cuted upon her. There was a legal interval to be observed between the time of her divorce and her marriage with another; and within that period the husband and wife might, by the practice upon the law, be reconciled, and come together again; if he repented, and if she would wave her new privilege of a perpetual alienation from him. Maimonides fixes it at ninety days, that of the divorce not included. But here ended her power of reunion: for if she then allowed another to possess her, the former husband could never renew his connection with her, whatever might be their mutual wishes, or mutual regret. "If the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife; her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled, for that is abomination

before the Lord." Deut. xxiv. 3, 4. There was also one, and only one, restriction upon her liberty of remarriage. On account of the sanctity of his situation and character, and through the force of an opinion which afterwards marked the apostolic age, and attached a blemish of immorality to ecclesiastics of an higher order in the Christian church, if they were at all implicated in second marriages, she could not be united with the high-priest. He was to marry only a virgin. "A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane (a gentile), or an harlot, these shall he not take; but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife." Levit. xxi. 14. With this single exception, the woman enjoyed that full liberty of remarriage which her bill of divorcement expresses. I subjoin the form of the substantial part of it:*

* This is quoted from Grotius, ibid. That given by Buxtorf is translated with a certain difference. The Hebrew form is to be found in Maimonides, De Div.

"Meâ sponte, nullius coactu, te uxorem hactenus meam dimittere a me, deserere ac repudiare decrevi; jamque adeo te dimitto, desero ac repudio, atque a me ejicio, ut tuæ sis potestatis, tuoque arbitratu ac lubitu quo libet discedas; neque id quisquam ullo tempore prohibessit. Atque ita dimissa esto, ut cuivis viro nubere tibi liceat."

This I conceive to be the rationale of the Jewish law of marriage, and this is the sum of what I would observe to the noble Earl, on a subject concerning which he has allowed himself to talk so very imperfectly. And I will take the liberty of observing, by the way, that the custom, which has too much prevailed, of going to Parliament with some fragment of Scripture, in order to throw the highest of all sanctions over an unexamined or an untenable opinion, is

p. 2. Buxtorf observes, upon it, that it was always written in twelve lines, neither more nor less. Synag. Jud.

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equally disingenuous and irreverent. The only satisfaction arising from such an appeal is, that it finally leads to the overthrow of the argument which it would, at all hazards, support. A sounder view of the question, which will never fail to come from some person or other, impatient of the attempt to pervert Revelation from its purpose, corrects the inaccuracy of an hasty inference. Truth makes her way through the very provocation of the momentary error; and the more largely the Divine institutions are surveyed, the more triumphantly is "wisdom justified of her children." But I return to the subject immediately under review.-The noble Earl now sees the strange application he has made of one of the provisions of the Law of Moses. The adulterous parties were to be put to death, both the man and the woman. But the noble Earl is determined they shall intermarry; and how does he prove the com

mand for it? By adducing this solitary. text, "If a man find a damsel, and lie with

her, she shall be his wife!"-But the slightest view of the passage to which he has appealed, must have convinced him, one should think, that it applied exclusively to the dishonour done to a virgin not yet betrothed.* The offender must marry her; and, as a punishment, he was to lose for ever the common power of divorce against her. "Because he hath humbled her, he

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may not put her away all his days." Deut. xxii. 29. If she were contracted to a marriage, not yet solemnized, and thus defiled, the violator suffered death; and the only difference between the punishment of this crime, and defilement after marriage, was in the mode of executing the offender. In

* There was, indeed, another case in which divorce was prohibited. He who falsely asserted that his wife was not "found a maid," by him, " might not put her away all his days." He also paid a fine of a "hundred "shekels of silver" to her father. Deut. xxii. 19.

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