LIBEARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Theological Seminary, 
 
 HQ 1028 .J35 1844 
 Janeway, J. J. 1774-1858. 
 Unlawful marriage 
 
 Book, a r.:..;,., 
 
« — • 
 
 
 
 
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 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/umlwfulmarriageOOjane 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE: 
 
 AN ANSWER 
 
 THE PUKITAN" AND "OMICRON," 
 
 WHO HALE ADVOCATED, IN A PAMPHLET. 
 
 THE LAWFULNESS OF THE MARRIAGE OF A MAN WITH 
 HIS DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER, 
 
 J. J. JANE WAY, D. D 
 
 NEW-YORK : 
 
 ROBERT CARTER, 58 CANAL ^T 
 
 1844. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, 
 
 By ROBERT CARTER, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of 
 
 New- York. 
 
 ne w- york: 
 
 JOHN F. TROW & CO., PRINTERS, 
 
 No. 33 Ann-street. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 In writing this reply the author has sincerely sought 
 the truth. He wishes the truth to be established, 
 whatever may be the result of his labor. 
 
 That the reader may test his fairness, he has care- 
 fully noted the pages where may be found the pass- 
 ages on which he animadverts, and generally the par- 
 agraphs too. This will greatly facilitate the trouble 
 of finding the passages. 
 
 With the same view, he has endeavored to mark 
 accurately the book and chapter, and sometimes the 
 page of the authorities to which he refers, or from 
 which he quotes. 
 
 The author has no fondness for controversy ; but 
 
IV ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 having, for his own satisfaction, examined the question, 
 he felt it to be his duty to do what might be in his 
 power to defend the truth, and set forth the claims of 
 what he believes to be a command of God. 
 New Brunswick, Nov. 29, 1843. 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 64, line 6, read no law, for the law, 
 " 78, " (3, " nieces, " wives. 
 " 114, " 17, " sou " sue. 
 " 117, " 2, " 110 " 118. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Pag« 
 Introduction , g 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Remarks on the Puritan's historical facts. — His inaccura- 
 cies. — Selden. — Philo Judasus. — Misrepresentations of Jeremy 
 Taylor.— Taylor's error.— Burnet.— Universities of Europe. — 
 The Protestant Chuiches.— The national Synod of France. ... 18 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Subject continued.— Giotius.— Calvin.— Selden.— Chief Justice 
 Vaughan.— Jeremy Taylor.— Chancellor Kent— Dr. J. P. Wil- 
 son.— Judge Story.— Change of sentiment.— Its Origin 35 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Consequences of the Puritan's principles.— Church destitute of 
 a law of Incest.— Improbable 54 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Perpetuity of the Levitical law.— Proofs.— Puritan's argument.— 
 H.s ?uide.~ Criterion not rightly applied.— Turrettin.— Quo- 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 tation from Chancellor Kent. — Quotations from Puffendorf. — 
 From Selden and Grotius 64 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The game subject continued.— First criterion. — Third criterion. 
 — Second criterion 79 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Levitical statutes belong not to the civil or judicial law.— 
 Au ecclesiastical law.— Unity of the Church.— The law not 
 repealed.— Jewish code 90 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Levitical statutes relate to marriage.— Opinion of Tal- 
 mudists and Karaites.— Judgment of the Primitive Church. — 
 Of the Reformed Church. — Argument of the Puritan. — His 
 error shown 103 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Levitical law a natural law. — Classification of the stat- 
 utes. — Marshall's objection. — His singular mistake. — Proofs of 
 its being a natuial law. — How made known. — Opinion of ju- 
 rists. — Summary of its prohibitions. — Chancellor Kent's defi- 
 nition. — The Puritan's objections answered 135 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Summary view of the Argument 155 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Marriage unlawful. — Rules of interpretation. — Proved to be cor- 
 rect. — Objections of Omicron and the Puritan answered. — 
 Eight relations by affinity 161 
 
CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Page 
 Subject continued. — Rules of interpretation. — Proofs that the 
 marriage is unlawful. — Opinion of Basil the Great. — Meaning 
 of near of kin. — Omicron's interpretation. — His error. — His 
 imaginary relation. — But two kinds of relations 181 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Conclusion — Leviticus 18: 18. — Meaning. — Objections. — Impli- 
 cation often rejected, — Penalties of the Hebrew civil law.... 201 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The design of the Puritan's pamphlet is to 
 vindicate the lawfulness of a marriage between 
 a man and his deceased wife's sister. It was 
 prepared and published in opposition to an Act 
 of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
 Church, by which, in accordance with their 
 Confession of Faith, and, as they believed, in 
 accordance with the sacred Scriptures, they 
 affirmed the decision of one of their Presbyte- 
 ries, who had deposed a member for the sin of 
 contracting such a marriage. 
 
 It was distributed widely among the members 
 of the Presbyterian Church : and, as the ques- 
 tion of the lawfulness of such a marriaae had 
 by appeal, come up before the General Synod 
 of the Reformed Dutch Church, and had, by 
 that Synod, been sent down to all their Classes, 
 
 2 
 
10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to report their judgment on the question to the 
 next Syncd, the pamphlet was widely and gratui- 
 tously distributed among the members of the 
 Classes, with a view to influence their decision, 
 and to effect a change in the action of that 
 Christian Church in regard to such marriages. 
 
 It had doubtless very considerable influence 
 on the members of that Church, and particularly 
 on her younger ministers. The General Syncd 
 of the Reformed Dutch Church, at their last 
 session, having received the reports of their Class- 
 es, departed from what had heretcfore been the 
 uniform practice of their Church, and the Church 
 of Holland, from which they were descended, 
 by resolving, " that all resolutions which may 
 have been passed by the General Synod, forbid- 
 ding a man to marry his deceased wife's sister, 
 be and hereby are rescinded."* 
 
 In the year 1816, the venerable Dr. John H. 
 Livingston, Professor of Theology in the Semi- 
 nary of that Church, prepared and published a 
 dissertation on this question, at the request of 
 the General Syncd. It is able and learned. 
 
 * See their Minutes for 1843, p. 221. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 As early as 1530, Holland, the Doctor shows, 
 declared in an ordinance, " that no persons 
 related in blood, or by affinity, within the for- 
 bidden decrees, shall be permitted to cohabit or 
 be married, under penalty of being declared in- 
 famous, and subjected to corporeal punishment 
 and heavy fines, and if they persisted in their 
 crime, to banishment." In another ordinance, 
 the forbidden degrees are enumerated ; and it is 
 declared, " that no man may marry the widow 
 of his deceased brother, nor may any woman 
 
 MARRY THE HUSBAND OF HER DECEASED SISTER." 
 
 Pp. 49, 50. 
 
 And to prove what construction is put on 
 Levit. 18: 16, by the Reformed Dutch Church, 
 the Doctor quotes from the marginal notes of the 
 translators, appointed by the National Synod of 
 Dortrecht, held in 16JS and 1019, the follow- 
 ing words: "From this law it necessarily fol- 
 lows, that a woman who has been married with 
 one brother, may not, after his death, marry 
 with another brother ; and, upon the same prin- 
 ciple, a man who has been married to one sister, 
 may not, after her death, marry the other sister." 
 He quotes also their note on verse 18, which is 
 
12 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 as follows : " It consequently can by no means 
 from this be concluded, that the husband, after 
 the death of his wife, may marry her sister." 
 Pp. 162, 163. The following pages, from p. 16S 
 to 172, contain strong additional confirmation, 
 which are commended to the reader's notice. 
 
 In the conclusion of bis dissertation, this 
 venerable and profoundly learned Professor, long 
 the brightest ornament of his Church, says : 
 " The Reformed Church in Holland has es- 
 tablished by her canons, ' that no man may 
 marry his sister-in-law, and no woman may 
 marry her brother-in-law ,' and has never devia- 
 ted from that rule. The Reformed Dutch 
 Church in America, which is the same with 
 the Church in Holland, has adopted the same 
 canons, corresponds with that Church, and is 
 esteemed and beloved by it, as a valuable por- 
 tion of the same Church, and is bound by the 
 most sacred obligations to transmit unimpaired 
 to posterity the precious treasure with which 
 she is intrusted. There can therefore be no 
 cause for suspense, no motive for hesitation : 
 but, on the contrary, every consideration sug- 
 gested by faithfulness to God and attachment 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 to His Church, renders it an imperious duty to 
 avoid even the appearance of schism, and strict- 
 ly tO ABIDE BY THE ESTABLISHED CANONS." 
 
 " It has pleased the Lord to preserve this 
 Church during two centuries in America, and 
 render her conspicuous and respectable for her 
 faithful adherence to the doctrines of the gospel 
 and the purity of her morals. It is, therefore, 
 fervently hop id, that this distinguished Church 
 will never relax in her holy discipline, nor tarnish 
 her high and worthy character by abandonina 
 her standards, or rescinding her own canons ; — 
 above all, that she will not be the first, the only 
 one in this country, or even in the world, who 
 shall dare to contravene the law of God, and 
 dispense with a crime which he forbids." Pp. 
 176-178. 
 
 In the year 1788, the Particular Synod of 
 that Church resolved, "that as all such mar- 
 riages are contrary to the word of God, and that 
 purity of life so becoming the Christian charac- 
 ter, the persons contracting such marriages can- 
 not be admitted to the table of the Lord until 
 the offence be removed." In 1797, the ques- 
 tion " was brought up from the Particular Synod, 
 
 2* 
 
14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Is it lawful for a man to marry his deceased 
 wife's sister?'' to the General Synod, who an- 
 swered the question in the negative, and deter- 
 mined at the same time, that the censure proper 
 to be inflicted on persons contracting such un- 
 lawful marriage, had been justly decided on by 
 the Particular Synod of 1788, whose resolution 
 has just been recited.* 
 
 In 1815, nineteen years afterwards, the ques- 
 tion came before the General Synod again for 
 adjudication, when they postponed the decision 
 till the next year. At this session the venerable 
 Professor was requested to write on the subject. 
 See preface to his dissertation. 
 
 The next year the vote was taken on this re- 
 solution: "Resolved, That so much of the acts 
 of the General Synod, passed in the years 1797 
 and 1815, recorded on page 264, in the appen- 
 dix to our constitution, as directs the churches 
 to exclude from sealing ordinances the persons 
 contemplated by those acts, be, and the same is 
 hereby repealed." The vote stood thus : yeas 
 fifteen, nays forty-one; nearly three to one. 
 
 * See Reformed D. C. Constitution, p, 264, publish- 
 ed in 1815 
 
INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 The names are recorded. " Whereupon it was 
 Resolved, nemine contradicente, That it is inex- 
 pedient to make any alteration or modification 
 of the decisions of the Church on the subject of 
 a man's marrying his deceased wife's sister." 
 
 Fifteen years after this, in 1S42, this vexed 
 question came up again, by appeal from a Classes 
 which had subjected an offender to merited dis- 
 cipline. The Synod sent it down to the Classes 
 to be considered and reported on. The result 
 is before the public. By a vote of forty-eight to 
 twenty-two the resolution already recited (p. 10) 
 was adopted. 
 
 The sad event, deprecated by the venerable 
 man who contended for the purity of that Church 
 which he so much loved, and whose interests he 
 had so greatly promoted, has arrived. Were he 
 now living, he would pour out his devout soul in 
 deep humiliation before God, and exclaim, 
 Ichabod ! 
 
 The feelings of the New England Puritan 
 are doubtless of an opposite nature. The pam- 
 phlet bearing this name, to which we now re- 
 turn, is, as a whole, a singular production. It 
 is composed of two distinct essays, written by 
 different persons, and an extract from an essay 
 
16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 by a third individual. The Puritan regards 
 the law in Levit. viii. as a Jewish law, havincr 
 no reference to marriage, and imposing no ob- 
 ligation on other nations. Omicron admits the 
 law to be a law relating to marriage, and pre- 
 scribing the degrees within which marriage is 
 not to be contracted ; but he endeavors to 
 prove the particular marriage in question not 
 prohibited by this law. Dr. Benedict takes the 
 same ground, but boldly affirms this marriage to 
 be lawful, because it is not specified among the 
 prohibitions. In the same way he might prove 
 the lawfulness of marriage between own brothers 
 and sisters ; for they are not found among the 
 specifications. 
 
