and therefore true, though of transactions before he lived, I proceed to notice and answer another objection which has been raised against the divine book.

*

The absence of an account of any females/ in the days of Cain, and others after his time, has been a reason of supposing the account wrong; for as they have observed there must have been women before Cain and others could have wives, the Book of Genesis, iv. 16 to 26. Here also I can answer the opponents of the Scriptures; thus, the accounts are of the male sex, and not of the female, which is very clear in the readings of the same, and therefore the women became omitted: the accounts are such, that there was plenty of time both before and after the first parents having Cain, to have daughters, and therefore they had daughters beyond every doubt, of whom the first descendants of Adam had wives. This practice was in existence until Isaac and Jacob, for Isaac married his half-cousin, namely Rebeckah, Book of Genesis, xxiv. 67, and she was the daughter of Bethuell, and Bethuell was the son of Nahor, and Nahor was the brother of Abraham; thus Bethuell and Isaac were brothers' children, who were cousins therefore, and Isaac married the daughter of his own cousin, who of course was his half-cousio; for this see Book of Genesis, xxii. 20 to 24. And Jacob had his mother's brother's daughters to wives; they therefore were his cousins, see Book of Genesis, xxix. 1 to 35. Thus it appears to have been quite regular to marry relations; and as the scarcity of numbers was in the retrogression till Adam, so they would be obliged to marry their nearer relations until it would naturally come to brothers and sisters;

nor could they do otherwise, being none other. This practice, together with there being plenty of room for the birth of females by Adam and Eve, at once signifies that they had daughters, to whom Cain and others became married; that therefore was not, nor is any defect in the account of Moses as a male account. His writings are on a good foundation relative to all the preceding events of the world, in every respect both towards God and mankind, if any writings have been true, since, as aforesaid, there was every reason of truth in his narrative, as well as in those events which happened in his time.

1

A third objection against the Scriptures is this, namely, that since it appears that many married both their near relations, and many wives, and had many concubines, who were approved of as the servants of God, notwithstanding such conduct; and in the latter times of the Scriptures such-like conduct was forbidden, as awful crimes against God, and thus the conduct approved of by the Lord; and the precepts of the Lord in the latter time, were, one the opposite to the other, hence there. pears a flat contradiction.

ap

To this. I will reply, that in the first ages of the world it was proper to have a plurality of. wives to populate the world; otherwise they could not have had a sufficient quantity to inanage the affairs of life, and that would have been constituting the things unnecessary that God had made, and therefore would be contrary to the end of the formation, seeing it would have been folly in him to form the existences, but which he could not be guilty of, being not a God of foily, but of infinite wisdom; aud therefore in answering the end of creation there was no way but raising up progeny, by numbers of

J

such means, and for which reason it was as proper to have a number of wives as well as only one, in those days; and it was as proper to have those wives from their near relations, since it was the case that there were only those people at the first ages to have the needful succession from.

Upon this principle such plurality of wives after the flood was as needful as before, and which was the case; and if any exceeded the reasonable bounds of that conduct, it was attributed to their ignorance; because they had not, with all the revelatious from God, as much knowledge during the Jewish nation as nade manifest in Christ and his gospel, yea, their times are denominated in the Acts of the Apostles the times of ignorance, at which God winked, or in other words, which he overlooked, because of that ignorance; the ignorance in any such things was uo injury therefore, of good' in them and by them, see Acts of the Apostles, xvii. 30. Thus they were so ignorant as to fall into idolatry; and if so as to fall into idolatry, very easy by that ignorance would they fall into an inordinate number of wives; (observe I mean the act of marrying many young and single women to be one man's wives, and not to have the wives of other men; that would have been an act of adultery, for which it was death.)

And as it was right in the first ages of the world to have several wives each, for the reasons assigned, there was therefore no possible crime; and if in after ages they in anywise over-went the reasonable number of wives for population, through their want of the knowledge afterwards inade known in the gospel, that was not laid to their charge, owing to the ignorance they had: here therefore, was uo

thing wrong, but it was right to have several wives at one time.

}

But although it was right to have, as stated, many wives, and which was the case in many instances, that I do not now need to point out, yet it became a crime both before and at the gospel dispensation, Nahum's prophecy, iii. 4, and in Hosea's prophecy, vi. 10, and in the Acts of the Apostles, xv. 20, St. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians, v. 11, and his Epistle to the Ephesians, v. 5; all which are pointedly prohibitions of the act of having any more than one woman, and that as wife; the which -is highly extolled by the Apostle, St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, xiii. 4; aud while the marriage of one is extolled, the acts of whoredom or adultery are forbidden: this, as I have observed, has been an objection raised against the sacred volume, being the one opposite to the other, but in the first, as I have stated, it was right, but it is now, as it has been during a long time, quite wrong; the reason seems very obvious, namely, the world has obtained all it demanded in its population, and therefore there was no need of such conduct to produce numbers; the cause of the like subsiding as the population increased, there needed not the thing itself; and as God has made known his full light of salvation and happiness in the Gospel, there could be no excuse to those guilty of the same that once was right. This is fully clear in the Acts of Apostles, xvii. 30, 31; and although this was once right-but now wrong, yet it is no real contradiction in God or his word, since it was the alteration of circumstances that caused the difference, which has ever been the conduct of the Lord, for he has ever been disposed the same under the same

circumstances; then when those circumstances occurred in any certain way, they were treated as his mind was towards those circumstances; and thus what has been would be again under the same causes, his mind knowing no change to such causes; and thus when the circumstances of the world were those of being scarce of population he allowed as aforesaid; but when the circumstances became different they required different conduct, and as the Lord has been in those first circumstances, so he would be again in the same, having his mind on such changes; thus therefore there was not oue change in the eternal mind of God, always being one in the same case or cases, but the change was in the change of the world, for which reason it was right, as stated, to have a plurality of wives in the first ages; but is now wrong, as stated, because of the change of the world.Here then appears no contradiction in the same cases, but both right according to their changed circumstances.

A fourth charge against the Scriptures is this, namely, that many of the chief promoters of them have been fraught upon bloodshed and slaughter; hence it is a volume of much encou ragement of cruel carnage, and as such should not be received. To this I am as forward to reply as to the other false charges.

It is true that many have been the wars of the people of the Lord, and many have been the carnages thereby; but a few considerations will obviate these charges, and they may be included in these two, namely first, they were positive commands from the Lord as punishments of the heathen nations who had the means of knowing and doing the will of God; and in the second place they were the punishments of