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monii, to enable the parties to many again, cannot be had 

 without an act of parhamcnt. 



Bv a council of Na'.ites, marriage was declared diffolvcd 

 by adulter)', but the in.iocent party was not aUou-ed fecond 

 marriage. In after-times, leave was given to the innocent 

 party alone ; and afterwards the fame was allowed to the 

 criminal party. 



Adulter)-, in a moral view, is unqueftionably a crime of an 

 atrocious nature, and produdive of very injurious conlc- 

 quenccs. On the part of the man who folicits the chaflity 

 of a married woman, it includes the crime of seduction, 

 and is attended with the fame mifchief. The infidelity of 

 the woman is aggravated by cnielty to her children, who are 

 involved in her ihame and made unhappy by the difcord and 

 reparation of their parents. Should it be faid that the 

 pernicious confequences refult from the difeover^', and not 

 from the crime, it may be replied that the commiffion is 

 never fecure from difcovery ; and that if undetefted con- 

 nexions of this nature be allowed, the hufljand can have no 

 fccurity for his wife's chaflity, independently of her prin- 

 ciples and difpofition, befides her want of opportunity or 

 temptation ; which would deter men from marrj-ing, defeat 

 the purpofes of the conjugal conneftion, with reipeft to do- 

 meftic order and happinefs, and render marriage fuch a ftate 

 of jealoufy and alarm to the hufband, as muft end in the 

 flavcry and confinement of the wife. Bcfides, the vow by 

 which married perfons engage their mutual fidelity is wit- 

 celTed before God, and accompanied with circumftances of 

 religious folemnity, which approach to the nature of an 

 oath. The crime is therefore little fhort of perjury on the 

 part of the offenders ; and the feduftion of a married wo- 

 man is little lefs than fubomation of perjury : and this 

 guilt is altogether independent of a difcover)'. The ufual 

 and only apology for adultery is the prior tranfgreflion of 

 the other party. This is a circumftance which can merely 

 extenuate, but cannot juflify the crime ; unlefs it could be 

 pleaded, that the obligation of the marriage vow depends 

 upon the condition of reciprocal fidelity, for which plea 

 there is no foundation. The way of considering the offence 

 cf one party as a provocation to the other, and the other as 

 only retaliating the injury by repeating the crime, is a 

 childifh trifling with woids. 



" Thou (halt not commit adultery," was an interdift de- 

 livered by God himfelf: and in both the Old and New 

 Teflament the crime of adultery is reprefented as diftinft 

 from, and accumulated upon that of fornication. 



Some have been of opinion, that the hiftory of the wo- 

 man taken in adultery, recorded in the eighth chapter of 

 St. John's Gofpel, gives countenance to this crime. When 

 Chrift told the woman, " Neither do I condemn thee;" we 

 muft believe, it is faid, that he deemed her conduct either 

 not criminal, or not a crime, however, of a very heinous 

 r.ature. A more attentive examination of this cafe (fays 

 -Aj-chdeacon Paley) will convince us that nothing can be 

 concluded from It, as to Chrifl's opinion concerning adul- 

 tery, either one way or the other. The defign of the per- 

 fons, whofe conduft on this occafion is recorded, and who 

 arc faid to have tempted Chrift, " that they might have to 

 accufe him," was to draw him into an exercife of judicial 

 authority, that they might be empowered to accufe him 

 before the Roman governor of ufui-ping or intermeddling 

 with the civil govemment. Chrift knew this to be their 

 defign, and determined to defeat it. When he allied the 

 woman, " hath no man condemned thee ?" he fpoke, and 

 ■was underftood by her to fpeak of a legal and judicial con- 

 Meranation j otherwife her anfwer, " No man, Lord !" was 



not tnie. In the fame fenfc he ufcs the word condemn in 

 his reply " Neither do I con /einn thee ;" i. c. I preteiid to 

 no judicial character or authority over thee ; it it no oince 

 or bufmefs of mine to prov.ouiice or execute the lentence 

 of the law. When Chrift adds, " go and lin no mere," he 

 in eifcft ttlls htr, that (lie had liiMcd already ; but as to the 

 degree or quality of the fm, or Chrili's opinion concerning- 

 it, nothing is declared, or can be interred in thia v,-ay. — Paley'i 

 Principles of Moral and Political Philofopliv, vol. i. p. 309-3. 

