in their application. The goddes Viriplaca, "the appeaser of men," was resorted to, in order to adjust the causes of complaint; but it is sufficient to have analyzed her name, to exempt her from any imputation of impartiality. The Censors and the Prætors were also employed in these matters.

Valerius Maximus relates an instance of the former expelling a Senator for unreasonably dismissing his virgin spouse; but it was not until Augustus, who united in himself both the Censor and the Prætor, that this licence of Divorce was effectually restrained.*

By a construction of crime, in that period peculiar to himself, he termed Adultery an infraction of the laws of majesty, and made it high treason. According to this principle, he accused his daughter and grand-daughter, and punished all their gallants with death or exile. There might be motives of policy influencing this construction, sufficiently powerful to have dictated even harsher measures. These gallants were numerous, and were men of consideration, of whom, the reigning Emperor felt no little jealousy, and this was a ready and plausible mode of removing them from his sight.

* Valerius Maximus. lib. ii. cap. 19.

But this last clause brings us near the third branch of the Essay, the laws of the New Testament. We have passed over the Greek and Roman laws, and a single remark may be necessary to review the whole It will then appear from the passages referred to, that the punishments annexed to the crime of Adultery have exceedingly varied in the severity of their nature, according to the views entertained by the legislators and the people, of the crime itself. Some have regarded it as a capital offence, others as venial; and the penalties have in consequence either been so rigorous as to amount to cruelty, or so ridiculous as to excite a smile. Sometimes death has been the visitation of a crime, which has inflicted a misery, worse than death, on the injured party. Sometimes the loss of the eyes, as the avenues through which the temptation entered; sometimes the loss of the offending member; at others, only slight pecuniary mulcts, or personal inflictions of the oddest character, mutilation, castration, sometimes compulsorily self-inflicted, and the excision of the ears or nose. The punishments have not only strangely varied, but have been

of a diametrically opposite kind: in some cases, the offenders were incapacitated from ever repeating their crimes; in others, they were compelled to submit to a public repetition of the guilty pleasure, till satiety had rendered it disgusting, and made those waters which, when stolen in secret, were sweet, more bitter than the waters of jealousy.

With regard to Divorce, we have seen at one time the utmost caution in its indulgence, and the permission of it surrounded by the wisest restraints; but at others, the growing profligacy of the people, over-leaping all the bounds of laws, and compelling, in the use of it, the most licentious liberty. And to those latter periods we may refer, to the jealousies, the strifes, the discords, and the confusion to which the unrestrained exercise of this liberty gave birth; in order to prove how little compatible such a measure is with the real happiness, domestic peace, and security of a state, as little as it is agreeable to the prescribed regulations and natural dictates of reason and justice.

SECTION III.

BUT we have now a higher authority to consult on these interesting subjects; and we approach to the third branch of the Essay, to examine, with that reverence which is due to a Teacher so wise, so exemplary, and divine, the law promulgated by the Founder of the Christian Faith, in relation to the subject of this Essay, with the opinions of the Apostles, the Fathers of the Christian Church, the usages of primitive Christians, and the edicts of Christian Emperors.

The first public discourse which the Saviour and Lawgiver of the Christian Church delivered in the days of his incarnation, contained his sentiments on on Adultery and Divorce. In the Sermon on the Mount, which was a revision of the law of Moses, and a purifica

tion of that law from all the corrupt glosses put upon it by mistaken and prejudiced interpreters, we find this passage; "It hath been said, whosoever will put away his wife, let him give her a writing of Divorcement; but I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit Adultery; and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committeth Adultery."*

This is an important doctrine. The first thing which occurs to the mind, is, that it contains an evident alteration in the old law, less perhaps in the spirit and intention of it, than in some of the permissions which literally it indulged.

Here also the reins of restraint are indeed laid upon the corrupt and licentious practices of those times, arising from the false and carnal glosses of the school of Hillel, on the Mosaic code. That code was not, and could not from circumstances, or it would have been characterized by an unbending rigour on the

* Matt. ch. v.

31 " Εβρέθη δε υτο ος αν απόλυση την γυναίκα αυτού, δότω αυτη

αποστασιον.

33 " Εγω δε λέγω υμιν, οτι ος αν απόλυση την γυναικα αυτού, παρεκτος λόγου πορνείας, ποιοι αυτην μοιχάσθαι, και ος εαν απολελυμένην γαμηση μοιχάται.”