 The Puritan willingly calls on writers who 
 occupy ground so entirely different from the 
 ground on which he stands, to assist him in 
 opening a wide door for the marriage of a man 
 with his deceased wife's sister, to pass from a 
 state of dishonor to a state of honor, The suc- 
 cess of this combined effort will be tested. We 
 shall see whether those writers can wipe away 
 the disgrace, which past ages have stamped upon 
 such connexions. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 We find too in this pamphlet, an extract from 
 a letter of the late Judge Brockholst Livingston, 
 dated Dec. 12, 1817. It contains not a single 
 argument. All is naked assertion. 
 
 A man of that name once lived in New York. 
 Destitute of moral courage sufficient to refuse 
 a challenge to fight a duel, he accepted it, and 
 killed his antagonist. Is this the man from 
 whose simple assertion the Puritan is willing 
 to call for aid ? How unfortunate ! 
 
IS HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Remarks on (he Puritan's historical facts. — His inaccuracies.— 
 Selden — Phi'o Judaeus. — Misrepresentations of Jeremy Taylor. — 
 Taylor's error.— Burnet. — Universities of Europe. — The Protest- 
 ant Chuiches. — The national Synod of France. 
 
 The heading of the Puritan's sixth chapter is 
 thus expressed : " Historical vieiv of the sub- 
 ject." 
 
 What was his subject ? He aimed at proving 
 two points : — I. That the Levitical law is not 
 binding on us Christians, (chap, i.) II. That 
 it did not relate to marriage at all, but only 
 to " single acts of an incestuous character," 
 (chap, iii.) 
 
 1. We protest against his assertion in the 
 second paragraph of this sixth chapter : " He 
 (Christ) even allows that for the most part their 
 expositions of the law were true and to be ob- 
 served ;" which he attempts to sustain by quot- 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 19 
 
 ing this passage : " The Scribes and Pharisees 
 sit in Moses' seat; all therefore whatsoever they 
 bid you observe, that observe and do." (Matt. 
 23:2,3.) 
 
 Before the Saviour had uttered this, He had 
 upbraided these Jewish teachers with making 
 " the commandment of God of none effect by 
 their tradition;" and with " teaching for doc- 
 trine the commandments of men ;" and He had 
 stigmatized them as" blind leaders of the blind." 
 (Matt. 15 : 3, 6, 9, 14.) At another time (Matt. 
 16 : 6, 12) He had given his disciples this gen- 
 eral caution : " Take heed and beware of the 
 leaven (doctrine) of the Pharisees;" and, in the 
 very chapter quoted from by the Puritan, our 
 blessed Lord thunders out against these false 
 teachers the most terrible denunciations; de- 
 nominating them "fools and blind guides," and 
 tlosing the whole in this awful language : " Ye 
 serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye 
 escape the damnation of hell?" (v. 33.) Was 
 it correct in the Puritan to assert of teachers 
 thus characterized by Christ, and in regard to 
 whom He cautioned his disciples, that He " al- 
 lowed their expositions of the law" to be, for the 
 
2 1 HISTORICAL FACTS, 
 
 most part, " true, and to be observed." Surely 
 not; He only meant, his disciples were to re- 
 ceive as true, and observe what they taught ac- 
 cording to the law of Moses. They were to act 
 as the noble Bereans did, when Paul preached 
 to them ; they " received the word with all readi- 
 ness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, 
 whether those things were so." (Acts 17 : 11.) 
 No intelligent commentator, such as Doddridge, 
 Scott, or Clarke, will sustain the Puritan's in- 
 terpretation. 
 
 2. We think he has failed to derive support 
 from these blind leaders ; for the Talmudists, 
 whom he calls " the successors of the Pharisees," 
 (p. 21,) certainly did regard the Levitical sta- 
 tutes as referring to marriage, and prescribing 
 its limits. The Karaites too and the Hebrews 
 put on the law the same construction.* 
 
 3. Nor has the Puritan proved what he 
 thinks " undisputed :" " the Talmudists tell us 
 that the ancient Jews practised the marriages in 
 question, and did not regard them as forbidden 
 by the law of Moses." (Chap. VI. 2d par.) 
 
 * Uxor Hebraica, chap, i — iv. 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 21 
 
 What is his proof of this confident assertion ? 
 A quotation from Selden, which he translates 
 thus : " The Karaites regard the marriage of a 
 wife's sister, both while the first is living and 
 after her death, as forbidden. But the Talmud- 
 ists teach otherwise." The original, " Quod 
 non admittunt Talmudici," is weaker than the 
 above translation. But let it pass. 
 
 On this quotation we remark : 1. Selden 
 does not speak of any testimony borne to a fact 
 or ancient custom of the Jews, either by the Tal- 
 mudists or by the Karaites ; but only tells us 
 how each sect interpreted the. law. 2. Selden 
 does not say, the Talmudists have informed us 
 how the Pharisees interpreted the law; nor has 
 he marked the period when the Talmudists be- 
 gan to teach this doctrine. He only informs us 
 they taught it, when the Karaites taught the 
 opposite. Now, let it be remembered, the Kara- 
 ites were not formed into a regular sect till the 
 year 759.* Yet this single quotation from Sel- 
 den, the Puritan magnifies in his next paragraph 
 (p. 22) into " the united testimony of a nation 
 embodied in the Talmuds." 
 
 * Buck's Tlieol. Diet. Adam's Hist, of all Religions. 
 
22 HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 The Puritan claims to be a descendant and 
 successor of the Puritans who settled in Massa- 
 chusetts a little more than 200 years ago. Sup- 
 pose his pamphlet should hereafter fall into the 
 hands of an individual yet to be born, and he, 
 from the Puritan's name, should infer that he 
 had justly represented their faith and practice; 
 would the inference be true in point of fact? 
 To use the writer's own words, " We trow not." 
 The Westminster Confession of Faith was, in 
 1648, with the exception of what relates to 
 Church government and discipline, adopted by 
 those Puritans, with the highest commendation. 
 No alteration was then made in the section re- 
 lating to Incest* 
 
 Had our brother extended his acquaintance 
 with Selden, he might have found a passage more 
 suited to his purpose. Speaking of the six blood 
 relations of the wife, whom, in the (pinion of 
 the Hebrews, it was unlawful for her husband to 
 marry, whether legitimateor illegitimate, Selden 
 goes on to add the seventh : " Nee demum 
 septimam, uxoris nempe sororem sive uterinam 
 
 * Preface to Camb. Platform, pp. 4, 5. 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 23 
 
 sive germanam, dura ilia superstes; tarn etsi 
 fuerit repudiata. Nam de uxor is sorore jam 
 demortuae minquam dubitarunt ; cam verba 
 legis de uxore sint, dum ipsa adhuc vivit."* 
 But even this, on exanination, will be found to 
 be insufficient to support the Puritan's confident 
 assertion noticed above. 
 
 The authority for the statement made in the 
 quotation adduced by our brother, is the passage 
 we have just cited. Now, if Selden had referred 
 to Philo Judaus, or to the Mishna or Gemarra, 
 as his authority for saying the Hebrews did not 
 doubt the lawfulness of marrying a deceased 
 wife's sister, it would have been better support- 
 ed. His authority is either Salomon Jarchi ad 
 Levit. 18 : 18, and Maimonidcs, celebrated Jewish 
 writers who lived in the twelfth century, many 
 ages after the time of the Pharisees ; or no parti- 
 cular authority. t 
 
 Philo Judmus, who was born about the com- 
 mencement of the Christian era, does not assert 
 the lawfulness of the marriage in question, 
 
 * De Jure Nat lib. v. chap. 10. p. 545. 
 
 t Selden De Jure Nat. et Gen. lib. v. chap. 10. 
 
24 HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 which he would have done, if that had been his 
 opinion ; or he would have stated the marriage 
 to be customary among the Hebrews, if that 
 had been the fact. He does neither. We have 
 before us a transcript of his original Greek, with 
 the accompanying Latin translation, and an En- 
 glish version, all kindly furnished by a learned 
 friend who had access to Philo's works. As 
 our friend favors the marriage under debate, his 
 English translation will be received as correct 
 by our opponents. We give his words : " Again 
 (Moses) does not permit a man to marry two 
 sisters, either at the same time or at different 
 times, even though he may have put away the 
 one whom he took first in marriage. For, dur- 
 ing the lifetime of her that remains with her 
 husband, or of her that has been sent away, 
 whether she remain a widow, or be married to 
 another man, (Moses) accounted it unholy for 
 the sister to take the place of her that has been 
 unfortunate ; teaching them not to violate the 
 right of consanguinity, nor to rise by the fall 
 of one so united by descent, nor to delight and 
 exult in being served by her sister's enemies, and 
 in serving them in turn. For from these things 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 25 
 
 arise violent jealousies and fierce contentions, 
 producing an unspeakable multitude of evils."* 
 
 Philo, in this passage, certainly does not as 
 sert it to be lawful for a man to marry his de- 
 ceased wife's sister. He asserts it to be a viola- 
 tion of the divine law, for a man to marry two 
 sisters, either at one time, or at different times, 
 while the first wife lives; and to be unlawful for 
 her sister to form a connexion with her husband. 
 He is silent in regard to what mi^ht be lawful 
 after the death of the first wife. Now, if the 
 Jews had never entertained a doubt, as Selden 
 says, of the lawfulness of such a marriage on the 
 death of the first wife, is it not highly probable 
 that Philo would have stated the fact ? 
 
 This appears the more probable, when we 
 compare Philo' s statement with the comment on 
 Levit. 18 : 18, by that famous Jewish Rabbi, 
 Jonathan the son of Uzziel, who was contem- 
 porary with Philo. It is in these words : " Mu- 
 Jierem etiam vivente sorore non accipies, ad 
 affligendum earn, ad revelandum turpitudinem 
 ejus super ipsam, omnibus diebus ejus." 
 
 * De Spccialibus Legibus, p. 602, printed at Geneva, 
 
 1613. 
 
 3* 
 
26 HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 Both writers acrree in teaching, that the divine 
 law prohibited a man to marry his wife's sister 
 while she was living ; and both are silent in re- 
 gard to what might be done after her decease. 
 The comment of Jonathan differs, in the words 
 he uses, but little from the text itself. 
 
 Now, if the Jews had never doubted that it 
 was lawful for a man to marry his sister-in-law 
 after the death of his wife, is it not highly pro- 
 bable the fact would have been stated by one or 
 both of these writers, when giving the meaning 
 of the prohibition in Lcvit. 18 : 18 ? Is not 
 their silence proof to the contrary ? 
 
 But if we were to admit it could be proved, 
 that such an interpretation was put on the Le- 
 vitical law by the Scribes and Pharisees, in our 
 Saviour's time, what will the Puritan gain? 
 Are we to bow to their judgment? Christians 
 are as competent to interpret a written law as 
 they were ; for, although they were nearer to the 
 time of the giving of the law than Christians of 
 the present day, yet they were not nearer than 
 Primitive Christians. Besides, let it be remem- 
 bered that, between the time of these Jewish 
 expounders of the law and its first publication, 
 
HISTORICAL PACTS. 27 
 
 there had intervened fifteen hundred years, 
 ample time for great changes in opinion and 
 mournful departures from the spirit and true 
 meaning of the law. 
 
