The Bible and Polygamy. Newman John Philip

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ nature and the elements and the rights and the muniments of marriage, it is for you to infer which is the system which God ordained in the beginning.

      My distinguished friend has hastily reviewed many passages of Scripture, all of which, my friends, I shall notice. I will sift them to the bottom. My only regret is that my distinguished friend, for whose scholarship I have regard, did not deliberately take up one passage and exhaust that passage, instead of giving us here a passage and there a passage, simply skimming them over without going to the depths, and showing their philological relation and their entire practical bearing upon us. When my friend shall give us such an exegesis and analysis, whether he quotes Hebrew, Greek or Latin, I will promise him that I will follow him through all the mazes of his exposition and I will go down to the very bottom of his argument.

      I feel bound, to-day, my friends, in my opening speech to give this analysis of the question and to present to you my ideas of marriage in contradistinction to the idea of marriage held here as polygamous.

      Now I presume that I will pass to the consideration of a few of the salient points which my distinguished friend threw out.

      Let us see in relation to the text he quoted, "If brethren dwell together," though he wanders back, and it was difficult for me to see what relation the antediluvians, and what relation old Adam had to this passage; but he referred to the antediluvians and to Adam, and he also referred to Lamech. Who was Lamech? He is the first polygamist on record, the first mentioned in the first two hundred years of the history of the world. He had two wives; and what else did he have? He had murder in his heart and blood on his hand, and I aver that whoever analyzes the case of Lamech, will find that the murder which he committed grew out of his plurality of wives; in other words, it grew out of the polygamy which he attempted to introduce into the world. Said he to his wives, "I have slain a man;" and the inference is that this man had come to claim his rights.

      My friend says that Cain was a murderer, and went down to the land of Nod; he don't exactly know the geography, but it was somewhere. And there he found a woman and married her. Now I affirm this, that when Cain killed his brother Abel he was not married, and he didn't go down to the land of Nod, then, therefore the murder he committed didn't grow out of monogamy, and seems to have had no relation to monogamy; but it grew out of this fact: these two brothers came before the Lord to present their offerings. Cain was a deist, a moralist as we may say, that is, he had no sins to repent of. He therefore did not bring the little lamb as a sacrificial offering, but he came with the first fruits of the earth as a thank offering. He comes before God Almighty and says: "I have no sins to atone for, none at all; but here, I am conscious that thou hast created me and that I am dependent upon thee, therefore I present to thee the first fruits of the soil." Abel comes with his thank offering. He brings his lamb and lays it upon the altar, and that lamb pre-intimated the coming of Jesus Christ, who is "the lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world;" and if there is any record that Abel brought a thank offering, it is a principle in theology and in scriptural exposition that the whole includes the part, just as Saint Paul says: "I beseech you, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice to God." Do you think that he excluded the soul? No, he speaks of one as including the other. So the offering which Abel presented was an offering, sacrificial in its nature, pointing to Christ. Now, perhaps by sending down fire from heaven, or at all events in some significant manner, God recognized the righteousness of Abel, and expressed a preference for his offering, and Cain was wroth, and his pride belched forth and he slew his brother. The murder, therefore, had no reference, directly or indirectly, to marriage, while the murder which the first polygamist mentioned in history committed grew out of the marriage relation.

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQEASABIAAD/2wBDAAMCAgMCAgMDAwMEAwMEBQgFBQQEBQoHBwYIDAoMDAsKCwsNDhIQDQ4RDgsLEBYQERMUFRUVDA8XGBYUGBIUFRT/2wBDAQMEBAUEBQkFBQkUDQsNFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBQUFBT/wAARCAMeAjoDAREAAhEBAxEB/8QAHQABAQEAAgMBAQAAAAAAAAAAAQIAAwYFBwgECf/EAGAQAAECAwYDBAgEAwQFBwcHDQECEQAhMQMEEkFRYQUGcQcigaETMpGxwdHh8AhCUvEUFWIjJHKCFhczkqIYJSY3U2NzQ2R0g7LC0ic0

СКАЧАТЬ