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rapidly diffused, as by poisoning the waters of literature.

"Let rulers of the state look to this, in time! But, to use the words of South, if our physicians think the best way of curing a disease is to pamper it, the Lord in mercy prepare the kingdom to suffer, what he by miracle only can prevent!'

No apology is offered for these remarks. The subject led to them; and the occasion of introducing them was willingly taken, because it is the duty of every one, whose opinion may have any influence, to expose the drift and aim of those writers who are labouring to subvert the foundations of human virtue, and of buman happiness.

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which it was to be superseded, or to dispute what Alethes is pleased to call the low and disregarded condition of women" under that law. I would nevertheless remark, that under the Jewish law, women at least as mothers, were raised to a dignity, which they have seldom pos sessed, where revealed religion is unknown, although I am free to contend for the peculiar obligations of the female sex to the Christian scheme, by which alone they have been restored, as wives, and helps meet for man, to the proper rank, which was assigned to them from the beginning. I will not deny that in some respects the Jewish law was partial and favourable in its enactments to men. I know also, that to violate the chastity of a woman, married or betrothed, was under the

To the Editor of the Remembrancer. Jewish law a capital crime, which

Sir,

I HAVE already declared my entire and cordial agreement in the anxiety of Alethes, that the Scriptural Doctrine of Divorce should be correctly and well understood; and in this anxiety I have endeavoured to reclaim the passage of Malachi from his subtle commentary to its natural and obvious meaning, and to shew that it relates to the divorce of a woman from her husband, and not toran act of religious apostacy. I now proceed to offer some remarks on the view, which Alethes has taken of the doctrine of divorce delivered in the Old Testament:" and however I may be obliged to differ from Alethes in the detail of his argument, I have again the pleasure of agreeing with him in admitting "the connexion and important influence it offers, in ascertaining the genuine sense of those texts of Scripture, that form the basis of the Christian doctrine of divorce."

It is not necessary for me to controvert the opinions of Alethes concerning the imperfections of the social law of the Hebrews and its inferiority to the better system By

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the same offence in respect of a woman not married nor betrothed, was visited with a milder penalty: but am I at liberty to conclude from such premises, that "this is clear proof, that the Hebrew law in accordance with the whole analogy of the first Jewish covenant, regarded not so much the violation of the woman's honour, as the invasion of the property of the man. When a woman was not the property of a man, then the law visited with slight severity either adultery or rape. When by marriage or troth she had become the property of a man, then the violation of her chastity, or the voluntary surrender of it became a capital crime."--In what school lethes has learned to estimate the condition of women, I presume not to inquire: but he must produce a clearer proof than is contained in the different punishment of different crimes, before he can persuade me, that the woman was ever so degraded in the sight of her Maker, as to be considered the property of the man. This is indeed to justify the sale of wives, and to reduce adultery to a civil trespass: but I have yet to learn, in what cases such civil tres

pass and " invasion of the property of the man" was a capital crime or punished with death. In other wrongs relating to property and possession, the law was satisfied with the payment of equivalents, and adultery would not have been punished with death, if "the property of a man or a woman" had formed nearly the sole consideration in the eye of the law." It is remarkable that Alethes has over looked the case of a woman betrothed by Selden in the Uxor Hebraica,

condition of women, when wives: were bought, and polygamy was practised without sin or scruple." ..I am willing to concede to Alethes, that if his assertions are restricted to the law of Moses, the woman had not in some of these respects the power of recrimination or redress. But if the known practice of the Jewish Church, as in. sinuated in occasional allusions of the prophets, and copiously exhibit

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ed violated in the field where there was none to help her. Here in the capital punishment of the man, on the woman's evidence, and in the entire exemption of the woman, the law shewed compassion to the woman, respected her feelings and redressed her wrongs, without consideration of the man, whose property she is assumed to have been. Alethes assigns as instances of "the same spirit of almost exclusive regard to the husband" the licence of polygamy and the crimen pre-repta virginitatis, and then proceeds with a statement, which requires more particular attention: "In the same partiality of provision, it accorded to the husband the awful trial of jealousy, in which the bitter water by a miraculous virtue, caused the thigh of the adulteress to swell, and her belly to rot. And precisely in union with the spirit of these peculiar rights and privileges the husband had a plenary right to divorce his wife on trivial pretexts, or at least on grounds far short of infidelity to his bed.

"These provisions were not compensated by the grant of any similar or equivalent rights to the wife. If her husband separated from her she had no power of remonstrance; if he was unfaithful to her bed, he had done her no wrong, of which she could legally complain. Recrimination or redress was wholly out of her reach.

Such was the nature of the Jewish marriage law, and such of necessity the low and disregarded REMEMBRANCER, No. 29.

