" of the law to fail therefore, however

you may have been taught to make it “ void by your traditions, and especially " with regard to your treatment of your " wives, by which you are daily violating “ the law of marriage, in the unjust and " scandalous divorcements, which your " rabbies have taught you to abuse to the " purposes of licentiousness and cruelty,

yet the law of God changeth not, it is "the same now as in the days of Adam; " and therefore-whoever puts away his "wife unjustly, breaks the law which "commands him to cleave to her, and " puts afunder what God hath joined to"gether and if this be done in order to

marry one you like better, and under " such circumstances of provocation, as " force the wife you put away to marry “ another man, she certainly fins against " the seventh commandment, as does the

man who takes her; but yet the guilt " of adultery is not confined to them, " but lights upon you also, who, by your " unlawful treatment of your wife, in " putting her away unjustly, caused ber " to commit it (see Matt. v. 32.) You "are therefore answerable before GOD " as an adulterer; for there is no differ"ence, in the eye of His law, between "the perpetrator of a crime, and the in" ftigator and promoter of it.

In the above paraphrafe on the context, I have endeavoured to take in the whole sense of the passages where this subject is mentioned, as agreable to, and reconcileable with, the law of the Old Testament; for it was certainly by this, that our Lord regulated all His thoughts, words, and actions, on every subject, and upon every occafion, as well as in the instance of what He faid, Luke xvi. 18.

Had CHRIST been to have introduced a new law, it must have appeared fomewhere in His * commission: we have several

* In Deut. xviii. 18, 19. it is faid-I will raife them up a PROPHET from among their brethren, like unto thee, and I will put MY WORDS in His mouth, and He shall speak unto them ALL THAT I SHALL COMMAND HIM. And it shall come to pass, that whoSøever will not hearken unto MY WORDS, which He shall Speak IN MY NAME, I will require it of him. And, ver. 15. The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a PROPHET in the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto Him ye shall hearken. This general account of CHRIST's mission as a Prophet, seems to militate against every idea of His setting up a new law of His own. Had He done this, He had not been like Mofes, who received the law from GOD, and delivered it to the people, but like Mahomet, who invented a new law of His own, in opposition to the law of God, and imposed it upon his followers as containing the only true religion and worship: whereas the blessed Jesus gave this test of His miffion, John iii. 34. He whom GOD hath fent, Speaketh the words of God-for the truth of this, His constant appeal was to the writings of the Old Testament, and no doubt had the above passages of Deuteronomy in his view.

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transcripts of this, relative to all His offices, but not a single clause is there in any of them to that purpose.

His commiffion as a priest appears in feveral parts of the Old Testament, and is thus shortly summed up, Dan. ix. 24.To finish the tranfgreffion-to make an end of fins to make reconciliation for iniquity and (thus) to bring in everlasting righteousness. As a prophet, fays he, by If. lxi. 1. &c. The Spirit of the LORD GOD is upon me, because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek: He hath fent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound: proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn : to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified. There is nothing about a new law in this part of OUR SAVIOUR'S commiffion.

to

As to His kingly office, on which He entered after His refurrection from the dead, when He had a name given Him above every name, that at the name of JESUS every knee should bow, of things in beaven, and things on - earth, earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that JESUS CHRIST is LORD, to the glory of GOD the Father-His kingdom was to be administered not by any new law, but by that which was from the beginning, once written on tables of stone, but now to be written on the fleshly tables of the heart, 2 Cor. iii. 3. For thus faith the LORD -This is the covenant that I will make with the house of ISRAEL; after those days I will put MY LAW in their inward parts, and write IT in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. Jer. xxxi. 33. Comp. Heb. viii. 10.

If CHRIST then gave a new law, or rule of life, He exceeded His commiffion, and we must call in question His veracity, as well as his fincerity, in that declaration of His, Matt. v. 17, 18, 19. likewife as to what he says, John xii. 49. I have not spoken of MYSELF, but the Father which fent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say *, and what I Should Speak.

But

* If the Father gave CHRIST a commandment to declare that to be a mortal fin against the seventh commandment, which was uniformly allowed as innocent under the Old Testament, this must infer either a change in the divine mind and will, or an abfolute contradiction: this last is usually got rid of, as the Mahometan doctors get rid of the contradictions in the Koran-by their doctrine of abrogation:-for they VOL. I. pretend

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But to return once more to OUR SA VIOUR'S discourse with the Pharisees:Can it be imagined that CHRIST, so remarkable for his precision, so thoroughly accurate in all he said on every other point, should use so little in this, as not to make Himself understood by His hearers? Nay-that he should observe fo little precision, as not to defcribe an offence, which we are to suppose Him to condemn? The most flagrant instances, the most obvious and palpable definitions of polygamy cannot be understood from what He fays.-He that putteth away his wife, by bill of divorcement, and marrieth another-does not defcribe a man's taking two wives together, and cohabiting with both; nor-a man's having a wife, and taking another to her, and cohabiting with both. Such was the Old Testament polygamy, not the putting away one in order to take another.-I do not recollect a single instance in which this was ever done during the whole administration of Mofes, the Judges, or Kings, any more than

pretend that "GOD commanded several things in the "Koran, which, for good reasons, were afterwards " revoked and abrogated." Thus do fome of our Christian Doctors treat the Old Testament, in order to establish certain doctrines which they suppose to be taught in the New Testament respecting marriage.

+ This is the sense of the word ἀπολῦσαι. Matt. xix. 7, 8, 9.

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