It may be objected to this, that no other instance of devoting a person to virginity occurs. It is true : but neither does any other instance of devoting a person to death. The instance of Abraham and Isaac is not at all in point : for there the deter- mination to offer Isaac was not the result of a rash vow, but of a divine command : and God had a right to dispose of Isaac's life in any way he pleased; but Jephthah had no right whatever over his daughter's life. The right usurped by wicked Saul over his son Jonathan (which however was properly and suc- cessfully resisted) will scarcely be brought in justification and support of such a claim.
It may further be objected, that parents had no right to devote a daughter to perpetual virginity. This also may be true^; but much less had they any right to devote her vmto death.
The most specious objection however against our interpreta- tion is, that, supposing he only devoted her to God, there was no reason why she should remain unmarried ; since Samson and Samuel, both of whom were devoted to God from the womb, were both married. But the case is extremely different between a man and a woman : they were at liberty to serve God in any way that they judged to be agreeable to his will ;
y Some right of this kind however seems to be acknowledged ; 1 Cor. vii. 37, 38.
but she, if she had married, would have been under the control of her husband, who might in a variety of ways have interfered with such a discharge of her duties as the vow implied : and therefore it was necessary that she should remain vmmarried, and that she should also be secluded in a great measure from society itself; that being the way in which a woman might serve the Lord, as men served liim by waiting on him conti- nually in the tabernacle.
As to the objection, that if he had only devoted her in the sense that we maintain, he would not have so deplored her fate, it has no weight ; for as she was his only child, all the distress occasioned to her came with double force on him, who was thereby doomed, and by his own folly too, to have liis name and posterity cut off from Israel.]
Such, we are persuaded, was the vow that Jeph- thah made: we proceed,
IL To suggest some instruction from it —
Both the father and the daughter afford us very instructive lessons. We may learn,
1. To avoid the rashness of Jephthah — [We cannot be wrong in condemning this, since Jephthah himself lamented it. It may be thought that we are in no danger of imitating it : but what do we in rash oaths ? do we not tread in the very steps of Jephthah ? There is scarcely an office to which we can be introduced, whether civil or reli- gious, that is not entered upon by first taking an oath to fulfil the duties of it. Yet if there be a post of honour or profit to be obtained, how httle do men in general think of the oaths by which they are to gain access to it ! Would to God that this matter were considered by the legislature ; and that penalties were substituted in the place of oaths ! Verily " by reason of oaths the land mourneth," and the consciences of thousands are greatly burthened. I cannot but consider the frequency of oaths, the ease with which they are administered, and the indifference with which they are taken, as among the most crying sins of the nation.
There is another way also in which we follow the steps of Jephthah, namely, by undertaking so lightly the office of sponsors for the children of our friends. The providing of sponsors to supply the place of parents who shall be removed, or disqualified for the instruction of their children in the fear of God, is excellent : but the engaging solemnly before God to perform their office is no light matter. Let any one read the baptismal service, and see what it is that he undertakes ; and then let him see what little attention is paid to these vows in general, or, perhaps, what little attention he himself has