{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_Thelyphthora_Volume_1_Chapter_3/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Thelyphthora_Volume_1_Chapter_3","id":"wikisource_Thelyphthora_Volume_1_Chapter_3","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Thelyphthora/Volume_1/Chapter_3","summary":null,"tags":["Subpages"],"text":"CHAP. III.\n\nOf Adultery.\n\nI COME now to consider an offence against the positive precepts of God, which is of the most malignant kind, that of commerce between the sexes, where the woman is the wife, consequently the inviolable and unalienable property of another man.\n\nThis is truly and properly adultery, and described in the seventh commandment by a word, which, throughout the whole Hebrew scriptures, is confined to that single idea. Hence it is, that it is used, in a figurative sense, to denote the turning from God to the worship of idols. God calls himself the husband of His church; the church is represented under the figure of a spouse or wife; therefore, apostatizing from Jehovah to idols, is called, in a spiritual sense, adultery, Is. liv. 5. Thy Maker is thine husband. Jer. iii. 14. Turn, O backsliding children, for I am married to you. Then God complains, ver. 20. Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts.\n\nIt is the misfortune of ours, as of all arbitrary languages, to want precision; so that when we speak of adultery, we include in it every idea which is usually affixed to the word by custom, whether right or wrong. There is a precision in the Hebrew language peculiar to itself; every word is derived from some fixed root, or is itself that root, which has a fixed and determinate meaning; and though the word branch itself into ever so many different, and seemingly contradictory senses, yet the original idea contained in the root will always circulate, as the same sap from the root of a tree, will always flow through the stem to the several branches, be they ever so many. From the want of such precision in our language, we are apt to fix meanings to the words of scripture, which, when considered in the original, they will not bear and in few are we more mistaken than in the meaning (the scriptural meaning) of the word adultery.\n\nThe words of the seventh commandment are\u2014\u05dc\u05d0 \u05ea\u05e0\u05d0\u05e3\u2014which we very properly translate\u2014Thou shalt not commit adultery. But what is the true meaning of the word \u05e0\u05d0\u05e3 adultery? The only certain way to know this, is to consider its uniform signification throughout the whole Hebrew Bible; and whoever doth this, will find that it is never used but to denote the defilement of a betrothed or married woman; except in the figurative sense above mentioned, with respect to idolatry, where the same idea is exactly preserved.\n\nIn Lev. xx. 10. we have an accurate and clear explanation of the significant word \u05e0\u05d0\u05e3 as well as of the commandment where it is found. If a man commit adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and adulteress shall surely be put to death. What is here called committing adultery with his neighbour's wife, is called, Ezek. xviii. 11. defiling his neighbour's wife; and Prov. vi. 29. going in to his neighbour's wife. If we turn to Deut. xxii. and consider the exposition of the seventh commandment which Moses was directed, by the Holy Spirit, to deliver to the rising generation, before their entrance into Canaan, from ver. 13. to ver. 29. inclusive, we shall find this idea uniformly preserved throughout. See also Lev. xviii. 20.\n\nSo strict is this law with regard to this offence, that it even reaches to the defilement of a betrothed woman, who, in God's sight, is reckoned as the man's wife to whom she is betrothed. If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman; so shalt thou put away evil from Israel. Deut. xxii. 22. By these latter words we are taught, that the sin of adultery, like that of murder, was not to be looked upon merely as a personal offence, which was of no further consequence than to the parties committing it, but, if not punished as God commanded, brought guilt upon the very land itself, which could only be put away by the punishment of the offenders. Then follows ver. 22. If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband; and a man find her in the city and lie with her, then shall ye bring them both into the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die: the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife.\n\nSuch is the law of the Most High against adultery, or the defilement of a man's wife. Yet it is not the object of our municipal law as any public offence whatsoever. The injured husband may bring a civil action for private damages; but neither the adulterer, nor the adulteress, can be indicted or punished, as a public offender, by any one statute throughout our whole code of laws. How far this is seen to be for the comfort of society, and the honour of a Christian nation, let others determine; I can only say, that, if the law of God (which by the way is as clear and positive a law as can be conceived) took place, we should hardly hear of such daily offences against it, as now disgrace, dishonour, and defile the land. Such however is the consistency of our statute laws, such their conformity to the law of God, that they make a man a felon, and, but for the benefit of clergy, liable to suffer death, if he have two wives of his own; but he may seduce and debauch as many wives of other people, as may fall in his way, and he is free from punishment, except, as I said before, by way of civil action for the wrong done to the husband.\n\nIt is said, indeed, that \" our law considers marriage in no other light but as a civil contract, and leaves the holiness of the marriage-state to the ecclesiastical courts;\" but surely in a Christian land, \"the holiness of the marriage-state\" ought to be an object of the municipal laws, as of infinitely greater consequence to the public, and to the peace and welfare of society, than many other offences, which are properly deemed objects of their utmost severity. For what are the consequences of adultery, even in a temporal view? All its evils cannot be reckoned\u2014but only to mention a few:\u2014It must introduce a total confusion as to the offspring, a defeating of rightful heirs, an utter obscurity as to family descents and pedigrees; for where adultery is, no man can know his own children, or even ostensible brothers and sisters ascertain their relation to each other: for which, as well as for many other wise causes, doubtless it was (as well as to preserve the sanctity of the marriage-institution) made capital by the divine Lawgiver. This we may humbly presume to be the case; for this offence is introductory of that kind of disorder, which must, in the very nature of it, tend to destroy every bond of civil and religious society, and make the world, in a moral sense, a mere chaos.