Now it is affirmed that two women are here mentioned, whereas nothing can be more untrue. Zipporah and the Ethiopian woman are one and identical; it is one and the same person called by different names. Let us see: The father of Zipporah was the priest of Midian; and according to the best authorities Midian and Ethiopia are identical terms, and apply to that portion of Arabia where Jethro lived. So the appellation Midian, Ethiopia and Arabia are applied to the Arabian peninsula. See Appleton's American Encyclopedia, volumes 6, 7 and 11. Then Moses, the Jewish law-giver, stands forth as a monogamist, having but one wife. Moses was not a polygamist. Surely the founder of a polygamist nation and the revealer of a polygamist law, as this gentleman claims, should have set an example, and should have had a dozen or a hundred wives. This son of Jochebed; he was a monogamist, and stands forth as being a reproof to polygamists in all generations.
Now we come to Gideon. And what about this man? An angel appeared to him, that is true; but if the practice of polygamy by Gideon is a law to us, then the practice of idolatry by Gideon is also a law to us. If there is silence in the Bible touching the polygamy of Gideon, there is also silence in the Bible touching his idolatry, and if one is sanctioned so also is the other.
I wish my friend had brought up the case of Hannah, the wife of Elkanah. I can prove to a demonstration that Hannah was the first wife of Elkanah; but being barren Elkanah takes another wife. But Hannah, in the anxiety of her heart, pleads to the Almighty, and God honored her motherhood by answering her prayer. It is asked "Is not this a sanction of polygamy?" Nay, a sanction of monogamy, because she was the first wife of Elkanah, and because Elkanah had been guilty of infidelity and married another wife, was that a reason why Hannah should not have her rights from High Heaven, why God Almighty should not answer her prayer? You ask me why did not she pray before. Can you tell me why Isaac did not pray twenty years sooner for his wife, Rebecca, that she might have children? I can not tell and you can not tell, all that I assert is that Hannah was the first wife of Elkanah, and God honored and blessed the beautiful Samuel.
Now we come to David. Why did not my friend bring up David, the great warrior, king and poet, the ruler of Israel? He might have mentioned him, with ten wives all told; he might also have mentioned him as the adulterer, who committed one of the most premeditated, cold-blooded murders on record, simply to cover up his crime of adultery. How often do you hear quoted the words "and I gave thy master's wives into thy bosom!"? Is this an approval of polygamy? If you will read on you will find also that God also promises to give his (David's) wives to another, and that another should lie with them in the sight of the sun. Surely if one is an approval of polygamy the other is an approval of rebellion and incest! David lived to be seventy-five years old. He was twenty-seven years old when he took his first wife Michael, the daughter of Saul. For the next forty years we find him complicated with the evils, crimes and sorrows of polygamy; and the old man, seeing its great sin, thoroughly repented of it and put it away from him, and for the last eight years of his life endeavored to atone, as best he could, for his troubled and guilty experience.
And what of Solomon? He is the greatest polygamist—the possessor of a thousand wives! Had this gentleman told me that Solomon's greatness was predicted, and therefore his polygamic birth was approved, and his polygamic marriage also approbated, I can remind him of the fact that the future greatness of Christ was foretold; but the foretelling of the future greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ was not an approval of the betrayal by Judas and the crucifixion by the Jews. Neither was the mere foretelling of the future greatness of Solomon an approval of the polygamic character of his birth.
I suppose the gentleman on this occasion would have referred to the law of bastardy and have said, if my doctrine is true, then Solomon and others were bastards. I could have wished that he had produced that point. He did quote and declare in this temple, not long since, in reference to the law touching bastardy, that a bastard should be branded with infamy to the tenth generation. But it is plain that he has misunderstood the law respecting bastards, as contained in Deuteronomy xxiii and 2nd. It is known from history that the same signification has not always been attached to this term. We say a bastard is one born out of wedlock, that is monogamous matrimony. In Athens, in the days of Pericles, five centuries before Christ, all were declared bastards by law who were not the children of native Athenians. And we here assert to-day that the gentleman can not bring forward a law from the book of Jewish laws to prove that a child born of a Jew and Jewess, whether married or not, was a bastard. The only child recognized as a bastard by Jewish law is a child born of a Jew and a Pagan woman; therefore the objection falls to the ground, and Solomon and others, who were not to blame for the character of their birth, are exonerated.
The geometrical progression of evil in this system of polygamy is seen in the first three kings, Saul, David and Solomon. Saul had a wife and a concubine—two women; David had ten women, Solomon had a thousand, and it broke the kingdom asunder. God says it was for that very cause. He had multiplied his wives to such an extent, that they had not only led him astray from God into idolatry, but the very costliness of his harem was a burden upon the people too heavy for them to bear. I said the other day that polygamy might do for kings and priests and nabobs, but could not do for poor men; it costs too much and the people are taxed too much to support the harem.
Ah! you bring forward these few cases of polygamy! Name them if you please. Lamech the murderer; Jacob, who deceived his blind old father, and robbed his brother of his birthright; David, who seduced another man's wife and murdered that man by putting him in front of the battle, and old Solomon, who turned to be an idolater. These are some polygamists! Now let me call the roll of honor: There were Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Joseph and Samuel and all the prophets and apostles. You are accustomed to hear, from this sacred place, that all the patriarchs and all the kings and all the prophets were polygamists. I assert to the contrary, and these great and eminent men whom I have just mentioned, belonging to the roll of honor, were monogamists.
Yesterday the gentleman gave me three challenges; he challenged me to show that the New Testament condemned polygamy. I now proceed to do it. I quote Paul's words, 1st Corinthians, 7th chap., 2nd and 4th verses:
Nevertheless to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband; and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.