David had a score of wives and concubines, and “David was a man after God’s own heart;” “David did right in the eyes of the Lord.” God himself said to David, “I delivered thee out of the hands of Saul; and I gave thee thy master’s house and thy master’s wives” (2 Sam. xii, 7, 8).
“And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart”—sufficient to hold a thousand wives and concubines.
Many years ago the Mormon, Orson Pratt, wrote a defense of polygamy, based upon the Bible. A noted lawyer of New York sent a copy of it to the Rev. Dr. W. B. Sprague with the interrogation, “Can you answer this?” Back came the frank reply, “No; can you?”
It is claimed that the New Testament is opposed to polygamy. It is not. William Ellery Channing says:
“There is no prohibition of polygamy in the New Testament. It is an indisputable fact that although Christianity was first preached in Asia, which had been from the earliest ages the seat of polygamy, the Apostles never denounced it as a crime, and never required their converts to put away all wives but one.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton says: “It was at a Jewish polygamous wedding that Jesus performed his first miracle, and polygamy was practiced by Christians for centuries.”
It is true that many primitive Christians did not practice polygamy. And why? Because Pagan Greece and Rome had taught them better. It was to them, and not to their Scriptures, that they were indebted for the monogamic system of marriage. The Roman Catholic church did not generally sustain polygamy; but it did sustain a system of concubinage which was certainly as bad. For centuries the keeping of concubines was almost universal among the Catholic clergy, one abbot keeping no less than seventy.
The founders of the Protestant church, however, accepting the Bible as their guide, attaching to it a degree of authority which had never been attached to it before, were candid and consistent enough to admit the validity of the institution. Referring to this subject, Sir William Hamilton, a Christian and a Protestant, says:
“As to polygamy in particular, which not only Luther, Melanchthon, and Bucer, the three leaders of the German Reformation, speculatively adopted, but to which above a dozen distinguished divines among the Reformers stood formally committed” (Discussions on Philosophy and Literature).
Speaking of Luther and Melanchthon, Hamilton says: