permit the woman to depart from a lewd, tyrannical, and fickle hufband, and to be allowed the privilege of marrying another man, than to be constrained, against mutual inclination, to cohabit with him at the fame time that he hath another wife to fhare in his affections-perhaps wholly to engrofs them?

To fet this Author's hypothefis in the true point of abfurdity and contradiction, nothing more is required than to state it. Let our impartial Readers judge.-Mofes, from a tender concern for the peace of families, and more particularly from a generous regard to the woman's happiness and fecurity, commanded,. that, if a man had conceived an infuperable diflike to his wife, he fhould give her a bill of divorcement. By this inftrument, drawn up in form, and properly executed, according to the prescribed rites of the Mofaic law, he difclaimed her as his property, and gave her the free and uncontrouled liberty of a virgin or a widow. This bill authorifed her marriage with anoIt was never fuppofed to difgrace her; it chiefly reflected on the caprice and cruelty of her husband. It was ordained to prevent domeftic difcords, and chiefly provided for the woman's fecurity and happiness. It delivered her from the fcorn, neglect, and oppreffion of the man, whofe hardness of heart (sxλnpoxapdia, as cur Saviour expreffes it, Matth. xix. 8.) might have laid a foundation for endlefs vexations and contentions, from which even the innocence of the woman could be no protection, as long as she was under any obligation to cohabit with him.

ther man.

{

hated

But on Mr. Madan's hypothefis, the Chriftian law, instead of relieving, rather aggravates the diftrefs and bondage of and injured wife. The husband, it is true, is not allowed to difmifs her; but he hath the privilege of doing what is still more cruel and infupportable. He may take another wife beneath his roof-yea many wives into his bofom-and thus add infult to neglect, and increase all the evils that may arife from jealoufy on the one hand, and exultation on the other!

ξυγγαμοις. δυςμενες μαλις αει.

Eurip. Androm.

Now we ask, which difpenfation (if Mr. Madan's conjecture be true) breathes moft the spirit of juftice and impartiality, benevolence and peace? [We know what the women would f y,' But left they should be fuppofed to be too much interested in the queftion, to be capable of giving a fair and unbiafied anfwer, we confidently lodge the appeal with every man who is not a tyrant or a debauchee.]

There is a text, fays Mr. Madan, in the Old Testament, which is looked upon by fome to be a direct forb ddance of polygamy, for it ftands the margin of our Bibles-Thou shalt not

Y 4

take

take one wife to another; but it is tranflated in the text― Neither . halt thou take a wife to her SISTER, to vex her, in her life-time. Lev. xviii. 18. Now I would obferve, that the marginal reading-one wife to another-difunites entirely the 18th verfe from the preceding context to which it belongs: this only treats of marriages which are unlawful with refpect to affinity.' This reason is a most fallacious one indeed! The text in question is not introduced into the midst of the clafs of marriages rendered illegal with refpect to affinity,' as Mr. Madan would infinuate; but begins a fresh subject, without any more abrupt tranfition than what is made in the 19th, 20th, and 21ft verfes, and onward (Vid. the chapter). Here is no forced or unnatural difunion. No fubject is broken off by this text, and afterwards refumed. The catalogue of marriages rendered unlawful, by too near degrees of confanguinity, begins at the 6th verfe, and ends with the 17th. The fucceeding verfes treat of other unlawful connections; and in fpite of Mr. Madan's reafon, it is juft as confiftent with every rule of propriety, that polygamy fhould be forbidden in the eighteenth verfe, as uncleanness, adultery, and fome unnatural crimes in those which immediately follow.

We do not affirm, with fome learned commentators, that this paffage contains a full and abfolute prohibition of polygamy, because the expreffion in the original may be thought somewhat equivocal. It is however very certain, that the words will bear the tranflation given of them in the margin of our Biblesviz. " one wife to another." Mr. Madan indeed feems to think he hath faid fomething to the purpose, by observing, ' that

n is ufed four times in other parts of the chapter, and neceffarily fignifies, as our tranflators have rendered it-a fifter.' Not neceffarily, however:-for in the paffage in difpute, the word is ufed as an idiom, and not in its fimple and common acceptation, as it evidently is in the other parts of the chapter.

