CHA P. I. O On POLYGAM Y. F all the schemes that have been communicated to the world, within the compass of my obfervation, whofe declared objects have been public happiness and public utility, none has been more remote from the proposed end, than that of Polygamy; for if we estimate this practice by the rules of found reason, the apparent evils, which are, and ever must be, the consequence of it, in the common course of things, demonstrate it to be destructive of human felicity; and therefore no friend to fociety can confiftently advise its introduction. It tends at once to open a door to the licentious gratification of the most uncontroulable luft, and tyrannic cruelty; to promote domestic quarrels, and all the horrid and alarming confequences of the most enraged jealoufies; not to mention the neglect of the education of youth, on which the very existence and well well-being of a ftate neceffarily depend, with an innumerable train of other mifchiefs, the appendages of thofe already mentioned. POLYGAMY is equally abhorrent from Scripture, Nature, and Common-fense. The general tenour of the Scriptures militates against the idea of a plurality of wives :it is inconfiftent with the ftrictness of the conjugal union, as enjoined and exemplified by God himself in his institution of marriage, contrary to all the plain precepts of the Bible, as well as the New Teftament, repugnant to the conjugal difcipline folemnly commanded by Chrift, and particularly fo to that illustration of it by his Apostle St. Paul, the defcription of the relative duties of husband and wife. BUT when I hear it alledged, that some particular detached paffages of Scripture,obfcure, odd, and unpromifing in themfelves, when feparated from the whole, but otherwife rational and confiftent-do make polygamy a duty, I am led to take the fenfe of Scripture P 3 Scripture in general, to compare Spiritual things with fpiritual; or, in other words, to reafon by analogy, from fimilar terms and phrases in the New Testament, as they allude to literal ones in the Old, and are applied to the divine accomplishments; that so I may come to that knowledge of the Bible which is fpiritual, and not take it according to its literal import, for in that fense it is a law of carnal ordinance and carnal commandments only, (Heb. vii. 16. and ix. 10.) When I have finished this procefs, and find Monogamy the language of Scripture confidered as a system, I am neceffarily led to this conclufion, that the afferter of the contrary doctrine is mistaken, which is highly probable from being led away by the obfcurity of a fingle paffage in Scripture, without ever attending to, or contemplating others, that are more explicit and explanatory of it;or elfe that the Scriptures are inconfiftent and felf-contradictory, which is impoffible.. FROM particular Scripture paffages, detaching thofe from the context, and that from the Scripture in general, and the arbi trary trary exposition of those paffages, have arisen all the errors that ever infested and plagued the Church and as to the fathers of them, who pretend to be reformers, but in reality are oppofers, of our ecclefiaftical establishment, they appear to be much in the fame predicament as the pretended reformers of our civil establishment :—when I contemplate the features of both, I discover a ftriking likeness and malignity, which I would most certainly proceed to defcribe, was it not foreign to my prefent undertaking. THE laws of all well-regulated states have prohibited polygamy, which proves, at least, that it is a civil inconvenience; and indeed the general fuffrage of the wiser and better part of mankind has done the fame; nor was it practised in the first and pureft ages of the world, which feems to intimate that it is contrary to Nature and Common-fense; and I doubt not but this will appear incontrovertibly true, when those things are confidered more at large. If what I have thus curforily obferved has any verifimilitude, polygamy may be properly faid to be a moral offence, and a civil inconvenience:-this appears to me, from an impartial view of things, to be matter of fact, but I defire the reader to confider it only as an unfupported affertion, till he has perufed the following sheets→→→ after which he will know how to difpofe of it-I mean whether to admit, or reject it— without any previous directions. FROM the active part I have taken in this business, I am confcious I have facrificed, in fome meafure, my eafe, quiet, and, perhaps, reputation, to the ill-natured invectives of prejudice, and the thundering condemnation of an imperious temper ;-as the first characters in the Church have been wantonly abused, merely because they thought differently from a certain individual on a certain fubject; the humblest of her fons cannot expect better treatment ;-indeed, ere long, he expects from a certain quarter the accufation of folly, ignorance, and |