 Great corruption in faith and practice had, in 
 fact, taken place among the Jews, when out 
 blessed Lord, the great Teacher, came into the 
 world. They were ignorant of the true mean- 
 ing of their prophetic writings, and earthly in 
 their expectations of the benefits to be derived 
 from the coming of the long promised Messiah, 
 or they would not have rejected and crucified 
 Him, when He came to bless them with His 
 salvation. They were, as our Saviour says, a 
 " wicked generation." (Matt. 12 : 45.) The 
 Scribes and Pharisees too had, we have seen., 
 corrupted the law by their traditions, and were 
 denounced by the Redeemer as " blind guides," 
 and as a. " generation of vipers." And are we 
 to defer to the judgment of such expositors of 
 the law ; we who live under the Christian dis- 
 pensation, and enjoy all its increased light and 
 privileges? The Jewish teachers had, by their 
 tradition, made of none effect that command- 
 ment of God which requires us to honor our 
 
23 HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 parents ; and would it be safe to rely on their 
 interpretation of a law that laid a restraint on 
 their animal passions? 
 
 4. Here it may be proper to correct a quota- 
 tion of the Puritan, on page 10, from Jeremy 
 Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium. There he has 
 fallen into a strange mistake. He cites indeed 
 the words of Taylor ; but, by an unfortunate 
 application of them to a wrong period of time, 
 he represents him as testifying in opposition to 
 his own written testimony. Jeremy Taylor does 
 not say, that, in the reign of Henry VIII. 
 " there was almost a general consent upon this 
 proposition, that the Levitical degrees do not, by 
 any law of God, bind Christians to their observ- 
 ance." He says the contrary, as will appear 
 from his own words. On page 222 he thus 
 speaks : " For all those degrees in which 
 Moses's law hath forbidden marriages, are sup- 
 posed, by very many now-a-days, that they are 
 still to be observed with the same distance and 
 sacredness; affirming, because it was a law of 
 God, with the appendage of severe penalties to 
 transgressors, it does still oblige us Christians" 
 Subsequently he adds : " For though Christen- 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 29 
 
 dom was then" (Henry's time) " much divided, 
 yet before then there was almost a general con- 
 sent upon this proposition, that the Levitical de- 
 grees do not, by any law of God, bind Christians 
 to their observance." Thus it appears the 
 Puritan has fallen into an unfortunate anach- 
 ronism. We are inclined to believe he quoted 
 Taylor at second-hand, without examining his 
 work for himself. 
 
 Taylor's testimony, in regard to the agreement 
 on the proposition he names, cannot be admit- 
 ted ; because it is merely negative, and his ex- 
 amination of the Schoolmen was altogether too 
 limited. He says only one schoolman dissented 
 from this proposition. In this he appears, from 
 the statement of Burnet, in his History of the 
 Reformation of the Church of England, to have 
 been entirely mistaken. This historian has 
 given an abstract of what was published about 
 Henry's divorce. In that abstract, after stating 
 the explicit testimony both of the Greek and 
 Latin fathers in favor of the permanent obliga- 
 tion of the Levitical prohibitions, he says : " They 
 observed that the same doctrine was also taught 
 by the fathers and doctors in the latter ages ;" 
 
39 HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 and then particularly names seven of them. He 
 afterwards adds : " From these doctors and 
 fathers the inquiry descended to the Schoolmen, 
 who had with more niceness and subtilty ex- 
 amined things. They do all agree in asserting 
 the obligation of these Levitical prohibitions." 
 After naming a number of the Schoolmen, he 
 subjoins : " All the Canonists were of the same 
 mind." How entirely opposite is this positive 
 and specific testimony to the general and nega- 
 tive testimony of Jeremy Taylor I* 
 
 5. The decision of this question by the dif- 
 ferent Universities of Europe our brother dis- 
 poses of in a summary way, by imputing it to 
 corrupt influence, Henry's power and gold.t 
 An accusation is one thing, and proof is another 
 thing, entirely different. What influence had 
 Henry with the Universities of France, in oppo- 
 sition to that of the Pope and the King of 
 France ? But passing by this rash insinuation, 
 to sustain which no proof is attempted, let us 
 look at what is said by the Puritan of the Pro- 
 
 * Burnet's His. vol. i. pp. 160-162, New York edi- 
 tion. 
 
 t Page 22, last paragraph. 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 31 
 
 testants of Germany : " Though all this did not 
 avail to secure the Protestants of Germany in 
 this error." Again, p. 10, 2d par. : " The Pro- 
 testant Church of Europe, at that early day, 
 seems to have had no idea that the law of Moses 
 bound us in this particular." He then quotes 
 Luther and Melancthon in support of his asser- 
 tion. 
 
 If the Puritan had read Dr. Livingston's 
 dissertation on this subject, he would have been 
 preserved from this unfounded assertion ; for 
 that venerable man has quoted the closing part 
 of the famous letter written " by those celebra- 
 ted divines, who, in the name of their Church, 
 replied to the inquiry made by Henry VIII„ 
 whether it was lawful for a man to marry his 
 sister-in-law." Let it be transcribed : " It is 
 manifest and cannot be denied, that the law 
 of Levit. 18, prohibits a marriage with a sis- 
 ter-in-law. This is to be considered as a divine, 
 a natural, and a moral law, against which 
 no other law may be enacted or established 
 Agreeably to this, the whole Church has always 
 retained this law, and judged such marriages 
 incestuous. Agreeably to this, also, the de- 
 crees of Synods, the celebrated opinions of the 
 
32 HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 most holy fathers, and even civil laws, pro- 
 hibit such marriages, and pronounce them inces- 
 tuous. Wherefore we also judge that this law 
 is to be preserved in all the Churches as a di- 
 vine, a natural, and a moral law; nor will 
 we dispense with or permit in our Churches, 
 that such marriages shall be contracted : and 
 this doctrine we can, and, as God shall enable 
 us, we will resolutely defend."* Now whatever 
 Luther or Melancthon may have hastily written, 
 it is not likely that they, after mature delibera- 
 tion, differed from these brethren of their Church, 
 who, having solemnly investigated the subject, 
 wrote their noble letter. 
 
 Let the reader turn to pp. 153 and 155 of the 
 Doctor's dissertation, and he will see that 
 Zuinglius, Calvin, and Ecolampadius speak in 
 strong language about the binding authority of 
 the Levitical law of marriage. 
 
 Further, to show the views entertained by the 
 Protestant Churches of Europe, we submit for 
 consideration the following acts of the Nation- 
 al Synod of France. In the second National 
 Synod, held at Poictiers, in the year 1560, the 
 
 * Disser. pp. 157, 158. 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. S3 
 
 question of the lawfulness of the marriage under 
 discussion, was decided. The following is their 
 record : " May a man lawfully espouse the sis- 
 ter of his deceased wife, who has left him chil- 
 dren begotten on her body by him ? To which 
 was answered, That this is in no wise lawful 
 nor expedient, and the Church must see to it, 
 that no such marriages be solemnized in it."* 
 
 In the records of the transactions of the 
 Fourth National Synod, held at Lyons in 
 1563, we find this minute : " It being demanded, 
 Whether it were only a prohibition of humane 
 laws, that the widow of a deceased brother might 
 not be married to his surviving brother ? The 
 Council answered, That such marriages were 
 also forbidden by the word of God ; and though, 
 under the law of Moses, it was ordained, that, 
 when the elder brother died childless, the 
 younger brother should raise up seed to him ; 
 yet this was only a temporary law to God's an- 
 cient Israel, and intended only for the preserva- 
 tion and distinction of their tribes. "f This 
 
 * Quick's Synodicon, vol. i. p. 18 , sect. 9. 
 t P. 40, sect. 30. 
 
 4 
 
34 HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 noble body of Protestants of Europe knew how 
 to distinguish between what was temporary and 
 what was 'permanent, in the laws of Moses : and 
 that they knew how to distinguish between a 
 civil and a divine ordinance, may be seen from 
 a record, (p. 19, sect. 23,) where, in reference to 
 the case of a man, who, having promised mar- 
 riage to the cousin-german of his deceased wife, 
 had carnally known her, and had a child by her, 
 before marriage, it was answered : " That foras- 
 much as the marriage of cousin-germans is not 
 prohibited by the word of God, although it be by 
 our magistrates, it is advised, That they shall 
 separate for some time, and make public con- 
 fession of their fault before the Church ; and 
 then the minister, reproving it, and admonish- 
 ing that none offend for the future in this man- 
 ner, they shall be married." 
 
 Here is decisive proof of the views entertained 
 by the Protestants of Europe, in regard to the 
 binding authority of this law of Moses. No one 
 will affirm that these Protestant French and 
 Lutheran divines were either seduced by Hen- 
 ry's bribes, or subdued by the influence of his 
 authority. 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 35 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Subject continued.— Grotius. — Calvin.— Selden. — Chief Justice Vau- 
 ghan. — Jeremy Taylor.— Chancellor Kent.— Dr. J. P. Wilson. — 
 Judge Story. — Change of Sentiment. — Its Origin. 
 
 6. Having already noticed how the Puritan 
 has erred in his quotation from Jeremy Taylor, 
 this may be the proper place for testing his 
 claims to certain great and learned men, who, 
 he says, (p. 23,) " have plead for the lawfulness 
 of such marriages." It belongs to the history 
 of this subject. 
 
 Grotius heads the list. By what authority 
 this great and learned man is claimed as advo- 
 cating the Puritan's cause, does not appear. 
 Reference is had to his interpretation of Lev. 
 18: 18, (p. 21, par. 2;) but it will appear incon- 
 clusive, when compared with the following quo- 
 tations; which prove — 1. That he considered 
 
36 HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 the Levitical statutes as determining the limits 
 of marriages; — 2. That he believed them to be 
 binding on all men ; — and 3. That he asserts they 
 were so regarded by the Primitive Christians. 
 
 Grotius says, " The next question is about 
 all the degrees of affinity, and the degrees of 
 consanguinity in the collateral line; those es- 
 pecially which are particularly mentioned in the 
 xviiith of Leviticus. For granting that those 
 prohibitions were not derived from the mere law 
 of nature, yet do they plainly appear to have 
 their sanction from an express order of the Di- 
 vine Will : nor is this such an order as obliges 
 the Jews only, but all mankind; as seems to be 
 very fairly collected from those words of God to 
 Moses, " Defile not yourselves in any of these 
 things ; for in all these the nations are defiled, 
 which I cast out before you." Again, " Ye 
 shall not commit any of these abominations : 
 neither any of your cwn nation, nor any stran- 
 ger that sojourneth with you : for all these abomi- 
 nations have the men of the land done, which 
 were before you, and the land is defiled."* 
 
 * De Jure Belli ac Pacis, lib, ii. chap. 5. sect. 13 
 J. Barbeyrae's Trans. 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 37 
 
 In section 14, of the same chapter, he says, 
 " But yet the Primitive Christians were very 
 much in the right of it, who voluntarily observ- 
 ed not only those laws which were given in com- 
 mon to all men, but those which were peculiarly 
 designed for the Hebrew people ; nay, and ex- 
 tended the bounds of modesty to some farther 
 degrees of relation, that in this virtue too, as 
 well as in all others, they might excel the Jews. 
 And that this was done early, with universal 
 consent, appears from the Canons. St. Austin, 
 speaking of cousin-germans, both by the father 
 and mother, marrying among Christians, ' They, 1 
 says he, ' seldom practise what the law allowed ; 
 because, though the law of God has not forbid it, 
 they dreaded, however, a warrantable action, for 
 its nearness to what is unw arrant able, ,' " 
 
 And to all the evidence in regard to the 
 judgment of this learned man, on the question 
 already presented, may be added this : That 
 in his comment on Levit. 18: 18, (where, if 
 anywhere, had he believed it lawful for a man 
 to marry his deceased wife's sister, he would 
 have asserted the lawfulness of such a mar- 
 riage,) he is silent on the point. He there gives 
 
 4* 
 
38 HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 it as his opinion that the prohibition refers to 
 marriage, and not to polygamy. 
 
