{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_Thelyphthora_Volume_2_Chapter_10/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Thelyphthora_Volume_2_Chapter_10","id":"wikisource_Thelyphthora_Volume_2_Chapter_10","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_2/Chapter_10","summary":null,"tags":["Subpages"],"text":"CHAP. X.\n\nOf Population.\u2014Comparison of the Jewish Law with Ours.\n\nWHEN we search the scripture, and take an impartial view of the divine law, we must acknowledge its harmony and consistency, both with respect to itself, and all things which are the objects of it. It perfectly agrees with its original designs, the glory of God and the happiness of his creatures. In no instance doth this observation appear more true, than in that part of the sacred code which is to regulate the commerce of the sexes. The brute part of this lower creation is restrained by a sort of physical necessity, which is usually called instinct, within due bounds; so that the several species may be kept distinct, and not create a monstrous confusion from unnatural or improper mixtures; and though, partly from the inventions and contrivances of men, contrary to the positive law of God\u2014Lev. xix. 19.\u2014animals, both among beasts and birds, have been generated, yet it can go no farther; it is stopped in the first instance, and no mule is known to carry the confusion any farther than itself.\n\nWith regard to reasonable beings, it pleased the Creator to enact and publish written laws, the moral obligation of which, was to circumscribe and regulate their actions. Whether these wise statutes are departed from by those whose infidelity and malicious contempt reject them utterly\u2014or by those who, under a mistaken notion of greater purity and perfection than they are supposed to prescribe, make themselves wiser and holier than the divine Law-giver\u2014the effect will be much the same, as to the grand objects which these laws are to promote. These are, 1. The propagation of mankind. 2. The prevention of confusion, and every evil work.\n\nThe first general commandment was\u2014Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. Gen. i. 28; which last words, taken in connection with the beginning of the verse, and with what follows, clearly prove, that this command was addressed in an especial manner to the human species, then wholly in the loins of their first parent. To suppose that every law given to mankind subsequent to this first ordinance, was calculated to promote it, is certainly consonant with the highest reason, and accordingly we find this to have been the case. Celibacy was hardly known among the antient Jews, they looked on it with abhorrence, and considered it as a reproach; and we find, that their whole \u0153conomy, with respect to marriage, all tended to the fulfilment of that promise to Abraham, Gen. xv. 5. that his seed should be as the stars of heaven for multitude. Moses\u2014Deut. i. 10.\u2014even at their arrival on the borders of Canaan, declares this to be the case. Marriage was looked upon as a sacred duty, whose chief end was population, and population as the riches, strength, and blessing of the state. No impediments or difficulties were, therefore, laid in its way\u2014all promiscuous intercourse of women with men, which Montesquieu justly styles the bane of population, positively forbidden\u2014the honour of their wives, the chastity of their daughters, were secured by the wisest institutions; and thus they became populous, prosperous, and happy.\n\nFrom this scene of things, let us advert to that which is daily before us, since Christian churchmen have invented other schemes of marriage, and Christian politicians have found out other maxims of population. What swarms of unmarried people fill our capital and counties! some through caprice and voluptuousness, others through misery and indigence.\u2014Could we form a just calculation of the marriageable of both sexes, who have no thought of altering their condition, and of those multitudes who live and die in celibacy, we should see the true reason why our fleets want sailors, our armies men\u2014why we so sensibly feel the emigrations of people to our colonies abroad\u2014why we complain of scarcity of people, and see so many thousands of acres lie uncultivated and uninhabited\u2014and why we are forced to have recourse to foreign auxiliaries in our days of common danger. The reason of all this is, we have not people enough; the cause of which is, that the whole system of our laws is inimical to population; whereas the divine law\u2014which we have banished, as not pure and holy enough for Christians, but which was sufficiently so under God's own immediate government of His own people\u2014has every ingredient in it, which, were it sufficiently understood and attended to, would remedy all the evils we complain of.