The Theater of Gods Judgments, Book 2 · Chapter 27
CHAP. XXVII. Of Adulterie.
SEeing that marriage is so holy an institution and ordinance of God, as it hath been shewed to be; it followeth by good right that the corruption thereof, namely Adultery, whereby the bond of marriage is dissolved, should be forbidden: for the woman that is polluted therewith, despiseth her owne husband, yea and for the most part hateth him, and foisteth in strange seed (even his enemies brats) in stead of his owne, not only to be fathered, but also to be brought up and maintained by him, and in time to be made inheritors of his possessions: which thing being once knowne, must needes stir up coales to set anger on fire, and set abroach much mischiefe: and albeit that the poore infants are innocent and guiltlesse of the crime, yet doth the punishment and ignominie thereof redound to them, because they cannot be reputed as legitimate, but are even marked with the black coale of bastardy whilest they live: so grievous is the guilt of this sin, and uneasie to be removed. For this cause the very Heathen not only reproved adultery evermore, but also by authority of law prohibited it, and allotted to death the offenders therein.
Abimelech King of the Philistims, a man without circumcision, and Gen. 26.therefore without the covenant, knowing by the light of nature (for hee knew not the law of God) how sacred and inviolable the knot of marriage ought to be, expresly forbad all his people from doing any injury to Isaac in regard of his wife, and from touching her dishonestly upon paine of death. Out of the same fountaine sprang the words of queene Hecuba in Euripides, speaking to Menelaus touching Helen, when she admonished him to enact this law, That every woman which should betray her husbands credit, and her owne chastity to another man, should die the death.
In olde time the Aegyptians used to punish adultery on this sort; the Diedor.man with a thousand jerkes with a reed, and the woman with cutting off her nose; but he that forced a free woman to his lust, had his privy members cut off. By the law of Iulia, adulterers were without difference adjuged to death, insomuch that Iulius Antonius, a man of great parentage and reputation among the Romanes, whose son was nephew to Augustus sister (as Cornelius Tacitus reporteth) was for this crime executed to death. Aurelianus Lib. 4. Annal.the Emperour did so hate and detest this vice, that to the end to scare and terrifie his souldiers from the like offence, he punished a souldier which had committed adultery with his hostesse in most severe manner, even by causing him to be tyed by both his feet to two trees bent downe to the earth with force, which being let goe, returning to their course, rent him cruelly in pieces, the one halfe of his body hanging on the one tree, and the other on the other. Yea and at this day amongst the very Turkes and Tartarians, this sin is sharply punished. So that we ought not wonder that the Lord should ordaine death for the Adulterer. If a man (saith the law) lie with another mans wife, if (I say) he commit adultery with his neighbours Levit. 20. 10.wife, the Adulterer and the Adulteresse shall die the death. And in another place, If a man be found lying with a woman married to a man, they Deut. 22. 22.shall die both twaine; to wit, the man that lay with the wife, and the wife, that thou maiest put away evill from Israel. Yea, and before Moses time also, it was a custome to burne the Adulterers with fire, as it appeareth by Gen. 38.the sentence of Iuda (one of the twelve Patriarchs) upon Thamar his daughter in law, because he supposed her to have played the whore. Beside all this, to the end this sin might not be shuffled up and kept close, there was a meanes given, whereby if a man did but suspect his wife for this sin, though she could by no witnesse or proofe be convinced, her wickednesse notwithstanding most strangely and extraordinarily might be discovered. And it was this: The woman publikely at her husbands suit called in question before Num. 5.the Priest, who was to give judgement of her after divers ceremonies and circumstances performed, and bitter curses pronounced by him, her belly would burst, and her thigh would rot, if she were guilty, and she should be a curse amongst the people for her sin; but if she was free, no evill would come unto her. Thus it pleased God to make knowne, that the filthinesse of those that are polluted with this sin, should not be hid. This may more clearely appeare by the example of the Levites wife, of whom it is spoken in the 19, 20, and 21. Chapters of Iudges, who having forsaken her husband to play the whore, certaine moneths after he had againe received her to be his wife, she was given over against her will to the villanous Rape, l. 2. c. 