 Calvin refuses to be in the list with those who 
 he believes misinterpret God's law. Hear his 
 strong and decided language, as cited by Dr. 
 Livingston, in his Dissertation, page 155 : " It 
 is sufficiently known in what degrees of consan- 
 guinity, God, in his law, forbids marriage. 
 What relates to the degrees of affinity is equally 
 obvious. There are some who dispute, or 
 rather cavil, whether it is not lawful for a man 
 to take the sister of his deceased wife; and they 
 seize, as a pretext, upon the words, Levit. 18 : 
 18., during her lifetime. But their error is re- 
 futed by the very words of that text ; because, 
 what is there condemned by Moses, is not for 
 incest, but for cruelty to the wife. That text 
 actually respects Polygamy." 
 
 Calvin is claimed by the Puritan, not only 
 without proof, but against positive proof. 
 
 Selden is net found in the list on page 23; 
 but, from various passages, it is evident the 
 Puritan intends to claim alliance with this 
 learned man, " who, as an oriental scholar," he 
 says, " saw no superior." Hereafter we shall 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 39 
 
 notice quotations from Selden, but for the pres- 
 ent we only remark, that, in page 23, first par. 
 he represents him as expressing his own senti- 
 ments, when, in fact, he only recites, as a histo- 
 rian, the sentiments of the Jews, collected from 
 Maimonides, &c. 
 
 Nothing produced by the Puritan is suffi- 
 cient to authorize him to class Selden with those 
 who vindicate the lawfulness of the marriage in 
 question ; nor have we seen any thing in his 
 writings to justify it. One thing is plain, Sel- 
 den, and the Talmudists, and the Karaites, 
 and the Hebrews are all in direct opposition to 
 the Puritans doctrine, " that these statutes in 
 Lev. xviiio do not prohibit marriage at all." (P. 
 6, last par. of the chap.) 
 
 Selden was a lay-member of the Westminster 
 Assembly, who formed the Confession of Faith 
 that contains the article on the subject of mar- 
 riage so much opposed at present. Had he be- 
 lieved it to be unscriptural,he would have opposed 
 its adoption ; but from the history of the labors 
 of that venerable body, it does not appear that 
 he made any opposition. To an article of the 
 Church government, he did oppose himself. He 
 
40 HISTORICAL FACTS 
 
 was an Erastian : he believed and maintained 
 that the Jewish Church had no government dis- 
 tinct from that of the State; and that, in a 
 Christian country, the Church ought not to have 
 a government distinct from that of the State. In 
 support of his views he brought forth all the rich 
 stores of his "Rabbinical lore." He was sup- 
 ported by the celebrated Lightfoot and other 
 Erastians, and by all the Independents in the 
 Assembly. But all in vain. He was met in 
 debate by Gillespie, that noble young Scotch 
 Commissioner, who, by " a speech of astonish- 
 ing power and acuteness," overturned the foun- 
 dation of his superstructure. " Selden himself 
 is reported to have said, at its conclusion, 
 1 That young man, by this single speech, has 
 swept away the labors often years of my life.' "* 
 In regard to the Confession of Faith, " there 
 prevailed," says this historian, " almost an en- 
 tire and perfect harmony." Only two subjects 
 excited difference of opinion among them : the 
 doctrine of Election and Church government! 
 
 * Hetherington's History of the West. Assem , pp. 
 173. 174. T P. 242. 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 41 
 
 Chief Justice Vaughan, who lived in the reign 
 of Charles II, is claimed as favoring the marriage 
 under discussion. His influence, whatever it 
 may be worth, (though even he regarded this 
 Jaw as referring to marriage,) is yielded. It 
 may be proper, however, to let the reader see 
 the grounds of his opinion. The case before 
 him was the marriage of a man with his great- 
 aunt. In deciding that case he gave his opinion 
 incidentally of the lawfulness of the marriage of 
 a man with his deceased wife's sister. 
 
 The grounds of his opinion are : 
 
 1. An assumption, without proof , that part of 
 the law in Levit. xviii. is judaical positive law, 
 and therefore not binding on Christians. 
 
 2. He affirms that such marriages were allowed 
 by the Jewish " Forum" to be lawful. 
 
 3. He says, " The clearest way to understand 
 any law is by what was the story and judgment 
 of those people, and the times in which it was 
 practical." 
 
 Here the Chief Justice overlooks the fact that 
 the law, to which he refers, has been a practical 
 law in every age of the Church since its enact- 
 ment, and suffers himself to be guided by the 
 
42 HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 judgment of the Jewish people, in one of their 
 most corrupt periods, at the distance of 1500 
 years from the first publication of the law by 
 Moses. 
 
 4. He represents the judgment of the Scribes 
 and Pharisees as being incomparably superior to 
 that of the Karaites, and assigns as a proof, 
 (referring to what our Saviour says of them,) 
 " They had Moses' authority," Matt. 23 : 2— 
 as if our blessed Lord intended, by his remark, 
 that his disciples should place implicit reliance 
 on the interpretation of the law by those teachers 
 whom, in this very chapter, he upbraids as 
 11 blind leaders of the blind !" 
 
 5. Speaking of Acts 15 : 28, 29, 1 Cor. 
 10 : 27-32, he says, " These were not given as 
 precepts, but as counsels." " Rom. 2 : 14," he 
 says, " does clearly affirm that the law of Moses 
 was not given to the Gentiles." Surprising ! 
 The apostle is speaking of the moral law, that 
 law which was written on the hearts of the 
 Gentiles ; and the Chief Justice asserts, the 
 apostle here teaches us that it was not given to 
 the Gentiles ! It had not been revealed to them 
 as it had been revealed to the Jews ; but, beyond 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 43 
 
 doubt, it had been given to them, for it was 
 written on their hearts. 
 
 " And Rom. 3 : 2 shows," says the Judge, 
 " that this law, called the Oracle of God, was 
 committed to the Jews only." What an inter- 
 pretation of Scripture ! The oracles of God is 
 the law ! ! , 
 
 If the opinion delivered by the Chief Justice, 
 from which these extracts have been taken, dis- 
 plays learning and legal acumen, the extracts 
 speak little in favor of his acquaintance with the 
 Scriptures and ability to interpret them.* 
 
 Grotius, we have seen, maintained the law in 
 Levit. 18 : 6-18, to be, in all its parts, binding, 
 by an express order of the Divine Will, not only 
 on the Jews, but on all mankind ; and had Chief 
 Justice Vaughan followed him whom he styles, 
 in his discussion, " the greatest of human author- 
 ities" he would have arrived at a very different 
 opinion on this important subject. 
 
 With this opinion, delivered in the 22d year 
 of Charles II, the reader may compare a recent 
 opinion, delivered Feb. 1804, by Sir William 
 
 * See 2 Vent. pp. 16-22. 
 
44 HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell ; speaking of 
 whom, Chancellor Kent says : " An incestuous 
 connexion between an uncle and niece has been 
 recently adjudged, by a great master of public 
 and municipal law, to be a nuisance extremely 
 offensive to the laws and manners of society, and 
 tending to endless confusion, and the pollution 
 of the sanctity of private life."* 
 
 Jeremy Taylor is placed in the Puritan's list, 
 as pleading for the lawfulness of the marriage 
 before us. We have already shown (p. 28) how 
 our brother has misquoted this writer, and this 
 led us to suspect he might be mistaken in class- 
 ing him as he does. As the place is not cited, 
 we were subjected to the trouble of several hours' 
 search in his work to find the authority. The 
 result of our labor is this : J. Taylor enumerates 
 the following to be unlawful marriages : — 
 
 I. Between parents and children. They are 
 unnatural. 2. Between brothers and sisters. 
 They are incestuous, prohibited by positive law. 
 " This discourse," he says, " is not intended so 
 much as secretly to imply, that it can now at all 
 
 * Kent, 2 Com. p. 82. 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 45 
 
 be, or be made lawful, or is at any hand to be- 
 endured : for the marriage of brother and sister 
 is against a secondary law of nature ; that is, it 
 stands next to the natural prohibition, and is 
 against a natural reason, though not against a 
 prime natural law." 3. Between a man and 
 his father's wife. He regards it as unnatural. 
 4. Between uncles and nieces. Unlawful by 
 positive precept. 5. He contends that the mar- 
 riage of cousin-germans is lawful. 
 
 We could not find the place in which he 
 pleads in favor of the marriage of a man with 
 his deceased wife's sister. 
 
 " Affinity" he says, " makes conjunctions 
 equal to these of consanguinity ; and, therefore, 
 thou must not uncover the nakedness which is 
 thine in another person of blood or affinity, or 
 else is thy father's or mother's, thy brother's or 
 thy sister's, thy son's or thy daughter's nakedness. 
 This is all that can be pretended to be forbidden 
 by virtue of these wcrds, near of kin cr the near- 
 ness of t hy fles h."* 
 
 Hooker and Doddridge are set down as plead- 
 
 Ductor Dubitantium, pp. ££5-231. 
 
 K 
 
46 HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 ing in favor of this marriage ; but as no reference 
 is given of the places where they have expressed 
 their opinion, we have been unable to find them. 
 
 Of Luther and Melancthon we have already 
 spoken. (P. 32.) 
 
 Chancellor Kent certainly has not "pleaded 
 for the lawfulness of such marriages. ; ' In his 
 Commentaries,* after naming N. Webster on the 
 one side and Dr. Livingston on the other, he says, 
 •'It is not my object to meddle with that ques- 
 tion ; but such a marriage is clearly not inces- 
 tuous or invalid by our municipal law." 
 
 Dr. J. P. Wilson has published no opinion 
 on the subject. We knew him for many years, 
 and never heard him utter his sentiments, nor did 
 we ever hear that he had till we read the Puritan. 
 
 Judge Story, in his Conflict of Laws, says, 
 Grctius " maintains, in strong terms, that there is 
 no foundation for the prohibition ;" and then 
 quotes from the original Latin the following 
 words as proof : " And by the most ancient 
 canons, which are called Apostolical, he who 
 married two sisters one after the other, cr his 
 
 * Vol. ii. p. 85, note a. 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 47 
 
 niece, that is, his brother's or sister's daughter, 
 was only incapacitated for the ministerial 
 office."* 
 
 Now, let the reader look at this insulated 
 quotation, and find, if he can, that Grotius even 
 thought such marriages to be lawful. If they 
 were lawful, why should any contracting them 
 be rendered incapable of holding the ministerial 
 office, and be punished for doing no wrong ? 
 
 But, when it is considered that, in the very 
 section from which the quotation is taken by 
 Judge Story, and immediately preceding it, 
 Grotius states the marriages of parents and 
 children, and of brothers and sisters, to be so in 
 violation of the law of nature as to be " null and 
 void," " but that the case is not the same as to 
 laws concerning other degrees, since they are 
 rather made to prevent certain inconveniences 
 than to direct men from a thing that is in itself 
 dishonest;" and further, that he had, in his pre- 
 ceding section, (see above p. 36,) asserted that 
 the prohibitions in Levit xviii., in all the degrees 
 of affinity as well as of consanguinity, in the 
 
 * Note p. 105, 2d edition. 
 
48 HISTORICAL FACTS, 
 
 collateral line, are sanctioned " by an express 
 order of the Divine Will " — an order obliging 
 not only the Jews, " but all mankind" — is it not 
 apparent that the learned Judge has really " no 
 foundation" for his assertion?* 
 
 Now, in opposition to the Puritan's list of 
 distinguished men " who have plead for the law- 
 fulness of such marriages," (p. 23,) we place all 
 the Reformers, the celebrated Divines of the 
 Lutheran Church, the Synod of Dort, the Na- 
 tional Synod of France, the Westminster As- 
 sembly, the Church of Scotland, the Church of 
 England, &x. &.c. 
 
 7. But all will not avail us. The unlawful- 
 ness of the marriage of a man with his deceased 
 wife's sister, has a Popish origin, and the Pro- 
 testant Church has not been able to free herself 
 from the error to this day. (See the Puritan, 
 p. 22, second paragraph and p. 23, first par.) 
 Grotius states that Primitive Christians regard- 
 ed the Levitical deorees as binding on the 
 Church, (see above, p. 36, 37 J and the Puritan 
 
 * De Jure Belli et Pacis, lib. ii. chap. 5, § 13, 14. 
 J Barbeyrac's trans. 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 49 
 
 admits the marriage in question had been con- 
 demned by " the Council of Neo-Csesarea, A. 
 D 314, and that of Elvira, A. D. 305." But all 
 this he sets aside by a sweeping remark : 
 " Though it is true that Popery inform was not 
 established so early, many of the corruptions of 
 Popery came into being long before that." He 
 then goes on and describes the corrupt state of 
 the Church in future times, and thinks he has 
 made out the impure origin of the prohibition. 
 
 His argument is — The Church of Rome, in 
 subsequent periods, gave rise to unscriptural 
 rules relating to marriage ; therefore this pro- 
 hibition was unscriptural, and derived its exist- 
 ence from Papal influence. 
 
 Let the Unitarian seize this weapon, and 
 how would he use it in trying to demolish the 
 glorious fabric of our common Christianity ! 
 Your doctrines of the Trinity, of the Godhead 
 of Jesus Christ, of his vicarious atonement, of 
 the personality and divinity of the Holy Spirit, 
 are to be found, not in the Bible, but in Papal 
 devices. 
 
 " But," says our brother, " the last fifty years 
 have developed a great advance of the public 
 
 5* 
 
50 HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 mind towards the truth." (P. 23.) And what 
 was the state of the public mind fifty years ago? 
 In the middle of the last century Voltaire and 
 his impious associates formed their conspiracy 
 against Christianity, and labored diligently, 
 in their unholy vocation, to overturn the Church 
 of Christ, and to bless the world with the reign 
 of infidelity and Atheism. Their efforts were 
 crowned with most alarming success. Freder- 
 ick the Great of Prussia patronized Voltaire. 
 Princes and crowned heads were poisoned with 
 infidelity. The French Revolution burst forth 
 like a terrible and destructive volcano. Infidel- 
 ity became ascendant. Religion was laughed 
 to scorn. The Sabbath was abolished. The 
 goddess of reason was enthroned and worshipped. 
 The baneful influence of infidelity and atheism 
 was spread more or less over a large part of Eu- 
 rope. Nor did this country escape the misera- 
 ble contagion. Such was the depressed state of 
 religion and the prevalence of infidelity about 
 fifty years ago, that a venerable Theological 
 Professor advised his pupils (the writer heard 
 him) to prepare their minds for a season of per- 
 secution. 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 51 
 
 Such was the actual slate of Europe and of 
 this country at the time when, the Puritan says, 
 " a great advance of the public mind towards 
 the truth was developed." Was it truth or was 
 it error, towards which the advance was made ? 
 Certainly the state of things was not favorable 
 to religious truth. While the public mind was 
 thus shrouded with darkness, and the public 
 eye shut against the light of divine revelation, 
 the minds of men were not prepared for discern- 
 ing religious duty, and enacting laws for pro- 
 tecting the sanctity of marriage, and securing 
 domestic purity. The removal of restraints on 
 sensual passions by human legislators, in such 
 circumstances, a wise man would naturally look 
 upon with a suspicious eye. Indeed, what the 
 Puritan regards as a great advance of the pub- 
 lic mind towards the truth, we regard as a re- 
 trograde movement towards error. And judging 
 merely from the actual state of things when it 
 commenced, we think there is better ground for 
 our opinion, than the actual state of things in 
 the early period of Christianity furnished our 
 brother for his opinion about the Popish origin 
 of the prohibition against which he contends. 
 
52 HISTORICAL FACTS. 
 
 Let it be also observed, that in this " advance 
 towards the truth/' the State has taken the lead. 
 In former acres the Church went before the State. 
 She received the law of her God on the subject 
 of marriage; and from her example, and the light 
 of Christianity which she diffused abroad, the 
 laws of the Roman Empire derived such a salu- 
 tary improvement in regard to this fundamental 
 institution in human society. But now the 
 Puritan would have the State to reform the 
 Church. " In this country," he says, (p. 23,) 
 " all the States but one allow of the marriage of 
 a wife's sister. In the Protestant States of 
 Europe, the case is similar. Throughout the 
 whole of Prussia, Saxony, Hanover, Baden, 
 Mecklenberg, Hamburg, Denmark, and most 
 other Protestant States, such marriages may be 
 contracted." Here is a numerical display. 
 
 It would require much labor to test fully the 
 correctness of this statement. As it is unneces- 
 sary, we only remark, that, with the exception of 
 Prussia and Denmark, the European States 
 enumerated are small ; that beyond this number 
 we are unable to count more than four or five 
 other Protestant States in Europe ; and that 
 
HISTORICAL FACTS. 53 
 
 England, and Scotland, and Holland do not al- 
 low these marriages : yet the Puritan swells 
 his enumeration by the additional clause, " most 
 other Protestant States of Europe !" Judge 
 Story has, in his Conflict of Laws, the same 
 enumeration, and the same additional clause.* 
 Probably our brother, copying from the Judge, 
 was led into the mistake by his guide. 
 
 But whatever change has taken place in the 
 laws of States in regard to marriage, no change 
 is stated by the Puritan to have occurred in the 
 laws of the Churches. If any have been made 
 by the Churches of Germany we are not inform- 
 ed ; and, when it is considered how those once 
 flourishing Protestant Churches have been swept 
 over by the blighting influence of infidelity ; and 
 how the pulpits, from which formerly was heard 
 the pure and holy gospel of Jesus Christ, are 
 now occupied by Errorists and Neologists, who 
 mislead and deceive the people ; who would be 
 surprised to hear that a change in the practice 
 of the Churches has occurred, as unscriptural 
 and deleterious as what has occurred in the life- 
 giving doctrines of divine revelation? 
 
 * Page 105, note, 2d edition. 
 
54 CONSEQUENCES OF THE 
 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Consequences of the Puritan's principles.— Church destitute of a 
 law of Incest. — Impiobable. 
 
 The design of the Puritan is to establish, 
 and he thinks he has established, two points : — 
 
 I. That the laic of Lev it. xviii. is repealed, 
 and not binding on the Christian Church. 
 
 II. That it has no reference to marriage. 
 To the establishment of the first point, the 
 
 author's first chapter is devoted. Towards the 
 close of the fifth page is this paragraph : "Be- 
 sides, should we admit that there is, in the law 
 of nature, a prohibition of the marriage of a 
 wife's sister, that prohibition is, as we have 
 shown, not in these texts themselves, but in 
 them as authenticated by the law of nature. 
 The prohibition comes in this form : ' Thus 
 saith the Lord, speaking through the voice of 
 
puritan's principles. 55 
 
 nature,' arid not, ' Thus saith the Lord, speak- 
 ing through a repealed code.' So that our op- 
 ponents are, in truth, as much without scriptural 
 prohibitions as we are." 
 
 The following quotation from the close of his 
 first chapte.r (p. 6) is ample proof of the second 
 point : "It will be shown in the sequel, that 
 these statutes in Levit. xviii. do not prohibit 
 marriage at all. And of course they do not 
 prohibit marriage between brother and sister. 
 So that, at any rate, the dreaded alternative 
 must take its course. And these statutes, re- 
 pealed or unrepealed, cannot help them to find 
 an inspired and written prohibition against the 
 marriage of a sister. The argument of our op- 
 ponents is, — That if the marriage of a wife's sis- 
 ter is not prohibited to us, in this chapter, then 
 the marriage of our sisters is nowhere prohibit- 
 ed in the Bible. And we answer, — If the mar- 
 riage of our sisters is prohibited nowhere else, 
 it is prohibited nowhere in the Bible. For it 
 surely is not prohibited here, as we shall show. 
 And we totally deny, that it is self-evident that 
 such an express prohibition is, and must be, 
 found in the Bible." 
 
56 CONSEQUENCES OF THE 
 
 This is not the place to examine the sound- 
 ness of the author's arguments. Our object is, 
 at present, to let the reader see distinctly what 
 the Puritan aims at establishing. Hereafter we 
 hope to show the entire fallacy of the arguments 
 on which he rests his cause. Yet the last sen- 
 tence in the above quotation calls for a passing 
 remark. Did the Puritan ever read, in any re- 
 spectable writers, what he, by his strong denial, 
 seems to impute to his opponents — that they as- 
 sert it to be " self-evident, that an express pro- 
 hibition is, and must be, found in the Bible?" 
 We never heard such an assertion from any man. 
 Why, then, has he so misrepresented the posi- 
 tion we take 1 When we make such an asser- 
 tion, and net before, will it be fair for him to 
 come out with such an emphatic denial. 
 
 Now, let the reader search through the Puri- 
 tan's pamphlet to find, if he can, where he 
 shows, in God's inspired word, is contained a 
 prohibition against the marriage of brother and 
 sister. We cannctfind it. He makes no attempt 
 to discover such a prohibition. He only shews 
 we are not destitute cf scriptural intimation in 
 regard to marriage : " We are net wholly with- 
 
puritan's principles. 57 
 
 out scripture intimations of duty on this subject. 
 Against the marriage of parents and children 
 God's will is intimated, in that a man shall leave 
 his father and mcther when he cleaves to his 
 wife." (P. 5.) Now, if the Puritan had inform- 
 ed his readers that this intimation is recorded by 
 Moses in Gen. 2 : 24 ; that cur Redeemer quoted 
 it, in a conversation with the Pharisees ; and 
 that it is recorded in the New Testament by 
 Matthew, chap. 19 : 5, he would have furnish- 
 ed them with a proof from Turrdtin's third test, 
 (p. 4,) that this Levitical law is binding on 
 Christians. But mere of this hereafter. 
 
 It appears, then, that the Puritan thinks he 
 has prove J, 
 
 First, that the law in Lcvit. xviii. is repeal- 
 ed, and is not binding on the Christian Church ; 
 Secondly, that it has no reference to marriage 
 at all, and does not prohibit the marriage 
 of brothers and sisters. Nor does he pro- 
 duce any scriptural prohibition against such 
 marriages in the Old Testament. 
 What f Hows from these positions? 
 1. If they be true it follows, ns a necessary 
 consequence, that the Church of God under the 
 
 6 
 
58 CONSEQUENCES OF THE 
 
 Old Testament dispensation had no written law, 
 except the intimation in Gen. 2 : 24, on the sub- 
 ject of incestuous marriages ; but was left en- 
 tirely to the light of nature on this most impor- 
 tant part of moral duty, so intimately connected 
 with domestic purity and sound morals in the 
 community. 
 
 2. A second indubitable consequence is, that 
 the Christian Church, at its first establishment, 
 was destitute of any inspired written rule on this 
 interesting subject ; and that it now is, and ever 
 has been, in this (as we feel disposed to term it) 
 sad destitution. 
 
 Is this, we ask, probable ? Is it probable the 
 Church on which God has shed such light, by 
 his written word, on every other point of doc- 
 trine and duty, has received none on this deeply 
 interesting subject ? Is she, in this particular, 
 left in the same condition as the heathen, with- 
 out any inspired written rule to mark the degrees 
 in which marriage is not allowed] Can brothers 
 and sisters now marry without violating any 
 written law against such connexions 1 Now 
 we do not say, what our brother imputes to us, 
 " that it is self-evident that such an express pro- 
 
puritan's principles. 59 
 
 hibition is, and must be, found in the Bible," 
 (p. 6;) nor would we " say, a priori, that it con- 
 flicts with the wisdom of God to leave this cir- 
 cumstance of the divine ordinance of marriaae 
 to human legislation, just as he has left the regu- 
 lation of most circumstances respecting the 
 divine ordinance of government." (P. 5.) 
 
