Scriptures, even of the Old Testament, have not reproved it, but otherwise; for it is written by Nehemiah, xiii, 26, that Solomon, who had many wives, sinned against God and his own soul by doing so. This passage we consider a direct censure of the practice, as well as the remarks of the Savior, in Matt. xix, 5, who said that it was not so from the beginning, and, consequently, could not have been allowed in the old law. See Deut. xvii, 17, where it is written, that when the people of the Hebrews should come to possess the country of Canaan, and they should desire a king, one from among their brethren of the twelve tribes, he was not to multiply wives. Two is a multiplication of one. More wives than one, therefore, was forbidden by the law of Moses, and although that good trait of the law was never so much violated in that respect by all the Jews under heaven in those ages, yet this does not make it out that the Scriptures allowed polygamy, or did not reprove the practice as a sin.
But the author of the note above alluded to appears willing to have it pass that the Scriptures do not reprove sin, especially in the Old Testament, even though the sins were drunkenness, polygamy, incest and lying, but merely speaks of them as a simple entry or record of such deeds and acts. This mighty stretch of opinion is introduced in order that the reader may be led to believe that when Moses, in the law, has said that the Hebrews should buy their bond men of the heathen, has only made a record of that great crime in this particular. To carry out and to impress this belief, the author of that
