This is a small Digression from my Subject, but as I was naturally lead into it, by the Treatise I have been examining, and it may tend to the discouragement of unlawful Pleasures, I hope it is excuseable. I now proceed to shew that the Author is mistaken in the Sin of _ONAN_, and to demonstrate what was really his Crime. _CHAP._ I. _Of_ _ONAN_’s _Crime; and the Sin of_ SELF-POLLUTION. The Text of Scripture runs thus. _And _Judah_ said unto __ONAN__, Go in unto thy Brother’s Wife, and Marry her, and raise up Seed to thy Brother. And __ONAN__ knew that the Seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his Brother’s Wife, that he spilled it on the Ground, lest that he should give Seed to his Brother._ 38. Chap. Genesis, Verses 8, 9, 10. Though some Authors seem to make _ONAN_’s chief Crime to be Self-pollution, yet the learned Bishop _Patrick_, in his Commentary upon the _38th Chapter _of_ Genesis_, is of a contrary Opinion, _viz._ ‘Verse 8. _Go in unto thy Brother’s Wife._ This was an ancient Custom in force by the Law of _Moses_, which only exacted what had been formerly practis’d, _viz._ that when a Man died without issue, his next Brother should Marry his Wife. _Deut. 25. 5._ ‘_And raise up Seed to thy Brother_; is meant preserve thy Brother’s Name and Family, by begetting a Child, which may be accounted his, and inherit his Estate. For so the Law was, that the first Born of such a Match, was not to be look’d upon, as a Child of him that begot him; but as his Brother’s, who was the Mother’s first Husband; though all the following Children were to be his own. ‘Verse 9. _ONAN_ _knew that the Seed should not be accounted his in the first Born, but his Brothers._ And least the Child should be born in the Name of his Brother; v. 10. _The Thing which he did displeased the Lord._ This made the Sin the more heinous, that he acted against the divine Promise made to _Abraham_, concerning the multiplying of his Seed. ‘The contract of Marriage was so understood in those Days, that if the Husband died without Issue, the Woman was oblig’d to Marry his next Brother, and as long as any of his Brethren remain’d, they were bound to Marry his Wife, and preserve their Brother’s Memory, or solemnly renounce, to their very great Infamy. This was so well known, that no new contract was enjoyn’d in such a Case; for the first Husband being dead, she and the next Brother were Man and Wife, without any farther Agreement or Ceremony, by Virtue of the Original Law.’