is of the former kind,

Morte plectetur,” let him be put to death, which would imply strangling. But this was not so understood; for Adultery was punished by stoning. In Ezekiel xvi. 38, God is represented declaring,

I will judge thee after the manner of women that break wedlock; and in the fortieth verse, the judgment is mentioned, "I will stone thee with stones;" to which we may add, that when the Pharisees came to Christ, as related in a passage of the New Testament, on which some further remarks will be made in the third section of the Essay, they said of the Adulterers, Now Moses, in the law, commanded us, that such should be stoned." It is not necessary to explain the meaning of these punishments, their names sufficiently indicate the mode of their infliction.

66

These are the parts of the Mosaic code which apply to the case of Adultery, when discovered and proved. But that law contemplated the occurrences of cases where a moral conviction might exist of the guilt of the offender, but without such evidence as would conduct to legal conviction; and here a curious peculiarity in that law rises to view, the institution of a test by which the guilt of the suspected party might be detected, or her innocence made clear; viz. the waters of

jealousy. This test was a remarkable feature in the law of Moses; it intimated the strict sense entertained by that law of the importance of purity and fidelity to the preservation of domestic and civil peace, and strongly indicated also the divine origin of that code; for it was, in fact, a promise of a perpetual miracle, by which the innocent should be cleared of all suspicion, and the guilty infallibly exposed and awfully punished. And what lawgiver, if he possessed any relic of common sense, would have instituted such a test, the efficacy of which, the irregularities and passions of a day might have brought to trial, and the failure of which would have involved himself in perplexity, and covered his legislation with shame, had he not been fully and satisfactorily persuaded of the truth of his commission from Heaven?

The particulars of this test, as related in the Scriptures, will be found in the fifth chapter of the Book of Numbers, the eleventh verse to the thirty-first. To these, the Talmudists have added several circumstances attending the execution of this ordeal, but perhaps not of much authority. The accounts given by Maimonides and Selden are very full. The sum of

Numb. v. 11-31.

C

the whole is this. The jealous husband brought the suspected wife to the priest, with the cake of jealousy, communicated his suspicions, and offered his witnesses; the wife asserted her innocence and required the test. "Hanc

uxorem meam zelotypus præmonui de N: quocum postea occultata est, rem in secreta egit, atque hi sunt testes. Illa se innocenter esse ait. De te peto, ut potes, mihi detur quo rei examen fuit."

The witnesses were then excluded; the priest entered into a long discourse with the woman, and exhorted her to confess, if indeed it might have been the case, informing her at the same time of the results she might expect. "Si non concubuit vir tecum, et non declinasti ad immunditiam sub viro tuo, liberabis ut innocens ab aquis sitis amaris et maledictis; sin tu declinasti sub marito tuo et polluta es, det te Dominus in execrationem et diras in ludo populi tui, adeo ut loquet Dominus corruere femur tuum et inflare uterum tuum,” &c. &c.*

If the woman persisted in asserting her innocence, he prepared the bitter waters and read the curse; to which, "illa respondebat Amen, Amen." This two-fold solemn consent

* Numb. v. 22.

to the awful appeal which this test was about to make to God, implying, on the part of her who made it a desire to be dealt with according to her innocence or guilt, and an acknowledgment of the justice of God in visiting the guilty with the punishment, could not have been made with any consciousness of the crime, unless in conjunction with the utmost hardness of heart, presumptuous defiance of God, and even atheistical unbelief. Every thing in the apparatus of this ordeal was calculated to produce a confession, rather than risk such tremendous consequences. Confession, too, according to the Jewish writers, was not followed by death, but only by divorce without a dowry. The curse being then blotted out with bitter water, (and the ink being made without vitriol in those days, was easily washed away,) the waters were then given, and the cake of jealousy offered to the Lord; and, as the woman took the cup, the priest said; “ Filia mea! si adeo certum sit, te innocentem esse, ex fiduciâ innocentiæ bibe, nec omnia times; quoniam aquæ aliter non se habent ac venenum siccatum super carnem animalis. Si vulnus ibi fuerit, dolorem affert et irrodit, sin vero vulnus ibi non sit, nullum omnino affert dolorem." The results then testified the innocence or guilt of the woman.

Several circumstances are mentioned as occurring in this ordeal; that, if the husband of the suspected party had been guilty of a similar crime, the waters lost all their virtue: that, if she was guilty, and the symptoms of guilt appeared in the pale and ghastly countenance, the starting eyes, and the swelling and rottenness; her partner in the crime, whoever and wherever he were, was struck with death also: but that if she were innocent of the charge, the very waters of jealousy proved no poison, but contributed as a salutary medicine to cleanse her constitution, and render her more vigorous and fruitful.

These are the particulars of this remarkable feature of the Mosaic law, respecting suspected adultery; and in an essay on that subject, they could not be curtailed. Although the Infidel, who, doubting the divine origin of a revelation, would also question the divine superintendence over the fulfilment of its denunciations, may only sneer at the credulity of those who admit the truth of the accounts just given, yet the Christian will not be disposed to deny the credibility of what, though remarkable, is not impossible: and he will indeed see nothing more unacccountable in this than in many other circumstances, well attested, which support the authority of divine revelation.