\n\nWhy then is adultery, notwithstanding it is so condemned by the positive law of God, so frequently, so shamelessly, so openly practised? It is because the law of God being disregarded in the conscience, and not enforced by the laws of the land in all its terror, its importance is not adverted to: for though outward laws may not reach the heart, yet, they frequently, by restraining the outward actions of men, may lead them to view such offences in a different light, than when there is no punishment attending them. Such is the depravity of mankind, that we find the saying of the Preacher generally true: Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Eccl. viii. 11. Impunity begets security; and this must produce and multiply transgression.\n\nAs to those reliques of the Pope's tyranny in this country, commonly called the ecclesiastical courts, their power is but comparatively feeble to what it once was, before the abolition of the writ de h\u00e6retico comburendo, 29 Car. II. c. 9.; for which I and every free Protestant ought to be thankful. This sort of imperium in imperio, which excludes trials by juries in criminal matters, and substitutes paper depositions in the place of viv\u00e2 voce evidence, is too abhorrent from every principle of our free constitution to be endured; and I am astonished, that at the Reformation, their very being was not annihilated, as that of the star-chamber was afterwards, 16 Car. I. These courts, however, have cognizance of the crime of adultery, for which they can set the offender on a joint stool in a white sheet, under title Penance; unless, under title Commutation, he or she can buy off their sin and shame with a sum of money. See 1 Burn. Ecc. Law, 663, quarto. Whatever be the cause, most certain it is, that the crime of adultery daily increases amongst us, insomuch, that one would think many of the British ladies, once famed for their modesty, chastity, and sobriety, either never red their Bibles at all, or else only that edition of it which was printed by the company of Stationers, in the reign of Charles the First (and for which Archbishop Laud fined them severely in the star-chamber) wherein they printed the seventh commandment without the word not, so that it stood, Thou shalt commit adultery.\n\nBut if in reading the Hebrew Bible we restrain the word \u05e0\u05d0\u05e3 adultery in the seventh commandment, to the married woman only, and to the man who defiles her, do we not leave the man, who, having one wife, takes another, out of its reach? I answer\u2014It is not for us to judge in this matter, but by the rule of God's word; if that brings such a case within the reach of the seventh commandment, or of any one interpretation of it which is to be found in the book of that law, then such a man is condemned: if otherwise, he is free\u2014For where there is no law, there is no transgression. Rom. iv. 15. And sin is not imputed (\u03b5\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b5\u0303\u03b9\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, reckoned, charged, brought to account) where there is no law. Rom. v. 13.\n\nBy the book of the law, I mean the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses, delivered by God himself to that eminent servant and prophet of the Most High, and by him committed to writing, and delivered to the people. To the book of this law the great apostle of the Gentiles evidently refers, Gal. iii. 10. where he says, Cursed is every one, that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them. Our Lord's forerunner, John the Baptist, declared the law was given by Moses, John i. 17. There is therefore no law but that which was given by God to Moses, nor was any new law enacted after the canon of the Pentateuch was closed by the death of Moses. The distinction and difference of moral good and evil were then unalterably fixed, and the nature of both invariably to remain the same. What God doeth, it shall be for ever; nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it that men should fear before Him. Eccl. iii. 14.\n\nAs I am fully persuaded, on the most mature deliberation, that taking from God's law in some points, and adding to it in others, are the chief causes of the evil complained of, with regard to the ruin of one sex, by the lust, cruelty, treachery, and perfidy of the other; I shall examine the subject before us the more freely not supposing that polygamy, being made felony by that sanguinary statute 1 Jac. I. c. 11. is therefore sinful in the sight of God, any more than that adultery is innocent before Him, or one jot the more so, because our statute-book has ordained no punishment for it whatsoever. Nor does its being looked upon with detestation and abhorrence in this part of the world, any more prove the unlawfulness of polygamy in the sight of God, than the approbation and practice of it in other more extensive parts of the globe, can prove its lawfulness. All must stand or fall by God's own revelation of His own will, in His own law. To suppose that His law can be different in different parts of the world, which he hath made, and upholds with the word of His power; or that His one uniform jurisdiction doth not equally and invariably extend over all His reasonable creatures; is to think of Him as the poor idolatrous, ignorant Syrians did\u2014The Lord is God of the hills, but he is not the God of the vallies. 1 Kings xx. 28.\n\nNear akin to this, is the supposition that God can change his mind, and be of one mind in the Old Testament, and of another in the New Testament; if so, He may now have changed His mind again, and neither of these books contain a single syllable which can be depended upon; so that after all the pains we can take to acquaint ourselves with the divine mind and will, we may be as utter strangers to them as the savages in America are.\u2014But when we search the indelible records of truth, we find that the attribute of unchangeableness shines, with a distinguished lustre; I am Jehovah, saith He, I change not. Mal. iii. 6. God is one\u2014His will is one\u2014therefore this, no more than Himself, can know any alteration, diminution, or change. What was law at the beginning will be law to the end; and therefore what that law is, as touching the point in question, I will now proceed, with the confidence which the love of truth inspires, and with a proper disregard for the fallacious and unscriptural reasonings of men, in the freest manner to consider.\n\nReferences:\n\nErrata:","title":"Thelyphthora/Volume 1/Chapter 3","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":2388}