19.and monstrous lusts of the most wicked and perverse Gibeonites, that so abused her for the space of a whole night together, that in the morning she was found dead upon the threshold: which thing turned to a great destruction and overthrow in Israel; for the Levite, when he arose, and found his wife newly dead at the dore of his lodging, he cut and dismembred her body into twelve pieces, and sent them into all the countries of Israel, to every tribe one, to give them to understand, how vile and monstrous an injurie was done unto him: whereupon the whole nation assembling and consulting together, when they saw how the Benjamites (in whose tribe this monstrous villany was committed) make no reckoning of seeing punishment executed upon those execrable wretches, they tooke armes against them, and made war upon them; wherein though at the first conflict they lost to the number of forty thousand men, yet afterward they discomfited and overthrew the Benjamites, and slew of them 25000. rasing and burning downe the City Gibea (where the sinne was committed) with all the rest of the Cities of that Tribe, in such sort that there remained alive but six hundred persons, that saved their lives by flying into the desart, and there hid themselves foure moneths, untill such time as the Israelites taking pitty of them, lest they should utterly be brought to nought, gave them to wife (to the end to repeople them againe) foure hundred virgins of the inhabitants of Jabes Gilead, reserved out of that flaughter of those people, wherein man, woman, and childe, were put to the sword, for not comming forth to take part with their brethren in that late warre. And forasmuch as yet there remained two hundred of them unprovided for, the Antients of Israel gave them liberty to take by force two hundred of the daughters of their people: which could not be but great injury and vexation unto their parents, to be thus robbed of their daughters, and to see them married at all adventures, without their consent or liking. These were the mischiefes which issued and sprang from that vile and abominable adultery of the wicked Gibeonites with the Levites wife, whose first voluntary sinne was in like manner also most justly punished by this second rape: and this is no new practise of our most just God, to punish one One sin punished with another.sinne by another, and sinners in the same kinde wherein they have offended.
When King David, after he had overcome the most part of his enemies, 2 Sam. 11.and made them tributaries unto him, and injoyed some rest in his kingdome, whilest his men of war pursuing their victory, destroyed the Ammonites, and were in besieging Rabba their chiefe City, he was so enflamed with the beauty of Bathshabe, Vriahs wife, that he caused her to bee conveyed to him to lye with her: to which sinne he combined another more grievous; to wit, when he saw her with childe by him (to the end to cover his adultery) he caused her husband to be slaine at the siege, by putting him in the Vantgard of the battell at the assault; and then thinking himselfe cocksure, married Bathshabe. But all this while, as it was but vaine allurements, no solid joy that fed his minde, and his sleepe was but of sinne, not of safety, wherein he slumbred: so the Lord awakened him right soone by afflictions and crosses, to make him feele the burden of the sinne which he had committed: first therefore the childe (the fruit of this adultery) was striken with sicknesse and dyed: next his daughter Thamar, Absaloms sister, was ravished by Ammon one of his owne sonnes: 2 Sam. 12. 2 Sam. 13.thirdly Ammon for his incest was slaine by Absalom: and fourthly Absalom (ambitiously aspiring after the kingdome, and conspiring against him) 2 Sam. 15.raised war upon him, and defiled his Concubines, and came to a wofull destruction. All which things (being grievous crosses to K. David) were inflicted by the just hand of God, to chastise and correct him for his good, not to destroy him in his wickednesse: neither did it want the effect in him, for he was so far from swelling and hardening himselfe in his sin, that contrariwise he cast downe and humbled himselfe, and craved pardon and forgivenesse at the hand of God with all his heart, and true repentance: not like to such as grow obstinate in their sinnes and wickednesse, and make themselves beleeve all things are lawfull for them, although they be never so vile and dishonest. This therefore that we have spoken concerning David, is not to place him among the number of lewd and wicked livers, but to shew by his chastisements (being a man after Gods owne heart) how odious and displeasant this sin of Adultery is to the Lord, and what punishment all others are to expect that wallow therein, since he spared not him whom he so much loved and favoured.