\n\nThere luxury is forbidden, debauchery, and all enticements to it, are proscribed, under the severest penalties. No publications of banns, inconvenient terms of residence, expensive licences, nor human ceremonies, were then invented, as constituting the marriage in God's sight; all stood on the simplicity of the divine institution: the consent of the parties formed the contract, the union of their persons completed it, and God's blessing crowned the whole. The demands for women in marriage were too great, and the punishment of forbidden lewdness too severe, to leave a portion for the purposes of profligacy and prostitution: whereas, with us, I question whether the numbers of married women are greatly beyond those of harlots and prostitutes, at least in many parts of the kingdom; however this may be, the married bear no sort of proportion to the unmarried.\n\nI must confess myself to have but little genius for the science of calculation; but perhaps Demoivre himself would not find fault with my supposing, that to every marriage we may allot, on an average, four children. Let us say, that 20,000 females are, in the space of seven years, rendered barren by prostitution, who would otherwise, under the sobriety of matrimony, have produced four children each. Here is a defalcation of 80,000 people from the community. To these let us add 100,000 more, who, from various causes unknown to the Jewish polity, die unmarried, and who might otherwise have produced four children each. Here is a subtraction of 400,000 more. These make together 480,000. Let us suppose all this to happen in every seven years, then the average of our loss, in every space of twenty-one years, will be 1,440,000. Deduct for casualties of various kinds happening to the children, two thirds, and there will remain a loss of 480,000 people to the community in that space of time. Let us carry on this calculation for but one century, and the loss will, in that time, amount to 2,400,000 and upwards. This small imperfect sketch will serve to shew why the Jews were, in the space of about 215 years, that is to say, from Jacob's coming into \u00c6gypt with seventy souls, to the Israelites arrival on the borders of Canaan, increased as the stars in heaven for multitude\u2014Deut. x. 22.\u2014and why we are complaining for want of people. It is true, that the increase of the Jews, which, even under the disadvantages of the \u00c6gyptian bondage, was so prodigious as to alarm the government (Exod. i. 9, 12.) was by a special blessing from Heaven, in fulfilment of that promise to Abram, Gen. xv. 5; but then the means by which this was effected, was their having a law, which respected the great first command of the Creator\u2014was favourable to marriage, and of course to population. Though this law was not reduced to writing till after the Exodus, yet enough of it was known by tradition, to check adultery, whoredom, and all destructive intercourse of the sexes, and thus to promote the interests of population. They did not hang people for polygamy, but honoured marriage in all, where God had not forbidden it. The permanency and unchangeableness of their law, accounts for the permanency and unchangeableness of its effect; the populousness of the Jewish nation, is at this hour incredible; if all that are dispersed throughout the globe were gathered together, I doubt whether they would not appear to be as numerous as at any period of their most prosperous estate.\n\nAs for the Christians, they sat out on a plan opposite to all this; they began very early to represent celibacy as most pleasing to God, condemned marriage, of course execrated all second marriages, found out schemes of holiness by which millions of men and women have been lost to the world, and held forth the gospel as inimical to the first great commandment;\u2014purity was to be found in celibacy, which they miscalled chastity, and defilement in marriage, which they reckoned \"too carnal for the Christian dispensation.\" The conceits of enthusiasts, the dreams of monks, the sophistry of schoolmen, were enlisted against the ordinance of Heaven, 'till the church of Rome made it the object of its tyranny and ambition\u2014Protestants, a creature of the state\u2014and the great Author of our religion is called in, as an abettor of their monstrous opposition to the divine law.\u2014They have changed His truth into a lye, and have set Him at the head of their rebellion against the holy commandment once delivered to His people.\n\nOur laws may truly say of themselves, as we may say of ourselves\u2014Mutamur in horas.\u2014As to those which relate to marriage, they have gradually changed from bad to worse, 'till, at last, the marriage-act has left little room for any farther mutability of this sort. The letters of Certain Jews to Mr. de Voltaire, contain many striking observations on these subjects, and account for the profligacy of Christian governments, with regard to women, on principles too sound and true to admit of any fair contradiction. Some of the above observations are extracted from them; and whoever reads those excellent pieces of the learned Jews, will get much entertainment and instruction for his pains; and will find, that wisdom and decency breathed from the spirit of the laws of Israel, as much as folly and libertinism are derived from that system which we have established in its stead. In p. 47. vol. ii. where a comparison is made between the civil laws of the Jews, and those of other nations, what cutting reflections doth the truth compel the learned writers to cast on the latter! Among others is the following\u2014vol. ii. p. 63.