CHA P. II.

REMARKS on the INTRODUCTION and

WHE

PREFACES.

'HEN there are faults in any inftitution, human or divine, they can only be removed, I admit, by reverting to first principles: but it is common with weak and defigning men, who see those faults, or imagine they see them, (for they are fometimes invented, when they cannot be found) to point out their Prevention and Remedy by a favourite fcheme, the object of which is often far from being commendable. Hence many abfurd Hypotheses are industriously propagated and laboriously defended. If these were acknowledged to be, what they really are, the offspring of fancy and imagination, they would have more claim to our pardon, and be less injurious to the uninformed part of mankind; but to father them on the Holy Scriptures is really unpardonable, and fhocking to reflection. The author before us, at his first setting out, gravely and modeftly tells

us

us that his treatife is "on the authority "of the Holy + Scriptures." Such affertions fhould be proved before advanced, and till this is done confiftently, fully, and fatisfactorily, they deferve no credit. Many have abused the Gospel-difpenfation to fanctify vile fchemes, and the learned, as well as the unlearned, have fometimes wrefted the Scriptures to their own fanciful ideas: whether or not this is applicable in the prefent cafe, is an enquiry of fome importance, and will meet in these Remarks full difcuffion,

I AM glad to find in the author's preface to his fecond edition of Thelyphthora, which edition is the object of my animadverfions, that he is fenfible of the abuse of § partial quotations, and that the consequence is misreprefentation. He fays he is a Freethinker, and I believe him, according to the common acceptation of the word; and from his contempt of rational customs, human systems, councils, writings of the Primitive Fathers, Christians, &c. I fhould not wonder at his disclaiming all authority but his own.

It is afferted that the evils, which Thelyphthora is defigned to prevent and remedy,

arife from the neglect and contempt of the

true.

"divine law, and the fubftitution of human "laws in its ftead." When marriage, according to its fcriptural description, ceases to have the fanction of human laws, and when adultery and fornication do not call down the refentment of courts; then, but not till then, this obfervation will be literally But at present this is not the cafe, as will appear hereafter; therefore in direct oppofition to Madan, I affert that the laws "of Heaven" are the foundation of our municipal laws. When I contemplate this idea, I cannot but be fhocked at hearing them called "a fyftem of bafeness and barbarity." This is an unbecoming warmth, and deferves cenfure. Probably they may want a Revifion and Amendment; but I am confident, that neither Holy Scripture, nor Reafon, nor Neceffity, warrant fuch an alteration of our national fyftem of laws, as is here recommended.

I AM by no means wedded to any system, as I have already declared, any further than it is fcriptural and rational; and though human Legislators fhould determine otherwife, it is my firm refolve to retain those moral inftitutes of divine wisdom that respect marriage in particular, and are evidently calculated to promote conjugal happiness. And I cannot but admit that the moral law, delivered by Mofes to the Ifraelites, fo far as it has for its object the good of fociety, and is not merely local, is unchangeable as its Author; and therefore ftill in force: but the Jewish morality is not all of that defcription, as must be evident to every perfon of discernment, and in particular with respect to Matrimony; therefore arguments drawn from thence do not deserve much attention.

I HAVE only to add in this chapter, what I have omitted in course, that Madan's afcribing the rapid fale of his book to its own merit, and fuppofing" that it hath made its (4 way by dint of that intrinfic truth that "it contains the importance of the sub

"jects treated; the important ends pro

pofed; and the conformity to the oracles "of God which it profeffedly makes the "bafis of its contents;" difcover at once his weakness and his vanity. But these appear still more striking, and I may add more disgusting, in his affuming the awful consequence of a meffenger from Heaven, and affecting to draw a parallel between the characters of the first Reformers, and his own, the oppofition to each, and their objects.

СНАР.