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be admitted in illustration of the Jewish law of divorce, it will appear, that recrimination or redress was not always or wholly out of the reach of the woman. There were cases in which the woman not less than the man was entitled to sue for a divorce. If, for instance, "her husband separated from her," or neglected her, she had such "power of remonstrance," that she might claim a divorce, and if the divorce was refused or delayed, a fine was imposed upon the husband until he should accede to her demand. Again, the privilege and licence of polygamy was regulated and restrained by the Jewish Doctors, that it might not operate to the neglect or prejudice of the wife: and in respect of infidelity to her bed, if it was not a wrong "of which she could legally complain," it was a wrong, which she might plead in the event of her own misconduct, and by which she might prevent her husband from prosecuting her to con. viction. This is an important part of the Jewish law of adultery and divorce, and as it has been either overlooked or misrepresented, it is the more necessary to correct and supply the misapprehensions and sup. pressions of Alethes.

Alethes says, that the Law of 'Moses "in the same partiality of provision accorded to the husband the awful trial of jealousy:" that this and the other "provisions were not compensated by the grant of any similar or equivalent rights to the wife" and that "gecrimination or

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redress was wholly out of her reach."

I am prepared with the highest authority to counteract these assertions, and to shew from the words of Moses, that in this case at least, there is no "partiality of provision," and that the woman had the power of recrimination, which she might use not in extenuation of guilt committed, but in prevention of punishment, which would otherwise be inflicted. The concluding sentence of the law concerning the waters of jealousy, is not very luminously expressed, and might escape the notice of a superficial reader: " then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and the woman shall bear her iniquity." The Jewish interpretation of the law is given by Selden, Lightfoot, and Patrick, and is to this effect: if the husband is free from iniquity, i. e. from adultery, then the water tries his wife: but if he be not free, i. e. be himself also guilty of adultery, then the water hath no power to try her. Or in the words of another Jewish commentator, the bitter water then only had power, when the man was free from the sin of which he suspected his wife. Here then the miraculous virtue acknowledged by Alethes, operated not only actively in the punishment of the adulteress who underwent the trial, but negatively also, in the conviction and rebuke of the adulterer who demanded the trial: and it is the recorded opinion of the Jews, that the waters eventually failed of their effect in consequence of the prevailing adulteries, and that the trial was at length abolished, that the sacred name might no more be invoked in vain.

Bishop Patrick in his concluding comment upon the law of the waters of jealousy, recites the words of the prophet Hosea, ch. iv. ver. 14, and from the drift of his argument seems to consider that they were fulfilled in the inefficacy of the trial through the prevalence of adultery: "I will

not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery, for themselves are separated with whores, and they sacrifice with harlots." The note from Bishop Hall in the Family Bible, implies that the omission of punishment was in itself penal and judicial: "I will not chastise that in your children and wives, which ye that are the parents and husbands are willingly guilty of."

Lightfoot in the Hora Hebraicæ in commenting upon the case of the woman taken in adultery refers to yet higher authority, supposing that upon that occasion, our Lord assumed the character of the Judge in the trial of the waters of jealousy; and that in his posture of bending to the ground and his act of writing, he observed an exact confor mity with the manner of administering that law. He supposes, that our Lord as Judge heard the accusation; and that with reference to the opinions and practice of the age, he addressed the accusers to this effect: "You acknowledge, that although a woman be guilty, she is nevertheless secure from punishment, if her husband be also guilty: as Judge, I therefore call upon you, who have brought this woman before me. Are you yourselves, in respect of chastity, in a condition to accuse and convict this woman? If you are qualified, carry the sentence into execution, and let him that is without sin cast the first stone at her. The word used by our Lord is arauapratos, the word used by the LXX, in Numbers v. 31, is alwes ami aμaptias.

Whatever may be thought of the relevancy of these commentaries of Patrick on Hosea iv. 14., and of Lightfoot on John viii. 7, they will at least prove what was the opinion of these distinguished Divines on the mutual constancy required in the law of the waters of jealousy: they will shew that in their judgment, here was no partiality of provision;

that the woman had the privilege of recrimination; and that an adulter. ous wife could not be convicted or punished, except upon condition of the husband's integrity.

Alethes concludes his view of the Jewish doctrine of divorce with an expression of surprize, that "any one acquainted with the Old Testament should select a passage of Scripture under that dispensation, on which to rest his opinion, that divorces are unlawful." The text of Malachi in the just interpretation of its present authorized translation, does of itself justify the selection. I will not, however, conceal that in the older translation, the words are rendered, "If thou hatest her, put her away, saith the Lord of Hosts:" and it is well observed in the marginal annotation; "not that he alloweth divorcement, but of two faults he sheweth which is the least." The divorce-law of the Jews can never be considered, but as a remedial provision for the prevention of greater evils: and it is of importance to observe how the severity of the origiual law of adultery was mitigated. The crime was originally capital in the man and in the woman: the woman was then protected by the precautions of the law of the bitter waters and, lastly, if she found no favour in her husband's eyes, he had the power of divorcing her. The greatest of all commentators upon the Jewish law hath taught us wiry this privilege was conceded, which he is very far from approving even in its mildest exercise: "Moses for the hardness of your hearts wrote you this precept: but from the beginning it was not so. What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder."

