therefore, as well as Samuel, ftand as a demonftrable proof, that a child born under the circumftance of polygamy is no baftard-GOD Himself being the judge, whofe judgment is according to truth.

A more ftriking inftance of God's thoughts, on the total difference between polygamy and adultery, does not meet us any where with more force and clearness, in any part of the facred hiftory, than in the account which is given us of David and Bathsheba, and their issue.

When David took Bathsheba, she was another's wife-the child which he begat upon her in that fituation was begotten in adultery and the thing which David bad done difpleafed the LORD, 2 Sam. xi. 27. And what was the confequence? We are told, 2 Sam. xii. 1. The LORD fent Nathan (the prophet) unto David. Nathan opened his commiffion with a most beautiful parable, defcriptive of David's crime; this parable the prophet applies to the conviction of the delinquent, fets it home upon his confcience, brings him to repentance, and the poor penitent finds mercy-his life is fpared, ver. 13. Yet GOD will vindicate the honour of His moral government, and that in the most awful manner-the murder of Uriah is See alfo vol. i. p. 280-2. Dd 2

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to be vifited upon David and his house The fword fhall never depart from thine house, ver. 10. The adultery with Bathfbeba was to be retaliated in the most aggravated manner-Because thou haft deSpifed me, and haft taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife-Thus faith the Lord, I will raife up evil against thee out of thine own house and I will take thy wives and give them unto thy neighbour before thine eyes-and he shall lie with thy wives in fight

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God's taking and giving David's wives to Abfalom, is to be understood in a very different fense from His giving the deceafed Saul's wives into David's bofom, ver. 8. This laft is peculiarly mentioned as a favour done to David, and therefore fpoken of as an ingredient to heighten his ingratitude in taking the wife of Uriah-the other was threatened as a judgment, and permitted, as many other evils are, in a courfe of providence, as a fore punishment on David for what he had done. But Abfalom was neverthelefs guilty of adultery and inceft, in taking his father's wives and lying with them, and is no more excufable, than he was in drawing his fword in rebellion against his father, becaufe this, as the other, was a fulfilment of God's threatening --ver. 11. I will raife up evil against thee out of thine own houfe.

So when it is faid-Ezek. xx. 25.-I gave them ftatutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; and I polluted them in their own gifts, &c. it appears from ver, 24, where the reafons of this are fet down, that all was in a way of judgment for their departure from the ftatutes of JEHOWAH. Wherefore-GoD left them to follow the

deceit

of this fun-for thou didst it fecretly, but I will do this thing before all Ifrael, and before the fun. All this was fhortly fulfilled in the rebellion and inceft of Abfalom, chap. xvi. 21, 22. And this was done in a way of judgment on David, for taking and defiling the wife of Uriah, and was included in the curfes threatened, Deut. xxviii. 30. to the defpifers of GOD'S laws.

As to the iffue of David's adulterous commerce with Bathsheba, it is written2 Sam. xii. 15.-The LORD ftruck the child which Uriah bare unto David, and it was very fick. What a dreadful fcourge this was to David, who could not but read his crime in his punishment, the following verfes declare; wherein we find David almost frantic with grief: however the child's fickness was unto death, for, ver. 18, on the feventh day the child died.

Now let us take a view of David's act

deceit of their own hearts, the confequence of which may be defcribed, Pf. cvi. 39. Thus were they defiled in their own gifts, and went a whoring with their own inventions. As if GoD had faid-I gave them that is-I permitted them to follow-fuch tatutes and precepts, as a judgment on their departure from ME. See Jews Letters to M. de VOLTAIRE, vol. i. p. 339-341. a very fenfible folution of this paffage of Ezekiel.

+ For the tragical story of Amnon, feé 2 Sam. xiii. throughout.

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of polygamy, when, after Uriah's death, he added Bathsheba to his other wives, ver. 24, 25. And David comforted Bathfheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her, and fhe bare a fon, and he called his name (b) Selomoh (that maketh peace and reconciliation or recompence) and the LORD loved him. Again, we find Nathan, who had been fent on the former occafion, fent alfo on this, but with a very different meffage-And He (the LORD) fent by the band of Nathan the prophet, and He called his name JEDIDIAH (DILECTUS DOMINI -beloved of the LORD) because of the LORD -i. e. because of the favour GOD had towards him, ver. 24.

Let any read onward through the whole hiftory of Solomon-let them consider the inftances of God's peculiar favour towards him already mentioned, and the many others, that are to be found in the account we have of him-let them compare GoD's dealings with the unhappy iffue of David's adultery, and this happy offspring of his polygamy-and if the allowance and approbation of the latter, doth not as clearly appear, as the condemnation and punishment of the former, furely all diftinction and difference must be at an end, and the scripture itself lose the force of it's own evidence.

AP PEN

APPENDIX N° II.

H

See before, Vol. i. p. 393-4.

AVING mentioned Barbeyrac's note e e. on Grotius de Jure, lib. ii. c. v. fect. 9.-in which the latter is represented as having changed his opinion, with regard to a new law of CHRIST on the fubject of polygamy-I was much inclined to examine farther into this matter, and therefore procured Barbeyrac's French tranflation of Grotius de fure, with the French annotations, to which Barbeyrac refers in the above note, imagining that I might there meet with a more ample account of the matter.

On searching the notes of this learned Frenchman on his translation of Grotius de Jure, I find abundant proof of a very great change of fentiment in that great man.

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