\u2014\" Our code says, There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel\u2014all your cities are full of them! and if we are to believe your wise men, there ought to be public endowments for them, and their calling ought to be held honourable.\" It is true, this is immediately addressed to a Frenchman; but if a total stranger was to visit both these Christian countries, I believe he would, from the manners of the inhabitants, be pretty much at a loss to know whether France or England most espoused such a sentiment, and, of course, to which of the two it might, with the greatest justice, be attributed.\n\nAs to the second point, the prevention of confusion, and every evil work. This was secured on the woman's part by the severe laws against adultery and whoredom, and on the men's part also by the moral impossibility they were under, to forsake and abandon the virgins with whom they had once been connected, and thus to expose them to the danger and temptation of those dreadful violations of the divine law; therefore the prohibition was wisely extended to all men alike without exception. I will not repeat here what has been so largely before treated; but only observe, that the banishment of this law, has proved the banishment of decency and good order, to an alarming degree, from among us, and has plunged millions into irrecoverable ruin, who, had they lived under the morality of the divine law, had been mothers of children, instead of prostitutes in the streets.\n\nTo say that our blessed Saviour came to restore the institution of marriage to its primitive obligation, is as true as that He bore His testimony, on the footing of that institution, against all unlawful divorce: as true as, that by citing the very words of union, which were pronounced at the beginning, He shewed what was the mind of God as to the indissolubility of the contract. But where does He authorize the man who has taken a virgin, to put her away? Where does He deny, what the very scriptures which He cites affirm, that the being joined to her, makes her the man's wife? Where does He deny the truth of the Hebrew scripture, by affirming, that if a man takes two women together, they are not equally his wives?\u2014See Deut. xxi. 15. 1 Sam. i. 2. xxv. 43. Where doth He bastardize the issue\u2014or consign either of the women to dereliction and ruin, by declaring the latter marriage null and void? and yet we plead His sacred authority for all this, as confidently as the church of Rome pleads it in defence of their persecutions of Protestants, because our Lord once said\u2014compel them to come in\u2014with relation to the call of the Gentiles into the Christian church. Such notions may pass with people who look no deeper than popular opinion for the foundation of what they believe; but how it is possible they should pass with thinking men, who search the scriptures, is only to be accounted for on the score of prejudice. Where this can be got rid of, they surely must appear lyes\u2014\"gross and palpable as the father that begat them.\" John viii. 44.\n\nThat the populousness of the Jewish nation proceeded merely or wholly from the practice of polygamy, as contradistinguished from monogamy, I do not suppose; because the same number of women married each to a different man, is as likely to produce as many children as if married all to one man, perhaps more: but the scandal of celibacy, the esteeming marriage as a sacred duty, and a number of children a blessing from the Lord (see Ps. cxxvii. 5. and Ps. cxxviii. throughout) occasioned their eagerness after the marriage-state: add to this, the promise of the Messiah, of whom each woman was led to hope she might be the happy mother. This accounts for the behaviour of certain women, whose desires after children seem very extraordinary. See Gen. xxx. 1, 15, 16. Judges xi. 37, 38. 1 Sam. i. 11. Barrenness was a reproach, probably from the same cause, and therefore the removal of it was looked upon as a special blessing. Gen. xxx. 23. 1 Sam. i. 27. and ii. 1, 5. The authors of the Antient Univ. Hist. vol. iii. p. 139, observe, that\u2014\"though the Mosaic law doth no where oblige men to marry, yet the Jews have always looked upon it as an indispensible duty, implied in the words\u2014Be fruitful and multiply, Gen. i. 28. ix. 1. So that a man who did not marry before he was twenty years of age, was counted accessary to any irregularity which the young women might be tempted to for want of being timely married. They had a proverb in the Talmud\u2014Who is he that prostitutes his daughter, but he who keeps her too long unmarried, or gives her to an old man? For this reason they used to marry them as soon as they came of age, which, with them, was at twelve.\" The populousness of the Jewish nation, therefore, most evidently arose from the universality of marriage, whether monogamous or polygamous: so that there was not to be found, as among us, thousands of young marriageable women devoted to barrenness for want of husbands, or consigned to infertility by the mischiefs of prostitution.