one wife, yet there is found in one of the Athenian decrees an exception to their law, "That to increase the number

where it says, of men at present deficient, it shall be lawful for any person to have children by another woman besides her, that in a more strict sense is his wife."*

Not many years ago, a writer and preacher of great celebrity† undertook to vindicate the doctrine of a plurality of wives; he contends that it is as lawful for the Christians as it was for the ancient Jews to have more wives than one. With respect however to the Jewish law, it was only of a local and temporary nature, and wisely adapted, with respect to the degrees of consanguinity and other regulations of marriage, to maintain and perpetuate the separation of the Jewish people from the heathen.

* Vide Seldon, Puffendorf, &c.

Rey. Mr. Madan.

When

"When we reflect," says an anonymous but able writer, "that the primitive institution of marriage limited it to one man and one woman; that this institution was adhered to by Noah and his sons, amidst the degeneracy of the age in which they lived, and in spite of the examples of Polygamy, which the accursed race of Cain had introduced; when we consider how very few the examples of this practice were among the faithful, how much it wrought its own punishment with it, and how dubious and equivocal those passages are, in which it appears to have the sanction of divine approbation, how frequently the messengers of God adapted themselves to the genius of the people to whom they were sent, and the circumstances of the times in which they lived, how often the imperfections and even the vices of the Patri archs and people of God, in old time are recorded without any express notification of their criminality-how much is said to be commanded, which our reverence for the

holiness

holiness of God and his law will only suffer us to suppose, were for wise ends permitted;

above all when we consider the purity, equity, and benevolence of the Christian law; the explicit declaration of our Lord and his Apostle St. Paul respecting the institution of marriage, its design, and limitation; when we reflect too, on the testimony of the most ancient fathers, who could not possibly be ignorant of the general and common practice of the Apostolic Church; and, finally, when to these considerations we add those, which are founded in justice to the female sex, and the regulations of domestic economy and national policy we must boldly condemn the revival of Polygamy."

*

"The practice of Polygamy," says an eminent author, "is brutal, destructive of friendship and moral sentiment, inconsist

ent with the great end of marriage; the edu cation of children, and subversive of the natural rights of more than half of the species, besides it is injurious to population : it is a well known fact, adds he, that Armenia, in which a plurality of wives is not allowed, abounds more with inhabitants than any other province of the Turkish Empire."

If we will make good laws," remarks Plato, "we must begin to regulate mar riages well."

But

The first inhabitants of Greece lived in a state of promiscuous intercourse; no bounds were set to their passions. Cecrops, who was raised King of Athens, among other useful institutions, introduced that of Matrimony: it was afterward received by all the inhabitants; for no sooner had they civilized their undisciplined man

ners,

ners, and acquired a taste for regularity and order, than they espoused the meritorious rights of that institution.

The Athenians required that all commanders and orators, and such as were intrusted with the public affairs, should be married and have children; for these were considered as a sort of surety and pledge to the state for the good conduct of their fathers, and without which, it was thought dangerous to commit to them the charge of the public trust,

The Church of England although she does not consider matrimony in the nature of a sacrament,* as does the Romish Church, yet she holds it to be of sacred appointment,

* The reason which some assign for calling it a sacrament, is, that it sometimes gives men the gift of repentance.