 But we may remark, the ordinance of mar- 
 riage lies at the foundation of the ordinance of 
 government; and laws enacted to guard the 
 former against abuse and to protect from pollu- 
 tion this original fountain of morals, will most 
 effectually secure good morals in the civil com- 
 munity. It is of the first importance to lay the 
 foundation of a building well ; and on this ac- 
 count every builder will pay to the foundation 
 special attention, and guard it against every de- 
 fect. Besides, when we recollect what particu- 
 lar instructions are given in the sacred Scriptures, 
 in regard to the duties of kings, and rulers, and 
 judges ; in regard to the duties of subjects or 
 citizens, not to resist government, but submit 
 to authority and to pay taxes, and to pray " for 
 kings and all in authority, that we may lead a 
 quiet and peaceable life in godliness and hon- 
 
69 CONSEQUENCES OF THE 
 
 esty ;" and in regard to the duties of slaves and 
 masters; it may be asked, whit circumstances 
 respecting the divine ordinance of government 
 are left unnoticed, except the form of govern- 
 ment, and the manner in which power is to be 
 distributed ; how the laws are to be framed, and 
 what penalties are to be annexed to them ? Has 
 the supreme Lawgiver given such particular in- 
 struction in regard to his ordinance of govern- 
 ment, and said no more, in his written word, on 
 the subject of incest than may be gathered from 
 his intimation in Gen. 2 : 24 ? Has He left the 
 rest, so intimately connected with moral purity 
 and human happiness, to the legislation of men 
 apt to err under the influence of strong passions 
 pleading for indulgence, and guided by reason, 
 where it is so incompetent to lead ? The exact 
 boundaries in this matter human reason cannot 
 determine. He who formed man, instituted 
 marriage for the propagation of our race, and 
 constituted the nature of things ; He alone has 
 knowledge and wisdom sufficient to determine 
 the limits of marriage. 
 
 It is not for us to determine a priori what In- 
 finite Wisdom ought to do ; but when we know 
 
puritan's principles. 61 
 
 I 
 
 what God has taught on one important subject, 
 we may humbly and reverently infer He has 
 not left us without instruction, on a kindred 
 subject of similar importance to our purity and 
 happiness. Look at the moral law. Mankind 
 were not wholly ignorant of their duty. The 
 inspired writer says, (Rom. 2 : 14, 15,) " For 
 when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do 
 by nature the things contained in the law, these 
 having not the law, are a law unto themselves ; 
 which show the work of the law written in their 
 hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, 
 and their thoughts the mean while accusing, or 
 else excusing one another." It appears, then, 
 from the testimony of Paul, that the Gentile na- 
 tions, while destitute of divine revelation, were 
 acquainted with the great principles of the mo- 
 ral law ; their moral sense and reason taught 
 them, in some measure, the duties it required. 
 But God did not leave his people to those im- 
 perfect sources of instruction. They needed 
 greater light and more perfect instruction ; and, 
 in infinite mercy, He was pleased to impart what 
 they needed. From the summit of Mount Sinai, 
 the glorious Lawgiver proclaimed, in circum- 
 
 6* 
 
62 CONSEQUENCES OF THE 
 
 * 
 
 stances of awful grandeur, the ten command- 
 ments, and afterwards engraved them on two 
 tables of stone ; and thus furnished them with a 
 complete written summary of moral duties, in all 
 their branches. Nor did his kindness here cease. 
 Many inspired teachers were, in successive ages, 
 raised up to explain and unfold the duties so 
 comprehensively set forth in the ten command- 
 ments ; till his own Son came, and his inspired 
 apostles, who threw additional light on the 
 moral law, and explained it in all its spiritual 
 and extensive meaning. 
 
 Now, when all this is duly considered, does it 
 appear probable that God has left the subject of 
 incest, a branch of moral duty so important, in 
 that imperfect state of instruction in which the 
 Puritan has placed it? There is no presump- 
 tion in this question. We only infer, from what 
 God has done for his Church in one particular, 
 what He has probably done for her in another. 
 From the light which He has shed upon the mo- 
 ral law, we are led to believe He has not with- 
 held proportional light on the law of Incest. By 
 this we do not determine what Infinite Wisdom 
 ought to communicate to his Church. 
 
puritan's principles. 63 
 
 Can the Puritan, then, be right in the conclu- 
 sions to which he has come ? Is it credible, 
 that the instructions given in the Bible on the 
 subject of incest are so imperfect? Has God 
 imparted to His Church scarce a single addi- 
 tional ray to the light of nature, and left it to 
 human legislation to determine the limits within 
 which it is unlawful to contract marriage? Is 
 (we repeat the question) this credible 1 
 
 In the sequel we h :pe to be able to show the 
 reasoning of this writer to be entirely fallacious, 
 on the leading points which he has established. 
 
 We believe that God has given to his Church 
 a law of incest and marriage, and that this law 
 is found recorded in Levit. 18 : 6-18. It can, 
 we think, be proved that this law is a permanent 
 ecclesiastical law, neither civil or judicial, nor 
 repealed ; — that it refers to marriage and pre- 
 scribes its limits ; — and that it is one law, and a 
 natural law. If we shall succeed in establishing 
 all these points, the way will be prepared for 
 proving the particular marriage under discussion 
 to be unlawful. 
 
64 LEVIT1CAL LAW 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Perpetuity of the Levitical law.— Proofs. — Puritan's aigument. — His 
 guide. — Criterion not rightly applied. — Turrettin. — Quotation from 
 Chancellor Kent.— Quotations from Puffendorf.— From Selden and 
 Grotius. 
 
 Before we enter on the argument, it may be 
 proper to notice two things. in the Puritan. 
 
 1. " We profess," he says, (p. 3,) " to present, 
 with such brevity and clearness as we are able, 
 the reasons which have convinced us that such 
 marriages are prohibited by the law of God. 
 The argument brought against them from Scrip- 
 ture is contained in a nutshell, and is easily 
 sifted." 
 
 Allow our brother the privilege of framing 
 for us the argument, and he may bring it within 
 so small a compass. We prefer framing it our- 
 selves. Two things are plain : 1. His argu- 
 ment in refuting it, spread as it is, with that of 
 
PERPETUAL. 65 
 
 his allies, over thirty-two closely printed octavo 
 pages, has not been inclosed in a nut-shell. 
 2. Oar argument, designed to refute his, cannot, 
 if we have to follow him in all its windings, be 
 brought within such narrow limits. 
 
 He also says, immediately after the quotation 
 above, " The whole stress of that argument is 
 laid on two passages, which are supposed to for- 
 bid the marriage of a brother's widow, and thus 
 to imply the prohibition in question — Lev. 18 : 
 16, and 2D : 21." Here he is mistaken. We 
 do not choose to place our fabric on a part of the 
 foundation, when we have the whole ample and 
 firm for its support. He may wish it there ; but 
 we rest our argument on the whole of Lev. xviii. 
 from the first to the eighteenth verse inclusive. 
 
 2. The reason for enacting these statutes as- 
 signed by the Puritan appears to us fanciful. 
 (Seep. 11.) We are unable to see how the Isra- 
 elites were more exposed to commit lewdness by 
 incestuous commerce with their mothers, or sis- 
 ters, or aunts, while sojourning in tents in 
 the wilderness, than when settled in comfortable 
 houses in the promised land. The necessary 
 S3cresy for the perpetration of such vile acts of 
 
66 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 iniquity could, it seems to us, be found in houses 
 more easily than in tents. We cannot see how 
 these statutes " were especially suited to the 
 peculiar sojourn in the desert." Has^the writer 
 forgotten the light thrown upon the camp of 
 Israel, by the pillar of fire by night 1 By this 
 miraculous provision the whole camp was illu- 
 minated every night. It was never withdrawn, 
 during Israel's sojourn in the wilderness. See 
 Ex. 13 : 21, 22, and chap. 40 : 38. 
 
 Our final remark on the reason assigned for 
 the enactment of these statutes is this : we are 
 surprised he should compare statutes prohibiting 
 criminal and incestuous acts with the statutes 
 in Deut. 23 : 13, &c. 
 
 We now enter on the argument to prove the 
 perpetuity of these Levitical statutes. 
 
 That they are the law of the supreme Law- 
 giver is not questioned. He gave them by the 
 hand of his servant Moses to his chosen people, 
 as a rule, in the opinion of multitudes of learned 
 men, prescribing degrees of lawful marriage, or, 
 as the Puritan affirms, as a rule to prohibit 
 the commission of " single acts of an incestuous 
 character." (P. 11.) Which is correct ? What 
 
PERPETI1AL. 67 
 
 is the nature of this law ? Is it ceremonial or 
 moral? Manifestly there is in it nothing of a 
 ceremonial kind. Whichever of the two inter- 
 pretations be correct, it is moral — designed to 
 regulate the conduct of rational creatures, to 
 direct the intercourse of near relations, and pre- 
 vent their sinning against their Creator. 
 
 Is this law permanent or temporary? Was it 
 intended for the Church in all ages, or only 
 while she remained under the Jewish economy \ 
 Why should it be limited to one period ? Do 
 not Christians need a directory for marriage, as 
 well as the Israelites? Or, if it be regarded as 
 not pertaining to marriage, but only as forbidding 
 single incestuous acts, must not the prohibitions 
 extend to them ? None will plead for liberty to 
 practise the lewdness contemplated in these pro- 
 hibitory statutes. 
 
 In support of the perpetuity of this divine law 
 we might argue from what is said by the Law- 
 giver in the preface : " Speak unto the children 
 of Israel, and say unto them, I am the Lord 
 your God. After the doings of the land of 
 E gypt> wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do : and 
 after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither 
 
68 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye 
 walk in their ordinances. Ye shall do my judg- 
 ments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk there- 
 in : I am the Lord your God. Ye shall there- 
 fore keep my statutes and my judgments ; which 
 if a man do, he shall live in them. I am the 
 Lord." Hcvv emphatic end solemn the intro- 
 duction ! Was it not designed to call up the 
 attention of Israel to something important and 
 permanent? If the whole of what followed had 
 been of a ceremonial or temporary character, 
 would it have been introduced by language so 
 impressive and august? 
 
 We may reason, too, in favor of the perpe- 
 tuity of this law, (as Grcthis, and many before 
 and after him, have,) from the language of the 
 great Lawgiver subsequent to the publication of 
 it : " Defile not yourselves in any of these things : 
 for in all these the nations are defiled, which I 
 cast out before ycu : and the land is defiled: 
 therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it ; 
 and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. 
 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my 
 judgments, and shall net commit any of these 
 abominations; neither any of your own nation, 
 
PERPETUAL. 69 
 
 nor any stranger that sojourneth with you : (for 
 all these abominations have the men of the land 
 done, which were before you ; and the land is 
 defiled;) that the land spue you not out also, 
 when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations 
 that were before you. For whosoever shall 
 commit any of these abominations, even the 
 souls that commit them shall be cut off from 
 among their people. Therefore shall ye keep 
 mine ordinances, that ye commit not any of 
 these abominable customs, which were committed 
 before you, and that ye defile not yourselves 
 therein : I am the Lord your God." 
 
 Here the Canaanites are charged with the 
 guilt of violating the duties enjoined by these 
 statutes. It follows, of course, the observance 
 of them must have been obligatory on them ; and 
 if they were bound by them, how can we be free 
 from their obligation ? 
 
 It is unnecessary to inquire how far the Ca- 
 naanites were guilty. It is certain they were 
 guilty, and grossly guilty ; for God has asserted 
 it in strong and emphatic terms. They may 
 have had more traditionary knowledge than we 
 are aware cf. Judah, who lived before the time 
 
 7 
 
70 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 of Moses, seems to have been acquainted with 
 the obligation of a brother raising up seed to 
 his brother, by marrying his widow, (Gen. 
 38: 6-11,) and with the punishment to be 
 inflicted on whoredom. (Gen. 28: 24-26.) 
 Some of the sins of the Canaanites may have been 
 sins of ignorance, while others were wilful vio- 
 laticns of known duty. 
 