\n\nAs long as we hold it good philosophy to say, that \"the same cause will produce the same effects\"\u2014so long will it be true, that the reason of the populousness of the Jewish nation was owing to the wisdom of their laws which concerned the commerce of the sexes, and that our want of people is owing to our discarding the system of government which the Jews lived under in these respects, and establishing another in its place, big with every inconvenience, which that was so exactly calculated to prevent.\n\nWe are so overwhelmed with luxury, so sunk in dissipation, that the expence of a family is looked upon, as it certainly is, under such circumstances, an intolerable burden. The bringing up and maintenance of children is dreaded even by the opulent, because the enormous expence they are at upon their pleasures, reduces them to a level with the poorer sort. This is no uncommon reason for celibacy. Among the Jews, the frugality and industry of individuals left no room for such an excuse. Their very women contributed to provide for the children which they brought, and ate not the bread of idleness. See a beautiful account of this, Prov. xxxi. 10, &c. Whereas, among us, it is no very uncommon thing to hear a person say\u2014\"I won't marry, because I can't afford it.\" Every man may afford to marry, who is sober and industrious, but certainly none can who are idle and profligate.\n\nThe Jewish law also, by its severity against adultery, inflicting certain death on the adulterer and adulteress, so checked the evil, that married men had little to fear on that account; whereas, among us, our laws having inflicted no punishment on adulterers as public offenders, leave the punishment of it to what Judge Blackstone well calls, \"the feeble coercion of the ecclesiastical courts,\" which is about as well calculated to restrain it, as the strength of a pigmy would be to repel the force of a giant; and even this, such as it is, is within the reach of money to buy off. See 1 Burn, Eccl. Law, quarto, p. 663. Hence it is, that this giant-vice, with such large strides, marches through our land, and may probably be the means of terrifying not a few from marrying.\n\nHaving elsewhere observed the wisdom of the divine laws for the prevention and punishment of whoredom, I will here say once more, that our banishment of them from our system of government, is another reason of the alarming frequency of celibacy among us.\n\nAs for polygamy, it certainly was allowed, as much as marriage itself was; to say the contrary, is to deny the whole testimony of the Hebrew scripture:\u2014but this was not that wild, licentious, wicked practice of it, which is now maintained at the expence, not only of decency, but even of humanity itself, among the Mahometans; but a holy and sober use of marriage, circumscribed by holy laws and institutions, in all cases permitted, in some commanded. And what was the consequence to the state? A numerous issue, which contributed to its riches and strength\u2014the demand for women in marriage increased, and few were left either to be a burden or a disgrace to it. But is this so with us? Our making polygamy felony has destroyed it.\u2014But in what respect are we gainers by this?\u2014Why, we have gained\u2014what Israel never saw, till they regarded the divine law as little as we do\u2014thousands of women for the purposes of prostitution and destruction, by making it impossible for their seducers to do them that justice, which reason, nature, and the divine law, intitle them to demand. This may be reckoned also among the causes of our want of people; for I believe it would not be very hard to prove, that almost every woman, who is driven into common prostitution, is a loss of one breeding-woman to the public. Physical reasons may be given for this, which I do not chuse to discuss, but which the learned uniformly agree in, and which experience demonstrates to be generally true.\n\nI would therefore conclude upon the whole\u2014that all restraints and impediments with regard to marriage, are equally inimical to nature, reason, and scripture\u2014to sound policy and good government, as well as to that which is the strength, riches, and safety of all governments\u2014an increase of the people.\u2014These are like arrows in the hand of a mighty man.\u2014Happy we, had we our quiver full of them! we should not be ashamed to speak with our enemies in the gate. Ps. cxxvii. 4, 5.\n\nAs a proper conclusion of this chapter, let the following contrast, between the divine system and our system of human invention, stand before us\u2014let it bear its own testimony, as to the advantages and disadvantages of the change which has taken place, and as it may serve to introduce a parallel between us and the Jews, when they left the plain and simple road of duty which their law prescribed, and followed their own imaginations and inventions.\n\n\u00a0\n\nCONTRAST.\n\nDivine System.\n\nMale and female created he them. Gen. i. 27.\n\nOur Human System.\n\nAnd God blessed them\u2014and God said unto them\u2014Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. ver. 28. ch. ix. 1, 7.\n\nAnd the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man.\n\nAnd Adam said\u2014This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.