2

-is a mode of phrafeology peculiar to the He אשה אל אחותה

brew language, and denotes a general union of any beings or things that have the fame common nature, whether animate or inanimate, rational or brutal, as the learned Reader will be convinced by comparing the following texts in the original; Gen. xxvi. 31. Exod. xxvi. 3. Exek. i. 9. Chap. iii. 13. Joel, ii. 8.

Befide, it may be remarked, that the reafon alleged in the text to discountenance the connection referred to, holds equally good against polygamy in general, as against any particular species of it. "Thou shalt not take a wife to her fifter, to vex her, in her life-time." Why was fuch a reafon as this given to forbid fuch an alliance? Would a fifter be more inclined to promote do

any

meftic jars and vexations than other woman man? Could a man promife himself greater peace and fecurity from the good agreement of two strangers than of two fifters? Mr. Madan, indeed, might inftance the cafe of Rachel and Leah. But it is evident, that the principal fource of their difagreement arose from the fraudulent impofition and jealousy of the one, and the resentment and cutting reflections of the other; which would have happened, independent of any affinity between them, as was afterwards the cafe in the family of Elkanah (1 Sam. i.).If the text be rendered, according to the established idiom of the Hebrew language" thou shalt not take one wife to another"then the reafon drawn from conjugal happiness and domeftic harmony, appears peculiarly ftriking and forcible. "Thou fhalt not take one wife to another, to vex her, in her life-time:" that is, to torture (as would probably be the cafe) the heart of the first wife with jealoufy, and expofe her to infult and ill treatment. Now this is a general reafon against polygamy, confidered in its common and univerfal tendency: whereas, on Mr. Madan's fuppofition, though the reafon be general, and fuch as will fuit all polygamous cafes, yet the alliance, it is urged againft, is peculiar and fpecific!-But partiality, and an undue fondness for a darling fyftem, feldom keep terms with confiftency or found logic.

The contracted limits of our Journal will not permit us to examine all the proofs and authorities which Mr. Madan hath produced in fupport of his fubject from the Old Testament; but we cannot conclude this article, without taking particular notice of his laboured, but ineffectual, attempt to prove, that polygamy is perfectly confiftent with the genius and precepts of the Chriftian religion.

With respect to the New Teftament, fays he, the subject of polygamy, fimply confidered, is not fo much as mentioned, either good or bad.'. .. When St. Paul fays, that a Bishop or a Deacon is to be the husband of one wife, it certainly carries in it a tacit allowance of polygamy, as to the lawfulness of it, with regard to all other men;-not that it was finful in one more than in another, but this was a prudential caution in that diftreffed and infant ftate of the church.'

Now, to draw an inference in favour of polygamy for the. benefit of the laity, from St. Paul's prohibition of it to the cler-gy, is a method of reafoning perfectly worthy of the Author and his caufe! The oppreffive mifer, the grofs fenfualift, the "foldier full of ftrange oaths, jealous of honour, fudden and quick in quarrel," might all plead the authority of St. Paul to excufe their vices for they might fay (with Mr. Madan's good leave) that, it is to Bishops, and not to carnal laymen, that

:

he directs his charge, "not to be given to wine, to be no ftrikers, nor brawlers, nor greedy of filthy lucre."

There is one paffage in the New Teftament which Grotius, Whitby, and other learned commentators, Have regarded as fo decifive and pointed against polygamy, that nothing farther need be fard to difcountenance the practice of it amongft Chriftians. This friking paffage is found in 1 Cor. vii. 2, &c. "Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and every wife her own hufband."

