And he answered and said unto them
Not by replying directly to the question, but by referring them
to the original creation of man, and to the first institution of
marriage, previous to the law of Moses;
have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning,
made
them male and female?
This may be read in ( Genesis 1:27
) and from thence this sense of things collected; that God, who
in the beginning of time, or of the creation, as Mark expresses
it, made all things, the heavens, and the earth, and all that is
therein, and particularly "man", as the Vulgate Latin, and
Munster's Hebrew Gospel supply it here, made the first parents of
mankind, male and female; not male and females, but one male, and
one female; first, one male, and then, of him one female, who,
upon her creation, was brought and married to him; so that in
this original constitution, no provision was made for divorce, or
polygamy. Adam could not marry more wives than one, nor could he
put away Eve for every cause, and marry another: now either the
Pharisees had read this account, or they had not; if they had
not, they were guilty of great negligence and sloth; if they had,
they either understood it or not; if they did not understand it,
it was greatly to their reproach, who pretended to great
knowledge of the Scriptures, and to be able to explain them to
others; and if they did understand it, there was no need for this
question, which therefore must be put with an evil design.