\n\nTo say nothing of the Popish sthemes of celibacy, which have been set up against the command of God\u2014let us look nearer home, and consider the numbers of unmarried people among us\u2014one reason of which is, the facility of seduction, and dereliction, as well as the difficulties laid in the way of marriage\u2014for all marriages had and solemnized contrary to 26 Geo. II. c. 33. shall be \"utterly void, to all intents and purposes whatsoever.\"\n\nTherefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave \u05d3\u05d1\u05e7\u2014be joined unto his wife\u2014and they shall be one flesh. Gen. ii. 22\u201324.\n\nAnd no suit shall be had in any ecclesiastical court, to compel the celebration of any marriage, by reason of any contract whatsoever, any law or usage to the contrary notwithstanding.\n\nTherefore\u2014\n\nIf a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her\u2014he shall surely endow her to be his wife. Exod. xxii. 10.\n\nIf a man entice a maid, &c. he shall not surely endow her to be his wife.\n\nIf a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her and lie with her, and they be found\u2014she shall be his wife, because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days. Deut. xxii. 28, 29.\n\nOr if he find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, &c. she shall not be his wife, unless he chuses it\u2014though he has humbled her, he may put her away as and when he pleases.\n\nHe that is joined to a woman (\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2) is one body\u2014for two, saith God (i. e. who are thus joined) shall be one flesh\u2014Gen. ii. 24. 1 Cor. vi. 16.\n\nNothing shall make her his wife but marriage ceremony administered by a priest, by banns first published, or by licence first had and obtained in some parish church or chapel, &c. or if elsewhere, by special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury.\n\nIf a man have two wives, he shall not make the son of the beloved first-born, before the son of the hated, which is indeed the first-born.\n\nBut he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the first-born, by giving him a double portion, &c. Deut. xxi. 15\u201317.\n\nIf a man, having a wife, marry another, living the first, he shall be deemed a felon, and suffer death as such. The second marriage be utterly void, and the issue bastards and uninheritable.\n\nIf a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die. Deut. xxii. 22.\n\nIf a man lie with other people's wives, he is no object of criminal judicature.\n\nSo if with a betrothed virgin, &c. ver. 23, 24.\n\nIf a man lie with a betrothed virgin, he is not even liable to an action for damages, she to no penalty whatsoever on account of her situation.\n\nIn Israel, while these laws were observed, we read of no adulteries for many centuries together.\n\nAmong us, the abolition of the divine system has been attended with daily adulteries, which have increased the more, as mankind have felt the privilege of impunity.\n\nNo street-walkers, whores, and common prostitutes\u2014no medicines taken to procure abortion\u2014no child-murder\u2014no venereal disease, infecting and destroying the people.\n\nOur streets are filled with prostitutes, our brothels also with harlots; abortion is sought after, child-murder is frequent; the venereal disease rages like a plague, to the destruction of thousands.\n\nTheir population was almost incredible.\n\nOur depopulation is alarming.\n\n\u00a0\n\nPARALLEL.\n\nWhen the Jews forsook the law which God set before them, obeyed not His voice, nor walked therein, but walked after the imagination of their own heart. Jer. ix. 13, 14.\n\nThen they fell in to all manner of spiritual and fleshly abominations.\n\nThey then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots houses.\n\nThey were as fed horses in the morning, every one neighed after his neighbor's wife. Jer. v. 7, 8. Jer. xxiii. 10, 14. & al. freq. See Ezek. xxii. 9, 10, 11. Hosea iv. 14.\n\nShall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord, shall not my soul be avenged of such a nation as this?\n\nJer. v. 9.\n\nWe see, in this Christian country, the same cause producing the same effects.\n\nAs the divine law is laid aside for a system of human imagination\u2014all manner of lewdness overspreads the land, under the various forms of adultery and whoredom\u2014and no doubt helps to fill the measure of our national iniquity.\n\nSurely this is a time for our deepest and most serious recollection, when God seems to be visiting our iniquities upon us, not the least of which, is forsaking the law which He hath set before us, with respect to the commerce of the sexes, and following a system which, in the nature of things, must lead us into the very state in which the Jews were, when the prophets were sent to call them to repentance, or to foretell their destruction.\n\n\u00a0\n\n\u00a0\n\nAPPENDIX to CHAP. X.\n\nSee p. 262, Note.