 Elfner (Obferv. vol. i. 318.) and Suicer (Tiicfaur. vol. i. 

 p. 205.) have lliewn, that the word ocfj.xfix.x, to fin, is ufed 

 by the moft elegant Greek claffics (as the currefpondlng- 

 word feccare is by the Latin) to fignify the commiHion of 

 adultery ; and this ftrongly intimates, that even the light of 

 nature taught many of the heathens the exceeding finful- 

 nefs of it. 



If Chrift had undertaken the decifion of the cafe recorded 

 in this hiftory, he muft, iji/o faille, have rendered himfelf 

 obnoxious to the Romans, as well as to the Sanhedrim ; 

 and if he had condemned her, a new occafion of offence muit 

 have arifen, in confcquence of that, to Pilate, if execution 

 had been ordered without an application to him ; and to 

 the Jews, if Chrift had direfted fuch an application to be 

 made. See Doddridge and other Commentators In loc. — and 

 Lardner's Works, vol. i. p. 41, 8vo. 



It is therefore needlefs to recur to the folution of the dif- 

 ficulty adopted by fomc biblical critics, who have difputed 

 the genuinenefs of this palTagc. By fuch, however, it has 

 been urged, that this hiftory is wanting in the Syriac ver- 

 fion, as well as in the Alexandrian and Bodleian copies, wnd. 

 indeed in moft of the oldeft MSS, and that it was not ac- 

 knowledged by feveral of the Greek fathers, which induced 

 Beza to queftion, and Le Clerc, with many others, to rejeft 

 its authority. In favour of this hiftory appeal is made to 

 fixteen copies ufed by R. Stephens, to moft of thofc con- 

 fulted by Mills and Beza, to the Harmonics of Tatian and 

 Ammonius, to the apoftohcal conftitutions and the Synopfis. 

 of Athanafius, to many of the Latin fathers, to feveral an- 

 cient Syriac MSS. to the Greek and Latin printed copies, 

 &c. Mill and Wetftein in loc. Whitby in lor. Fabricius's 

 Codex Apocr. New Teft. tom. i. p. 35 j, &c. See alTo 

 Lardner's Works, vol. v. p. 67, S:c. &c. 



Adultery is alfo ufed in Ancient Cu/loms, for the pu- 

 nifhment or fine impofed for that offence, or the privilege of 

 profecuting for it. 



In which fenfe, adulierium amounts to the fame with what 

 the Saxons called le^ertuita. 



Adultery is fometimes iifed, in a more extenfive fenfe, 

 for any fpecies of impurity, or crime, again ft the virtue of 

 chaftity : and in this feufe divines underftand the feventh 

 commandment. 



Adultery is alfo ufed, efpecially in Scripture, for idola- 

 try, or departing from the true God, to the worfhip of a 

 lalfe one. 



Adultery is alfo ufed in Ecclejiaftical Writers, for a per- 

 fon's invading, or intruding into a bilhoprick, during the 

 former biiliop's hfe. The reason of the appellation is, that 

 a bifhop is fuppofed to contratt a kind of ipiritual marriage- 

 ^v^th his church. 



The tranilation of a bifliop from one fee to another was- 

 alfo reputed a fpecies of adultery ; on the fuppofition of its 

 being a kind of fecond marriage, which, in thofe days, was 

 efteemed a degree of adultery. This conclufio.i was founded 

 on that text of St. Paul, het a lifiop be the hiijband of one 

 •zi'ife, by a forced conftruclion of church for wife, and of 

 biihop for hufband. jDu-Cange. 



ACULTER* 



