessings of family friendships and alliances. The delightful enjoyment of paternal and fraternal intercourse reproduced, and descending and extended in the relations of uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, brothers and sisters-inlaw, is one of the greatest elements of human happiness. Let the present law be altered, and one or other, or both of two things will inevitably happen, to an extent we little dream of at present. Either this intercourse will instantly be chilled by the necessity and propriety of the caution and reserve that do, and which all men, especially parents, feel ought, to regulate the intercourse of the sexes in well-ordered and virtuous societies. Or, from the very familiarity of intercourse, and strength of endearment which such relations imply, those crimes which are of too frequent occurrence already, where such facilities are afforded, if once they lose the character of incest, will become frightfully common. Jealousies on the one hand, and intrigues and seductions on the other, will follow in their train. Happy it is that in this country at least we have not a great stock of actual facts to make out our case. It is not so much a case for argument, as it is a case to be left to the personal experience and sense of propriety of every one in a position to form a judgment. I believe that it could be made out, could we get access to the actual facts, that in almost every one of the cases where marriage has ensued between a man and the sister of his deceased wife, the attachment has been formed, and the arrangement contemplated, before the first wife was removed from the stage of time. * The history of Nunneries furnishes an illustration of the same terrible truth.