This sentence naturally introduces the Christian doctrine of divorce, which must have been very imperfectly discussed, without ascertain ing the state of opinion which previously obtained concerning adul

tery.

A. M.'

To the Editor of the Remembrancer.
Sir,

WHEN I published the Treatise on
Human Motives, which you have
lately done me the honour of review.
ing, I had little intention of resum-
ing a subject, of which all the prin-
ciples, that I did not fully explain,
appeared to me either evident at
first sight, or to have been sufficient-
ly proved by other writers, whose
works are generally known and ac-
cessible. Of the objections which
are made to those principles in your
very respectable journal, you are
well aware that all the more consi-
derable must readily occur to almost
every person who enters seriously on
the study of morals. Yet I allow
most willingly that, whenever any
objection is actually alleged by an
attentive reader or critic, it has a
very different claim to regard, from
that which it has when it can be
only anticipated: since, in most
cases, the reader or the critic may
be fairly expected to see more clearly
than the author himself, where any
real difficulty is to be found. I will
therefore request that you will per-
mit me to avail myself of a few pages
in your two next Numbers, in order
to explain sose of the points at issue.
I hope to do this the more briefly
and satisfactorily, because, notwith
standing the many defects of my
work, which I readily see and ac-
knowledge, you have, with few ex-
ceptions, possessed yourself accu-
rately of the meaning which I in-
tended it to convey.

I need not, I believe, wish the principles I have advanced to be tried by any more favourable rule, than that of the validity even of those points of system, which you consider as liable to so many objec tions. I may premise, however, that the points you object to, though, I believe, both valid and highly important, and though incorporated in the very framework of my book, do not comprize its main intention

and scope. The book is meant," with what success I cannot say, to have more of a practical than of a theoretical character; and, though I have assumed a sort of system for convenience, and for the sake of getting regularly at conclusions, which without some system I could not have reached so easily; the topic on which I have dwelt most largely, and to which I have accounted every other as subordinate,

is the showing particularly, in how great a degree, and in what manner, an habitual reference to religion ought to enter into every human virtue, and into all our various enterprizes and pursuits; and on this topic you must agree with me wholly. Still, however, though it thus seems to me that my Treatise is, as it was intended to be, practical in the main, the sort of system to which you object forms a part of it, and the objections you make must, if valid, be fatal.

Your objections to the principles I have advanced, may be included in the six following propositions. All your other objections are, I think, technical, and only affect the plan of the Treatise, or the propriety of the signification affixed in it to the word motive. But I will not trouble you with any defence of my plan, except so far as moral principles are involved in it.

The six propositions, into which I persuade myself that you will think your objections fairly distributed, are,

I. That the formation of religious character, that character which I have laid down as consisting in a proper state and regulation of our motives, is only a part, though an important part, of the conditions of future happiness which are set be

fore us.

II. That it is an inconvenient arrangement, and one which may lead men into practical error, to regard the motives, instead of the active habits, as the immediate subjects of moral discipline and control.

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III. That I propose to limit in judiciously, and in a way in which it is not limited in Scripture, the practical end and object of human life. «!t } 7

IV. That, in proposing, as the test of actions, the tendency to the formation of religious or moral character, I exclude other tests which possess on our attention an equal or a superior claim; and, moreover, that a test so vague as this tendency cannot have the practical use I as cribe to it.

V. That, in speaking of conscience, I lose sight of the obligation which we are under to refer all our actions to the will of God.

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VI. That, in speaking strictly of obligation, I maintain that the de sire of happiness is the only motive which obliges us to practise virtue; though, in your opinion, to speak of a man as obliged to pursue any thing merely for his own benefit, is nothing less than a contradiction in terms.

In answer to these objections, I hope to prove,

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I. That the formation of religious character, which character may be justly described as consisting in a proper state and regulation of our motives, includes every condition of future happiness which is set before us.

II. That, without pretending that, in all respects, the plan I have adopted is the best possible, (and I am aware that in some respects another plan would be preferable,) I bave yet good reasons for treating of the Human Motives as the immediate subjects of moral discipline and control.

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III. That, though I propose religious character as the general aim or object of mankind, as that object by the attaining of which we fulfil all the conditions of future happiness. I do not, any more than Scrip ture does, propose any limitation of their objects or ends: that though Scripture does not limit us to this object, it does propose it to us; and

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