“(5.) What _real_ support would it furnish to the system, even if it were true that the cases were wholly parallel? How far would it go to demonstrate that _God_ regards it as a good system, and one that is to be perpetuated, in order that society may reach its highest possible elevation? Who would undertake to vindicate all the conduct of the patriarchs, or to maintain that all which they practised was in accordance with the will of God? They practised concubinage and polygamy. Is it therefore certain that this was the highest and purest state of society, and that it was a state which God designed should be perpetuated? Abraham and Isaac were guilty of falsehood and deception, (_Gen._ xx. 2, _seq._; xxvi. 7;) Jacob secured the birthright by a collusive fraud between him and his mother, (_Gen._ xxvii.) and obtained no small part of his property by cunning, (_Gen._ xxx. 36–43,) and Noah was drunk with wine, (_Gen._ ix. 21;) and these things are recorded merely _as facts_, without any decided expression of disapprobation; but is it therefore to be inferred that they had the approbation of God, and that they are to be practised still, in order to secure the highest condition of society? “Take the single case of polygamy. Admitting that the patriarchs held slaves, the argument in favour of polygamy, from their conduct, would be, in all its main features, the same as that which I suggested, in the commencement of this chapter, as employed in favour of slavery. The argument would be this:—That they were good men, the ‘friends of God,’ and that what such men practised freely cannot be wrong; that God permitted this; that he nowhere forbade it; that he did not record his disapprobation of the practice; and that whatever God permitted in such circumstances, without expressing his disapprobation, must be regarded as in itself a good thing, and as desirable to be perpetuated, in order that society may reach the highest point of elevation. It is perfectly clear that, so far as the conduct of the patriarchs goes, it would be just as easy to construct an argument in favour of polygamy as in favour of slavery—even on the supposition that slavery existed then essentially as it does now. But it is not probable that polygamy would be defended now as a good institution, and as one that has the approbation of God, even by those who defend the domestic institutions of the South.' The truth is, that the patriarchs were good men in their generation, and, considering their circumstances, were men eminent for piety. But they were imperfect men; they lived in the infancy of the world; they had comparatively little light on the subjects of morals and religion; and it is a very feeble argument which maintains that a thing is _right, because any one or all of the patriarchs practised it_.