 But the Puritan insists that this law is not 
 permanent; and to establish his position he 
 argues, on two grounds, that this law belongs 
 to the civil or judicial code, and that it has been 
 repealed. The whole of his argument is based 
 on a petilio principii ; it is a mere begging of 
 the question in debate. We contend, and de- 
 sign to prove it, that this law does not belong to 
 the civil or judicial code. He affirms it does; 
 and, without offering any proof, assumes it as 
 true, and makes this assumption the basis of his 
 whole argument : " The statutes in question (p. 
 4, the 2d paragraph) belong to the civil or ju- 
 dicial law of the Hebrew Commonwealth." Let 
 us allow his assumption for the present, and 
 test the correctness of his reasoning. 
 
 Having admitted that some principles of this 
 
PERPETUAL. 71 
 
 code are still binding, while others are not, 
 he observes, " What we want, then, is some 
 plain criterion, by which we may distinguish 
 those which are of permanent and universal 
 obligation, from those which are not." (P. 4, 
 third parag.) Distrusting himself in this deli- 
 cate matter, the Puritan determined to avail 
 himself of the guidance and aid of that justly 
 celebrated theologian, F. Turrettin. Had he 
 faithfully followed his own chosen guide, and 
 correctly applied the criterion proposed by him, 
 for discovering what principles are of permanent 
 obligation, and what are not, in the civil code of 
 the Hebrew people, he would have arrived at a 
 different conclusion. But he has failed to do so. 
 
 To illustrate this, we make the following re- 
 marks : 
 
 1. Turrettin does not place these statutes in 
 the municipal code of the Hebrew common- 
 wealth. Incest he would define to be a viola- 
 tion of God's moral law. He justly enumerates 
 it among the sins against the seventh command- 
 ment in the Decalogue.* Now, let it be recol- 
 
 * Tur. vol. ii. p. 133. 
 
72 LEVIT1CAL LAW 
 
 lected that the Puritan, speaking of these stat- 
 utes, says, (p. 11,) "We undertand them to 
 forbid single acts of an incestuous character." 
 
 2. The Puritan does not apply the first cri- 
 terion, as his guide would have applied it ; for, 
 in seeking for something among the Gentiles to 
 meet its requirements, he supposes he must find 
 some law on the subject. "And here, if any 
 where in the Gentile world," he says, (p. 4, last 
 paragraph but one,) " we should expect to find 
 some traces of natural law touching the mar- 
 riage institution. Bat Rome, in the purest 
 periods of her history, had no law forbidding the 
 marriages in question." Turrettin, in inquir- 
 ing whether any law was founded in nature, 
 would not search only for some written law 
 amonp- the nations, but would also examine the 
 writings of moralists and philosophers to find 
 out their sentiments, and discover the dictates 
 of natural conscience.* 
 
 There he gives pertinent quotations from 
 Cicero on the subject. There he says, that the 
 impious laws of some heathen nations in oppo- 
 
 * Tur. vol. ii. p. 67. 
 
PERPETUAL. 73 
 
 sition to natural law, such as sanctioned idola- 
 try and human sacrifices, and permitted theft, 
 rapine, homicide, incest, &/C, did not prove that 
 no light of reason had been granted by nature 
 to men, as Selden improperly concludes ; but 
 only that idle, wicked men, by abusing their 
 light, struggling against it, and endeavoring, 
 as far as they were able, to extinguish it, had 
 been abandoned to a reprobate sense. 
 
 3. The Puritan's translation of Turrettin's 
 first criterion is not correct. He has left out 
 
 a material word ; for the original is not, "fol- 
 lowing the light of reason," but the light of 
 right reason.* 
 
 4. The search of our brother to find some- 
 thing among the laws of Gentile nations " touch- 
 ing the marriage institution," has been very de- 
 fective, as will appear from the following quota- 
 tions : 
 
 " Prohibitions similar to the canonical dis- 
 abilities of the English ecclesiastical law," says 
 Chancellor Kent, " were contained in the Jew- 
 ish laws, from which the canon law was, in this 
 
 * Tur. vol. ii. p. 183. 
 
 7# 
 
74 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 respect, deduced ; and they existed in the laws 
 and usages of the Greeks and Romans, subject 
 to considerable alternations of opinions, and 
 with various modifications and extent. These 
 regulations, as far at least as they prohibit mar- 
 riages among near relations, by blood or mar- 
 riage, (for the canon and common laws made 
 no distinction on this point, between connexions 
 by consanguinity and affinity,) are evidently 
 founded in the law of nature ; and incestu- 
 ous marriages have generally (but with some 
 strange exceptions at Athens) been regarded 
 with abhorrence by the soundest writers and 
 most polished states of antiquity. Under the 
 influence of Christianity , a purer taste and 
 stricter doctrine have been inculcated ; and an 
 incestuous connexion between an uncle and 
 niece, has been recently adjudged, by a great 
 master of public and municipal law, to be a 
 nuisance extremely offensive to the laws and 
 manners of society, and tending to endless con- 
 fusion, and the pollution of the sanctity of pri- 
 vate life."* 
 
 * See Kent's Com., vol. ii. p. 82. See also his author- 
 ities, Seldens Uxor. Ebr. &c. 
 
PERPETUAL. 75 
 
 The celebrated Baron Puffendorf, in his 
 work on the law of nature and nations, has 
 treated the subject of marriage with great ability. 
 From that work we give the following quota- 
 tions : " Among the old Peruvians the Yncas 
 alone were permitted to marry their sisters, and 
 all other men forbidden to take the same liberty. 
 On the other hand, the Romans abhorred this 
 practice as most odious and unnatural. Plu- 
 tarch, giving the reason why the women, in that 
 nation, saluted their relations with a kiss, hath 
 left this remark : When the laws had prohibited 
 the marriage of near relations, they yet allowed 
 them to proceed to this innocent expression of 
 love; and this became a mutual pledge and 
 mark of their alliance. For, in ancient times, 
 the Romans abstained from wedding their kins- 
 women in any degree of blood, as they at pre- 
 sent forbear their aunts and their sisters. It 
 was late before the marriage of cousin-germans 
 was dispensed with."* Let the reader com- 
 pare this testimony of Plutarch with the quo- 
 tation given above from the Puritan in regard 
 
 * PufFendorff, p. 594. 
 
76 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 to " Rome in the purest periods of her his- 
 tory." 
 
 In the same paragraph (p. 4) the Puritan 
 says, " The Egyptians, Persians, Macedonians, 
 and Athenians allowed the marriage of own 
 sisters, and would not, of course, scruple such 
 alliances" Let this be compared with what 
 Pufendorf has written on the page noted above : 
 " The Athenians, by the constitution of So- 
 lon, might marry their sisters by the father's 
 side, and not by the mother's" From the ora- 
 tion of Andocides against Alcibiades, he quotes 
 these words : " Reflect," says he, " with what 
 bravery and what wisdom they proceeded, when 
 they sent so great a man as Cimon into banish- 
 ment for violating the laws in taking his own 
 sister to bed." 
 
 Others of the ancients declared an absolute 
 dislike of this freedom. It is one of Phocyli- 
 des's precepts, 
 
 " Nor climb thy sister's interdicted bed" 
 
 And indeed that these matches were very un- 
 usual through all Greece, may be gathered from 
 Hermione's speech in Euripides, where she thus 
 upbraids Andromache : 
 
PERPETUAL. 77 
 
 u Thus the barbarians with incestuous love, 
 Fathers their daughters, sons their mothers wed, 
 Brothers their sisters; and no laic restrains 
 Their sinful passion." 
 
 Or if they were once permitted in Greece, 
 it is certain they grew entirely out of use with 
 posterity, as that passage of Sextus Empiricus 
 sufficiently proves : " The Egyptians contracted 
 marriage with their sisters, which, amongst us, 
 is disallowed by law." The same author says, 
 in another place, " In our country we esteem it 
 contrary to all right and decency to make a 
 wife of a mother or of a sister." Yet he 
 chargeth both those practices on the Persians ; 
 as do also Strabo, Laertius, Curtius, and Lu- 
 cian. Though the answer given by the Judges 
 to Cambyses in Herodotus, plainly shows that 
 the wise men, even in the Persian nation, were 
 of a very different opinion. 
 
 Pufendorf, it is hardly necessary to state, re- 
 fers to all his authorities, so that his readers 
 can easily examine for themselves. 
 
 We have seen, that, among other prohibitions 
 of the ancient Romans, was the marriage of an 
 aunt ; and that, by prohibiting that ofcousin-ger- 
 mans i they went even beyond the Levitical law. 
 
78 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 Selden confirms what Puffendorf states : " Sed 
 in Roma veteri etiam Patruelium, Amitinorum, 
 seu consobrinorum nuptiae nunc vetita mere, 
 nunc permissae."* 
 
 Grotius, in p. 200, (translation,) quotes Ta- 
 citus : " To marry wives is to us entirely new, 
 but very common with other people ; nor is it 
 by any law prohibited, says Tacitus." Tac. lib. 
 xii. chap. 6. 
 
 In view of these quotations, what are we to 
 think of the Puritan's round and bold asser- 
 tion : " We look in vain through the Gentile 
 world, for any traces of evidence that this law 
 is one of those principles of general equity, 
 which is taught by the light of nature. So the 
 first criterion fails of bringing its obligation on 
 us." (P. 4.) Had he extended his inquiries 
 and searched more diligently, he might have 
 found the above " traces of evidence," and many 
 more " traces of natural law, touching the mar- 
 riage institution." His look into the Gentile 
 world was manifestly limited and confined. If 
 he will examine Grotius, and Selden, and Puf- 
 fendorf ', &,c, he will be convinced of his error 
 
 * De Jure Nat. et Gent. lib. v. chap. 11. 
 
PERPETUAL. 79 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The same subject continued -First criterion— Third criterion- 
 Second criterion-. 
 
 5. The first criterion, reasoning on the Pu- 
 ritan's own principles, does not fail. It stands 
 firm. Indeed he virtually yields the point in 
 debate, where he says, (p 6,) " The voice of 
 nature teaches that such marriages are now to 
 be reprobated — that there are reasons why they 
 should be forbidden by the laws of the land, on 
 grounds of high expediency." Again, on the 
 same page, he says, " We, having the light of 
 inspiration to read ihe book of nature with, find 
 no difficulty in reading out of the book of nature 
 a law against such marriages." 
 
 When, we ask, was this law enacted? when 
 inscribed in the book of nature ? The light of 
 inspiration was imparted as soon as Moses be- 
 gan to write the Levitical law, and before his 
 
80 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 time. But the Puritan perhaps will say, he 
 means the light which the Scriptures of the New 
 Testament have shed upon the book of nature. 
 Well, they were bestowed on the Church at the 
 beginning of the Christian era ; and could not 
 primitive Christians use their light in reading 
 the book of nature, and read out of it the law 
 against these marriages? But popery was then 
 developing itself, and darkening the pages of 
 inspiration and of nature. If so, we ask again, 
 when was this law enacted and written in the 
 book of nature? Was it since the Protestant 
 Church arose ? But why these questions ? If 
 this law exists now, it existed ever since men 
 had multiplied on the earth, and part of it from 
 the beginning of the world. If men had not 
 eyes to read it in the book of nature, still it was 
 written there; and if they were ignorant of the 
 law of nature, still that law of nature had exist, 
 ence. It was enacted by the God of nature for 
 the government of his rational creatures. Were 
 all men blind, that calamity would not extin- 
 guish the sun's rays of light. He would go 
 forth still, like a bridegroom from his chamber, 
 and shine in all his brightness in the heavens. 
 
