fenfe, 1 Cor. v. 1. AS CHRIST most probably fpake in Hebrew, it is to be fuppofed, by the Evangelift's delivering to us the word opvela, that CHRIST expreffed Himself by the word, which fignifies -whoredom in general.

When we fpeak of divorce, we must always pre-fuppofe a lawful marriage, I mean fuch a one as is lawful according to the law of GOD. Thofe which were forbidden of GOD in thofe pofitive laws, Deut. vii. 3. with refpect to connections with the heathen, as well as those which we find prohibited Lev. xviii. by reason of confanguinity and affinity, were not only voidable, but void* in themselves, after they were forbidden by thofe pofitive laws.

*The laws against marriages with heathen women, muft not be understood to affect the validity of marriages with fuch as were profelyted to the worship of the true GOD, from the worship of idols. Such women, being out of the mifchief which thofe laws were enacted to provide against-that of corrupting and turning their hufbands from God to idols (fee Deut. vii. 4.-were certainly out of the intention of it, and were indeed as much members of the church of God, as the Jewish women themselves were. Such were Rahab-Ruth, and others mentioned in fcripture as married to men in the holy line. See Pf. xlv. 10, 11. Of this number we muft alfo reckon Solomon's wife Naamah, the Ammonites, (the mother of Rehoboam) whom Solomon married a year before he came to the throne of Ifrael, when his heart was filled with zeal for GOD's law-the neglect of which, in his more advanced years, plunged him into grofs idolatry. See I Kings xi. 1, 2, 3.

But

But amongst all thofe laws, there is not the leaft trace of forbidding marriage, or enjoining divorce, on account of any preengagement whatsoever on the man's fide. Wherefore all our divorces on that account, which we derive from human invention and church-power, are without God's authority, therefore unlawful in His fight, as putting afunder thofe who ought not to be feparated. Had the law of GOD forbidden a man to have more than one wife at a time, all but the first must have been put away, and that by the fentence of the magiftrate, for the fame reason that the Jews, in Ezra's time, were commanded to put away the idolatrous women whom they had married; because it would have been contrary to God's pofitive law* to have kept them-fee before vol. 1. p. 136. So John the Baptift told Herod, who had married his brother Philip's wife-" It is not "lawful for thee to have her." Matt. xiv. 4. EXEI AUTY-to retain her. He was doubt

;

દ

酋

lefs bound to put her away, fince GoD himself had, as it were, forbidden the banns (Lev. xviii. 16.) even fuppofing the brother had been dead; for he had a daughter by Herodias living, named Salome, who

*The law against marrying with Heathens, though pofitively enacted, Deut. vii, 3. yet fubfifted before, as may appear from what JACOB's fons faid, Gen. xxxiv. 14. to Shechem and Hamer on the fubject of Dinah.

would

would have been heiress to Philip. Numb. xxvii. 7, 8. See Jofephus, Ant. Lib. xviii. 6, 4. Doddridge, vol. i. 166. note a. But as Philip was then living, Herod also finned against the seventh commandment, in taking her at first; and therefore it was unlawful for him to have her at all. So in the cafe of Abimelech who had taken Sarai the wife of Abram, he is commanded to put her away, and restore her to ber husband, on pain of death. Gen. xx. 7. In all cases where the taking was forbidden, as well in heathen and idolatrous, as in incestuous connections, the retaining feems to be unlawful, as a conftant repetition, and continuation of the forbidden act but where the taking is no where forbidden, there is no allowed caufe of divorce, or putting away, except for the caufe of fornication, or the woman's having fuffered herself to be defiled by another man, either before or after their coming together.

If we take the words of the primary institution merely by themselves, and judge of them by their found (as the Papists do-Hoc eft corpus meum-in fupport of the ridiculous lye of tranfubftantiation) they may 'be faid to intimate that a man shall have but one wife, not only at once, but, as fome have contended, as long as he lives; and thus fecond marriages are forbidden but if we confider them as ex- .

5

plained

plained by GOD himself in the subsequent parts of the fcripture, they appear to mean that a man fhall cleave to any and every woman that he marries, and not put her away except for fornication. I conclude this to be the import of the law, because, if it was meant to forbid polygamy, and to enjoin the divorce of a fecond woman taken, living a firft, we should fomewhere have met with an explicit determination of the matter; but fuch a thing, or even an hint or trace of it, is not to be found. So far from it, GOD, in that declarative law, Deut. xxi. 15. abfolutely ratifies the fecond marriage as much as the first, not only by declaring the iffue of the fecond equally inheritable, but even to take place of the other as to the right of the first-born, if born firft. This could not be, if taking the fecond was a forbidden act; fuch fecond taking, being prohibited, would have been null and void, as in other inftances, and the man would have been commanded to have put away the fecond wife and her children, as was done in the case of other forbidden contracts. See Ezra, x. 3. The direct contrary appears, for on the footing of that law, the man could no more divorce the fecond than he could the first; GOD calls them both - which word, though, when it stands by itself, it denotes the female fex in general, like the French Femmes,

yet

yet in the connection it ftands here, like the word Femmes alfo, denotes women in a marriage relation, or wives as we translate it. GOD likewife determines the iffue of both to be equally legitimate, by making them equally inheritable. This law was subsequent to the Adamic law, could not contradict it, therefore must be looked upon as entirely confonant with its whole intention; for GoD cannot contradict himself. That GOD made general laws subject to certain exceptions, on particular occafions, and for particular purposes, is very plain; we have an inftance of this, Deut. xxv. 5. where a brother was to marry his brother's widow, though against the general law, Lev. xviii. 16; but this particular cafe was excepted out of that general law, for a particular purpofe, which appears in the law itfelf (fee before vol. i. p. 261.) but where this was not the cafe, there the general law was to be obferved. The permiffions of divorce which refpected the bond-maids, Exod. xxi. 11. the captivewomen, Deut. xxi. 14. feem alfo exceptions to the general law; but these are things peculiar to the Jews at that time, and cannot concern us. Therefore, as we live under the general law against divorce, delivered Gen. ii. 24. which equally binds all mankind, it is moft affuredly as unlawful to abandon one wife as another, except

for