ety that not even until the advent of the Saviour was the institution of marriage restored to its primeval integrity by revoking the permission of polygamy and divorce. The teaching of the apostle Paul, too, is worthy of most serious attention, as the subject of polygamy must have come immediately before him. The Christian converts in the apostolic age may be divided into three classes: Jews, Romans, and Greeks. Polygamy, though not unknown among the Jews, had fallen, as we have said, into general disuse. It was positively forbidden by the Roman law, though divorce was even more frequent among the Romans than the Jews ; but it undoubtedly was the common usage of the Greeks. Thus Thebdoret says: n«Xot yai tiioSttoav Kai "EXAr/j'ec. nai 'lovSaioi Kai 6Y>w Kai rpiai Kai nXiiom yvvat^i v6p<p ydfxov Kara. tuvtvv avvoiKtiv {Com. in 1 77«.iii,2). The epistles of Paul were generally addressed to Grecian converts ; let us see, then, how he dealt with the question, which must have come directly before him. Two ways were open to the apostle : either a partial or temporary toleration, or an immediate and direct prohibition of the custom. The multitude of Greek converts were undoubtedly polygamists; it might seem a hard measure, and would produce much domestic discontent and misery, to com- pel converts to abandon their wives legally married according to the Grecian law. Did, then, the apostle permit the usage temporarily, either till that genera- tion had passed away, or until polygamists themselves were willing to conform to the higher Christian stand- ard? We most emphatically reply that the apostle never for even the briefest period tolerated polygamy among baptized or Christian disciples, and that it. never existed in the Christian Church at all. Had it been tolerated even temporarily, some notice or reference to it would be found in the apostolic epistles. The sin- cerity of converts must have been put to a severe test : to give up their wives no doubt often involved a pain- ful sacrilice to Christian duty, yet so emphatic and peremptory must have been the apostle's prohibition that not a murmur of opposition was heard from Cor- inth, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica, and other Chris- tian communities. The apostle often censures Grecian converts for their violation of Christian duty, some of them having fallen from their regenerate state, and abandoned themselves to their old sins ; but we find no reference to polygamy in his epistles, nothing which im- plies that it was continued or even known among them. There is no mention, however remote or indirect, of a believer's wives. This .silence can only intimate the utter abandonment of the usage among Christians as clearly as the most emphatic statement. It could not have been tacitly allowed as indifferent, or permitted even for a brief period; since it must be remembered that the apostle had expressly forbidden polygamy, and if it existed at all in the Christian communities he planted, it could only have been in defiance of his direct prohibition. No language can be plainer than that of 1 Cor. ch. vii : "Let every man have his own wife, and every woman her own husband; let not the wife depart from her husband, let not a husband put away his wife." Again, the non-existence of polyg- amy in the apostolic churches is implied in the same apostle's comparison of marriage to the union of Christ and his Church. The apostle says: '-The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the Head of the Church" (Eph. v, 23). But as Christ's Church, as Paul says, is one body (Eph. iv, 4), there would be no meaning in the comparison, no similarity in the things compared, if the husband might have a plurality of wives: the marriage union would not then have a typical representation of the union of Christ with the one body, which is his Church. Taking, again, the testimony of the Catholic Church, the evi- dence against polygamy will appear most positive and decisive. The mind of the divine Legislator was so clearly and ineffaceably stamped on his followers that the usage in early and later ages of the Church was
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utterly unknown; there is no instance on record of a baptized polygamisl for fifteen hundred years alter Christ < lathouc, schismatic, and Inn tie. amid all their differences, agreed at least on this point. No profess- ing Christian, however err »us his belief or scanda- lous In- life, ever ventured to revive the interdicted
I he testimony of the Church, clearh before us bj the consentient practice of Christians in all ages, is too explicit to leave room r. >r further con- troversy, or any real doubl of the teaching of the New Testament on the subject. Besides, the practice "!' the whole world was strictly uniform, with oro tion in the 16th century. In an evil hour Luther un- happily gave permission to one of hi* followers to marry a Becond wife during the lifetime of the iir-t the landgrave of Besse. Be was the tir-t and the only Protestant polygamisl of the Christian Church.
In recent times the question of polygamj has re- opened in the Christian Church, and has resumed great importance. Bishop Colenso in Africa, and mission- several denominations in India, have deemed it expedient to allow heathen polygamists to retain tlnir wives alter baptism ; though, on becoming Chris- tian-, they are forbidden to add to the number ol 1 1