IS POLYGAMY FORBIDDEN BY CHRIST?
By Anti-Mormon
We constantly hear of new accessions to the ranks of those sadly misguided people, the Mormons; and I fear that in some measure other and purer denominations of Christians will be held responsible for this, because they have neglected to give scriptural and plain English interpretations of the seventh commandment. Most Christian churches, like the Walsall School Board, find it pleasant and easy to pass over the seventh as well as the fourth commandment without comment; thus leaving ignorant persons or those forgetful of Scripture quite at the mercy of false teachers. And even those who might be expected to know the Bible seem sometimes strangely ignorant of its contents. There are people who say that polygamy and concubinage are not forbidden in the Bible. This is the Mormon doctrine; but the same thing has been said by those who profess to disapprove of these things, though they say they are not expressly forbidden. If not expressly forbidden, who has the right to declare that they ought not to be done? “The Bible alone is the religion of Protestants,” and “whatever is not contained therein, nor may be proved thereby,” is not to be required of any man. Unless we are to declare ourselves without any guide or rule of conduct, we must adhere to the declaration of faith in the Scriptures, and to the principle that whatever is not expressly forbidden in God’s word ought not to be condemned as sinful. “Sin is the transgression of the law.” “Where no law is, there is no transgression.” But is not polygamy strictly and repeatedly forbidden? How can any believer in the New Testament say that it is not, when Christ himself has declared that it is adultery? Matt. 19:9; Mark 10:11, 12, etc. Adultery is forbidden by the seventh commandment. The fact that for ages the Jews perverted the meaning of this command, as for ages the Christian churches have perverted the fourth commandment, does not alter the original and unchangeable meaning. Jesus Christ was not instituting a new law, but explaining the old seventh commandment, when he said, “Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery.” Matt. 19:9. Mark 10:11, 12: “And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.” See also Luke 16:18. I suppose nobody will say that adultery consists in putting away the wife or the husband. Of course, this crime is not in putting away the first, but in marrying another, which would be adultery even if the first had not been put away. No one will deny this if he will contemplate the possibility of his own wife taking two or three additional husbands, though without putting the first away. Christ’s words make it plain that what constitutes adultery in a woman, constitutes the same crime in a man; and the original words of the seventh commandment make no distinction between man’s responsibility and woman’s. This principle was understood even before Christ declared it. Malachi, the last of the prophets, reproves the men of Israel for their unfaithfulness to their wives: “The Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously; yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue [margin, excellency] of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.” Malachi 2:14, 15. How, in the face of these texts, particularly those from the New Testament, can any calling themselves Christian assert that polygamy is not expressly forbidden? I have heard people who were not Christians defend polygamy on the ground that it was practised by David and Solomon. These people overlooked the fact that both David and Solomon disobeyed the commandment, although it was especially impressed on the attention of kings. Moses, prophesying of the time when Israel would have a king, gave, by divine command, a special warning to kings to give heed to the law; particularly saying, “Neither shall he multiply wives to himself.” Deut. 17:17. This precept, with many others, was utterly disregarded. David multiplied wives to the number of sixteen, and Solomon to a thousand. But it should be remembered of David that he never transgressed in this way after the awful crime by which he obtained Bathsheba, for which his repentance was bitter and lasting, and his punishment terrible. He never afterward relapsed into sin against the marriage law; and it would be wiser for men to take example from his effectual repentance by which he regained God’s favor, than to excuse crime by the example of his wickedness, by which he risked the destruction of his soul. As for Solomon, he multiplied adulteries as he did idolatries, so that his later life can be no example to those who wish to please God; but rather a solemn warning to those who may imagine that present wisdom will infallibly secure them against future folly. There is no wisdom save in the way God has set before us, that we should walk in it. As long as we abide therein, all is well; but if we turn aside, our former obedience is nothing; our former wisdom will but the more condemn our departure from the way. Some people seem to be unable to comprehend the meaning of “concubinage.” They know what is called by that name now, and think that it cannot mean anything else. But the Bible term concubine means simply a wife, a slave wife, or one inferior in rank; but legally a wife, as we may learn from the fact that the man whose concubine she is is called “her husband,” Judges 19:3 and 20:4; he is called the “son-in-law” of his concubine’s father in Judges 19:5; and his concubine’s father is called “his father-in-law” in Judges 19:4, 7, and 9. Moreover, the ten concubines of David, that Absalom took, are called “wives” by the prophet Nathan, speaking the word of the Lord. 2 Sam. 12:11. The law of God never recognizes any indiscriminate, temporary connection as otherwise than criminal, or any permanent connection otherwise than as marriage. People who honestly intend their union to be permanent are careful to ratify it according to the law of the land they live in. Those who neglect to do this, though human law may not bind them, are responsible under divine law, either as married persons bound by all the duties of marriage, or as criminals guilty of the crime mentioned in Numbers 25:1, and 1 Corinthians 10:8. In view of the errors so industriously disseminated by the Mormons, and by dissolute, or ignorant, or thoughtless persons, it is an absolute duty to call attention to what the Bible actually does say about this subject. I do not think that any one who reads the Scriptures carefully, and with a mind unbiased by criminal inclinations, can possibly arrive at the conclusion arrived at by the Mormons,—that polygamy is not expressly forbidden by the Holy Scriptures, according to the teaching of Christ.
ANTI-MORMON.