\n\nIT may not be amiss to lay before the reader the doctrine of penance and commutation as to their original, and then it will be seen how disgraceful such notions are to an enlightened Protestant church. Theodore of Tarsus, a Grecian monk, restored among the Latins the discipline of penance, as it is commonly termed, which had been for a long time almost totally neglected, and enforced it by a body of severe laws borrowed from the Grecian canons. This zealous prelate, who was raised to the see of Canterbury, A. D. 668, reduced to a regular science that branch of ecclesiastical law, which is known by the name of penitential discipline. He published a Penitential, which was entirely new to the Latin world, by which the clergy were taught to distinguish sins into various classes, according as they were more or less heinous, private or public. This new Penitential also contained the methods of proceeding with respect to offenders, and pointed out the various penalties that were suitable to the different classes of transgressions. This new discipline, though of Grecian origin, was eagerly adopted by the Latin churches. Its duration however was but transitory, for in the eighth century it began to decline, and was at length entirely supplanted by, what was called, the new canon of indulgences, in which the bishops and clergy began to trade in the twelfth century, when the universal reign of ignorance and superstition was dexterously, but basely, improved to fill their coffers; and to drain the purses of the deluded multitude. All the various ranks and orders of the clergy had each their peculiar method of fleecing the people.\n\nThe bishops, when they wanted money for their private pleasures, or for the exigencies of the church, granted to their flock the power of purchasing the remission of the penalties imposed upon transgressors, by a sum of money; which was to be applied to certain religious purposes; or, in other words, they published indulgences: which became an inexhaustible source of wealth to the Episcopal orders, and enabled them, as is well known, to form and execute the most difficult schemes for the enlargement of their authority, and of the external pomp and splendor of the church.\n\nWhen the Roman Pontiffs cast an eye on the immense treasures, which the sale of these indulgences brought in to the inferior rulers of the church, they limited the power of bishops in remitting the penalties imposed on transgressors, and assumed, almost entirely, this profitable traffic to themselves. In consequence of which, Rome became the general magazine of indulgences; and the Pontiffs in order to supply their coffers, published, not only an universal, but also a complete, or, what they called a plenary remission of all the temporal pains and penalties which the church had annexed to certain transgressions.\n\nAfterwards they proceeded farther, and not only remitted penalties which the civil and ecclesiastical laws had enacted against transgressors, but audaciously usurped the divine prerogative, and impiously pretended to abolish even the punishments of the next world; a step this, which the bishops, with all their pride and presumption, had never once ventured to take.\n\nSuch proceedings stood in need of a plausible defence, but this was impossible. To justify, therefore, these scandalous measures of the Pontiffs, a most monstrous and absurd doctrine was invented\u2014\"that there actually existed an immense treasure of merit, composed of the pious deeds and virtuous actions which the Saints had performed beyond what was necessary for their own salvation, and which were therefore applicable to the benefit of others\u2014that the guardian and disposer of this precious treasure was the Pope, and therefore he was empowered to assign to such as he thought proper, a portion of this inexhaustible source of merit, suitable to their respective guilt, and sufficient to deliver them from the punishment due to their crimes.\" This horrible superstition is retained and defended in the church of Rome to this day! it was happily banished from England at the reformation; pity but the former sort of indulgences had followed it out of our church! but they are still retained, under the more plausible, but more explicit term of commutation, which signifies changing one thing for another, as the punishment of sin for money. Though therefore indulgences and commutations differ in name, they entirely agree in their nature. Their being given, or pretended to be given, to pious uses, no more salves the offence of taking such money, than a certain lady's giving, or pretending to give, her winnings to the poor, atoned for her playing at cards on a Sunday.\n\nWhatsoever these things may be called, they are certainly judicial absolutions, and such as never were heard of in the Christian church till Popery introduced them. See Mosheim, vol. i. 327, 595. edit. Maclaine.\n\nThat there were censures on offenders against religion and good manners in the apostolical times\u2014such as private admonition, 2 Thess. iii. 15.\u2014public rebuke, and even of a sharp kind, Tit. i. 13.\u2014rejection for obstinate heresy, Tit. iii. 10.\u2014and even excommunication itself for grievous and scandalous offences, (1 Cor. v. 1\u20135.) is most evident; but I should imagine, that if a sum of money had been offered to buy off the censures of the church, the offerer would have been answered as Simon Magus was\u2014Thy money perish with thee, &c. Acts viii. 20.\n\nSee 13 Edw. I. stat. 4. commonly called the statute of Circumspecte agatis; and 9 Edw. II. stat. 1. c. 2. and c. 3.\n\nSee also before, vol. i. p. 64, n. and Burn. tit. Penance.\n\nReferences:","title":"Thelyphthora/Volume 2/Chapter 10","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":5290}