that every fecond marriage was adultery; but here their learned and pious advocate, Dr. Cave, does allow, that "they "stretched the ftring till it cracked again."

I might alfo obferve, that, if polygamy was a fin, and even a national fin, an epidemical tranfgreffion of the law of GOD, it is very extraordinary that OUR LORD'S fore-runner, John the Baptift, who came to preach repentance, fhould not mention, nor even hint at it; for his commiffion ran thus—Luke i. 17. To turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, the difobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the LORD.

No man could have a fairer opportunity to bear his testimony against`a national fin, than the Baptist had; for it is faid (Matt. iii. 5.) Then went out to him Jerufalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan; and among the numbers who were baptized of him in fordan, confeffing their fins (ver. 6.) there were many barlots (chap. xxi. 32.) So that it is evident he did not fpare to inveigh most tharply against the fin of fleshly uncleanness; had polygamy been of this kind, he doubtlefs would have preached against it, which, if he had, fome trace would moft probably have been left of it, as

there

*

there is of his preaching against the fin of whoredom, by the barlots à opvat) being faid to believe on him; which they certainly would not have done, any more than the Scribes and Pharifees (Matt. xxi. 32.) if the preacher had not awakened them to a deep and real fenfe of their guilt, by fetting forth the heinousness of their fin. He exerted his eloquence alfo against public grievances, fuch as the extortion of the public officers of the revenue-the publicans-TENWYO tax-gatherers-likewife against the oppreffive methods used by the foldiery, who made it a cuftom either to take people's goods by violence, or to defraud them of their property, by extorting it under the terror of falfe accufation. Thefe were public grievances, against which the Baptift bore fo open a teftimony, that the publicans and foldiers came to him, faying-What Shall we do? This being the cafe, is it conceivable that a man of the Baptift's character, who was fo zealous for the honour of the law, as to reprove even a king to his face for adultery, should suffer, if polygamy be adultery, a whole nation, as it were, of public adulterers to stand be fore him, and not bear the leaft teftimony

*The word Topvar may fignify lewd women of

all forts.

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against

against them? I do not say this is a conclufive, but it is furely a very strong prefumptive argument, that in the Baptift's views of the matter, polygamy and adultery were by no means the fame thing.

*

Having finished, for the prefent, what I had to fay on the fubject of polygamy, as fuppofed to be condemned by the New Teftament, I must return back to the Old Testament, to fhew that polygamy was not only allowed in all cafes, but in fome commanded. The first inftance of this which I fhall mention, is with refpect to the law, Deut. xxv. 5-10. If brethren dwell together, and one of them die and have no child, the wife of the dead fhall not marry without unto a stranger: ber bufband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her. And it shall be that the firft-born which she beareth, fhall fucceed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Ifrael, &c.

This law muft certainly be looked upon as an exception from the general law (Lev. xviii. 16.) and the reason of it

*They are faid to dwell together, not only who were in the fame family, but in the fame country. Gen. xiii. 5, 6.

appears

appears in the law itself, viz.

" To

preferve inheritances in the families to "which they belonged." This was of the utmost confequence in the defigns of Providence refpecting the MESSIAH, whofe genealogy, with respect to his being of the feed of Abraham—the tribe of Judab-the family of David, was not more afcertained by his lineal defcent, than by the preservation of Bethlehem Ephrata in the tribe of Judah and family of David. By which it came to pass, that the prophecy concerning the very place of the MESSIAH'S birth was literally fulfilled (Comp. Mic. v. 2, with Matt. ii. 4, 5, 6, and Luke ii. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.) The Jewish *doctors, as Mr. Selden, in his Uxor Habraica, and others after him, observe, made feveral exceptions to this law; but as the text makes none, I know not that we are warranted in making any. Bishop Burnet feems to have had a right view of the matter, in his obfervation on the generality of this law. His words are"Yea, polygamy was made, in fome "cafes, a duty by Mofes's law; when any "died without iffue, his brother, or

*Their comments on the Old Teftament are about as much to be depended upon, in general, as the Popish comments upon the New. See Fulk. on Rhemish Teftament-per tot. " nearest

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"nearest kinfman, was to marry his

66

wife, for raifing up feed to him; and "all were obliged to obey this, under the "hazard of infamy if they refused; nei"ther is there any exceptions made for "fuch as were married; from whence I

may faithfully conclude, that what "Gop made neceffary in fome cafes, to any degree, can in no cafe be finful "in itself, fince GOD is holy in all his ways. And thus far it appears that polygamy is not contrary to the law and "nature of marriage."

I am indebted for the above quotation. to the before-mentioned reverend Dean's book on polygamy, wherein the Dean feems a little comforted by the Bishop's having faid, that " he was at a distance "from his books and papers, when he gave his opinion on this point."

This," adds he, "was the beft excuse "that could be given for fo rash a de

cifion, which it would have been for "the honour of his reading to have re

tracted, and which, I fincerely with "he had retracted, when he returned to "his books."

The good Dean, in his zear against polygamy, don't give himfelf time to confider the foundness of the learned prelate's opinion.

*See before, p. 117-119.

As