As this text, fays our Author, hath been and is looked upon, as a direct proof of the unlawfulness of polygamy amongst Chriftians, let us give it a thorough confideration. In the firft place, let us reftore it to its genuine words: for our tranflators have introduced fomething in it which is not in the original. The Words in the Greek are-Dia de Tas Tóрveras-the verb to' avoid is not there. The words ras opvelas which we tranflate fornication, are plural and not fingular, and fhould be rendered fornications or the fornications;-they being in the accufative" cafe, are governed, not by the verb, to avoid, which is net in the text, but by the prepofition dia, which is. This prepofition, dia, hath various meanings, according to the cafe it governs. Sometimes it governs a genitive; fometimes an accufative, and then it may fignify-for-So Dr. Hammond renders it here" but for fornications :"-alfo-with respect to-as towith regard to- quod attinet ad, &c. Vid. ver. 26. dia τnv avaguny, &c.

The context fhews very plainly, that what Paul fays, is in anfwer to fome queftions put to him by letter, and fent to him at Philippi, where he appears to have been and if we may judge of the queftions by the anfwer, which is furely a1 fair way of judging, they probably concerned a very infamous, but common practice, that of married men lending out or even marrying wives to other people, and of courfe the married women going from their own husbands to other men.'

This arbitrary and groundless conjecture being exalted into a clear and decifive conclufion, our fagacious Commentator offers the following explanation of the whole paffage, by way of paraphrafe: Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote to me-I fay firft in general, though not for the reasons which some of your philofophers have given, nor for thofe which the Gnoftics have fuggefted, as if marriage was wrong or finful in itself, but for prudential reafons arifing from the fituation of things at this time it is good (xahov, ufeful, profitable) for a man not to touch a woman to have no dealings with the other sex. (See Matth. xix. 11, 12.) But with respect to the fornications you mention, and concerning which you defire to know my fenti

ments,

ments, I answer, conformably to the law of God, which ordains that a man fhall cleave to his wife," &c.—let every man have his wife-Tw quaixa exure--the woman who belongs to him; and not lend her out, or fuffer her to marry another; nor let him take a woman who is not yʊvn ɛxurz, i. e. his wife, but another man's, to himself. So alfo let every married woman have her own proper husband, Tov idiev audpa-the man appropriated to her, exclusively of all other men upon earth; and not depart or fuffer herself to be lent or given, to any other man.'

In the fupport of this laboured explanation of a very obvious paffage, the Author examines, with an appearance but it is only an appearance-of great critical exactnefs and precifion, the ideas which the Apoftle meant to convey by the words έχειν, εαυτες and above all, idioon each of which he hath beltowed un+ common pains, only to difcover, in the iffue, the weakness of that cause which required so much sophistry and evasion to give it even the colour of probability.

We before took notice of the new turn which this writer hath artfully given to the prepofition dix. Here we would alfo remark, that through the whole New Teftament it is never used in the fenfe to which he hath perverted it in his paraphrafe. He hath confounded it with Tep-which we meet with in the verfe immediately preceding for as to the inftance he produces (under the cover of Dr. Hammond's refpectable name) from 1 Cor. vii, 26, it by no means ferves his purpofe; fince dia any avayunu may be literally rendered on account of ne ceffity," &c. Thus dia, in the controverted text, ought to have the fame meaning affixed to it, and fimply, and without any forced conftruction, implies-that " on account of the hazard of fornication, and every other fpecies of lewdness, every man ought to have his own wife, and every woman her own husband." We repeat our affertion, refpecting this word; and defy Mr. Madan to produce a fingle inftance, in all the New Teftament, in which dia may be fairly and unequivocally rendered according to the idea he hath affixed to it in his com

ment.

The falfe ftep which our Critic made at the threshold, was rather ominous of his future ill luck in his progrefs through the other part of the text.

When (continues, he) the Apostle faith, exa505 TWV EQUт8) Juvaina EXET, he certainly uses the verb exw in a larger fenfe than merely having. This verb fignifies to poffefs-retain ; -which is to continue the poffeffion of.' The Author fhrewdly: gives this turn to the word, in order to afford fome little colour to his application of the paffage to the question, which he sup-s pofed, by an arbitrary and moft unwarrantable ftretch of con-i

jecture,