Page:Unlawfulmarriage00jane.djvu/180

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176
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE.

In confirmation of his reasoning, Omicron says, just before the preceding quotation, "As a Hebrew, I might take a wife to-day, and divorce her to-morrow. I might take a second, and a third, yea, even a twentieth wife, and divorce them all." And does he really believe he could act in this licentious manner, under the sanction of a divine law? Does he believe he might, under a divine sanction, dismiss a wife for every trifle, and, to gratify his lusts, dismiss twenty wives?

Omicron goes on to inquire, "Am I to understand, that affinity arising from these precarious and transient connexions, was a bond as close, and valid, and permanent, as the ties of blood? and that the Hebrew was as strongly bound to all the various relatives of his twenty wives, as he was to his own blood-kindred of the like degree?" These are questions that might be asked by a Hebrew, who, to gratify his lawless passions, had divorced twenty wives, and then found himself involved in a maze of difficulties; but surely they do not become a Christian divine, who is discussing the duty, not of Jews, but of Christians.