David be any example, before I can practice polygamy, God must give me the wives: but God's command to all men is, "Take heed and do not treacherously against the wife of thy youth."
7. Whatever be the opinion left on the mind by the Old, the New Testament is explicit on this subject. "Whosoever putteth away his wife, except it be for fornication, and marrieth another, committeth adultery." (Matt. xix. 9.) Here are two actions concerned; 1, the repudiation; 2, the second marriage. In one of these two is involved adultery. It is not in the repudiation, be it just or unjust. It must, therefore, be in the second marriage. Though you put away your first. wife altogether, cease to live with her entirely, unless she has committed fornication, even then, says the Saviour, you can not take a second wife without committing adultery. If marrying a second wife, the first being put away, is adultery, certainly marrying a second, the first being not put away, must be adultery also. Grant that the law of marriage and divorce under Moses permitted polygamy; Jesus, in changing the law of divorce, changed the law of marriage. The practice of the church is the best exponent of their doctrine, and it is certain that the early Christian church did not only not practice polygamy, but many of the apostles did not marry at all.
8. Paul, however, is still more definite on the subject. 1 Cor. vii., 2: "To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and every woman her own husband." Each man is to "have his own wife" to and for himself. If she infringe that law it is adultery. So likewise, each woman is to "have her own husband," and to herself and for herself also. If he