PERPETUAL. &| 
 
 6. This law, then, which the Puritan reads 
 out of the book of nature, must, on his owr* 
 admission, be a natural law, obligatory on all 
 mankind, whether they know it or not. " The 
 voice of nature," he says, " teaches that such 
 marriages are now to be reprobated." Yes, 
 and we have seen that the voice of nature was 
 heard in ancient times, and that they were rep- 
 robated not only by the writings of their philoso- 
 phers, but by the laws of nations, 
 
 But the Puritan will perhaps say, I was 
 speaking of " the marriage of one's own sister." 
 Be it so ; and does not " the voice of nature 
 teach " that the marriage of a man with his 
 mother, or with his aunt, or with his son's 
 daughter, or with his daughter's daughter, is 
 now to be reprobated ; and that there are rea- 
 sons why such marriages should be forbidden by 
 the laws of the land, " on grounds of high expe- 
 diency ?" Assisted by "the light of inspira- 
 tion," can you find any difficulty in reading out 
 of the book of nature a law against such mar- 
 riages? Are not these marriages part of one 
 law, recorded in Leviticus 18 : vs. 6-17? and 
 
 8 
 
82 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 if part of this law is natural, is not the whole 
 law, on the same subject, natural ? 
 
 7. " The third criterion, to wit, the repetition 
 and renewal of the law," says our brother, (p. 
 4, at the beginning of the last paragraph,) " in 
 the New Testament, equally fails. It is not 
 pretended that the New Testament is any thing 
 more than silent on the subject." Indeed ! The 
 New Testament silent on such breaches of the 
 law of nature designed to protect domestic purity 
 and public morals ! What indignant language 
 does Paul use, in 1 Cor. 5 : 1-5, in relation to the 
 abominable fornication of the Corinthian, who 
 had taken his father's wife to live with her in 
 incestuous intercourse ! What was the decree 
 of the Assembly at Jerusalem for the direction 
 of Gentile churches in regard to fornication 1 
 See Acts 15: 28, 29. What says Paul, in 1 
 Cor. 6:9, 10? what denunciation does he utter 
 against fornicators and adulterers? 
 
 But it may be objected, these texts do not 
 treat of marriage. Admitted ; but they condemn 
 the very sins prohibited by the Levitical code ; 
 they condemn all acts of uncleanness, the very 
 
PERPETUAL. 83 
 
 sins that violate that natural law, which the Puri- 
 tan reads out of the book of nature, and which 
 no ceremony of marriage can cleanse from guilt 
 or render lawful. 
 
 8. If we reason on the ground, subsequently 
 assumed, in chap, iii., that these Levitical stat- 
 utes do not relate to marriage, but only forbid 
 "single acts of an incest uous character," (p. 11, 
 fourth paragraph,) we must come to the same 
 result. " Having the light of inspiration to 
 read the book of nature with," can we find any 
 " difficulty in reading out of the book of nature 
 a law against " the lewd, incestuous sin of defiling 
 a father's bed, or having criminal intercourse with 
 a sister, or an aunt, or a son's daughter, or a 
 daughter's daughter, or a brother's wife ? Does 
 not the voice of nature reprobate such acts of 
 uncleanness? And is not the law which nature 
 has enacted ao-ainst such abominable crimes, a 
 
 NATURAL law 1 
 
 9. Nor does the second criterion fail. " Those 
 laws which are seen to conform to the precepts 
 of the Decalogue, and serve to explain and con- 
 firm it." 
 
 Here we are constrained to notice another in- 
 
84 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 stance in which the Puritan does not follow his 
 chosen guide ; for he has left out an important 
 part of Turrettin's criterion ; which shows his 
 meaning in the text. Immediately after the 
 above translation must be added these words : 
 " Which is easily discovered, if either the object, 
 or the matter of the laws, or the causes of enact- 
 ing them, be regarded." This seems to us like 
 the offering of a lamp to throw light upon our 
 path ; and not to attend to this part of the crite- 
 rion, looks like refusing the proffered aid of our 
 guide. 
 
 But to apply the test to the case before us 
 Call the Levitical statutes what you please, natu- 
 ral, moral, or civil, we ask, What is their ob- 
 ject? Domestic purity and sound morals in the 
 community. And is not this the object of the 
 seventh commandment in the Decalogue ? What 
 is the matter of these statutes ? They prohibit 
 all uncleanness, all incestuous acts, all illicit 
 intercourse between near relations ; and does 
 not the seventh commandment prohibit the same ? 
 What were the causes or reason of the enact- 
 ment of these statutes ? To furnish the Israel- 
 ites with a clear knowledge of the Divine will, 
 
PERPETUAL. 85 
 
 and to guard them against the temptations to 
 which they were exposed, not only "during 
 their sojourn in the desert," but when they were 
 settled in the promised land. And was not the 
 seventh commandment published for the same 
 reason ? 
 
 It appears then to us, that these statutes, this 
 law of Leviticus, is implied in the Decalogue; 
 and that it confirms the same prohibitions which 
 the seventh commandment, when rightly under- 
 stood, contains. How comprehensive it is, was 
 taught by our great and supreme Lawgiver, 
 when he uttered these words: " Ye have heard 
 that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt 
 not commit adultery : but I say unto you, That 
 whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, 
 hath committed adultery already with her in his 
 heart." Matt. 5 : 27, 28. 
 
 But, says the Puritan, " There is not there " 
 (in the Decalogue) " the least intimation of any 
 defined boundaries to the liberty of marriage." 
 (Page 5, first line.) We reply : If God has, in 
 these Levitical statutes, defined these bounda- 
 ries, as we hope hereafter to prove, then it will 
 follow, that, to contract such prohibited mar- 
 
 8* 
 
86 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 riages, is to be guilty of uncleanness, of inces- 
 tuous intercourse, which can never be chano-ed 
 in their character by any ceremony of marriage- 
 Marriage, in whatever way contracted, cannot 
 hide their vileness, nor render such illicit com- 
 merce between the sexes as comes within the 
 limits set to our liberty, honorable. It is vile, 
 odious in the sight of God, though covered by 
 the mantle of marriage. It is like whited sepul- 
 chres, " beautiful outward, but within full of 
 dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." 
 Such lewd acts, such vile, illicit intercourse, 
 is certainly prohibited by the Decalogue. 
 
 "We close this chapter by adverting again to 
 a passage before quoted. If we understand his 
 meaning, he deems it necessary, to sustain the 
 perpetuity of the prohibition against the mar- 
 riage of a deceased wife's sister, that we should 
 find a similar law among heathen nations. 
 
 Was this a correct way of treating this im- 
 portant subject? When we have an inspired 
 law, consisting of sundry statutes of the same 
 nature, are we to try each particular part of this 
 Divine law, by the laws of heathen nations j 
 and, if we are unable to find a particular part 
 
PERPETUAL. 
 
 87 
 
 sustained by a similar statute in their codes on 
 the general subject, are we to expunge it from 
 the inspired code ? Shall we say, This statute, 
 enacted by infinite wisdom, which perfectly 
 knows the nature of man, and all his relations, 
 and how to promote the purity of domestic life, 
 as well as good morals in the community, can- 
 not bind us, because it has not received the 
 sanction of heathen legislators, who had no bet- 
 ter guide than natural reason, unaided by divine 
 revelation, and darkened and misled by corrupt 
 and sensual passions? Are the laws of men to 
 sit in judgment on the laws of God? Were all 
 the precepts in the Decalogue to be tried in this 
 way, how many would be expunged? Would 
 not the Puritan " look in vain through the Gen- 
 tile world," for a law to sanction the fourth 
 commandment, a law requiring the sanctification 
 of the Sabbath? Would he not look in vain for 
 a law to sustain the second commandment, which 
 prohibits the worship of God by images? Would 
 he not look in vain through the whole heathen 
 world for a law asserting the Unity of God, and 
 forbidding men to worship more gods than the 
 one only living and true God? In the absence 
 
88 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 of such laws, have we not sufficient evidence to 
 convince us, that the substance of the Decalogue 
 was written on the hearts of Pagan nations, and 
 that their wise men knew God, but not wishing 
 "to retain God in their knowledge, God gave 
 them over to a reprobate mind, to do those 
 things which are not convenient?" 
 
 And in the absence of a law prohibiting a 
 man marrying a deceased wife's sister, is not the 
 existence of laws and the prevalence of customs, 
 which have the force of laws, restraining the 
 liberty of marriage within particular degrees, 
 and going beyond the Divine law, sufficient to 
 convince us, that the light of nature did teach 
 heathen nations to impose such restrictions on 
 marriage, for the preservation of purity in do- 
 mestic, and of good morals in civil, life ? Now, 
 if our brother had treated the subject in this 
 reasonable way, and extended his search, he 
 would have found, as we have already shown, 
 (pp. 72-79,) what were the laws and sentiments 
 of the wise among heathen nations of antiquity, 
 and would have come to a very different conclu- 
 sion. In ascertaining the limits of duty on any 
 particular subject of moral or natural obligation, 
 
PERPETUAL. 89 
 
 we are not to be guided by the imperfect, light 
 of unassisted reason, but by the light of reason, 
 aided by the light of Divine inspiration. Our 
 brother, the Puritan, has reversed the rule. 
 
 r 
 
90 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Levirical Statutes belong not to the Civil but to tbe Ecclesi- 
 asical 1. aw— Unity of the Church— The Law not Repealed — 
 Jewish Code. 
 
 The Hebrews were both a Church and a 
 Nation. Jehovah sustained to them a twofold 
 relation. He was the nation's kino*, and the 
 church's covenant God. In legislating for this 
 peculiar people, He acted in correspondence with 
 this twofold relation. As their king, he gave 
 laws to the nation ; and as their covenant God, 
 He gave laws to His Church. 
 
 Now, the question in reference to the law 
 under consideration is, which character did 
 Jehovah assume, and in which aspect did He 
 regard the Hebrews when it was published 1 
 Did He enact it as their kincr or as their cove- 
 nant God ? Was it designed to promote the 
 peace and order of the commonwealth, or to 
 
NOT A CIVIL LAW. 91 
 
 preserve the purity of the Church ; arid thus, by 
 sanctifying His people, prepare them both for 
 their duties on earth and for their enjoyments 
 in heaven ? 
 
 Look at the law. What is its nature ? We 
 have seen, that, whether it be regarded as pre- 
 scribing degrees of marriage, or as forbidding 
 " single acts of an incestuous character," it is a 
 moral law, demanding a chaste and holy conduct. 
 
 The Puritan, in his first chapter, assumes, 
 without offering any proof in support of his 
 assumption, that " the statutes in question belono- 
 to the civil or judicial law of the Hebrew Com- 
 monwealth ;" and then, on the supposition of 
 their referring to marriage, (which we hope in 
 a subsequent place to prove to be a fact,) he 
 reasons and endeavours to evince that they do 
 not pertain to us. In this he has failed. It has, 
 we think, been shown that the criterion he 
 applies to them, considered as a civil law, instead 
 of proving what he aims at, proves the contrary, 
 that they do, on his own admissions, pertain to 
 us, and are permanently binding. 
 
 Marriage is regarded by many as a mere civil 
 contract. From its nature it does, indeed, claim 
 
92 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 the supervision of municipal authority, to protect 
 the rights, and to enforce the duties, growing 
 out of this peculiar relation. But it is much 
 more than a civil, contract. It lies at the very 
 foundation of society : it is the parent of the 
 state. It received its existence from the Creator ; 
 it is his institution, and designed by Him for the 
 propagation, preservation, and happiness of our 
 race. He originally instituted marriage to be 
 between one man and one woman, on purpose, 
 the prophet tells us, " that He might seek a godly 
 seed." (Mai. 2 : 15.) It was not the mere 
 temporal advantage of our race He had in view. 
 He looked beyond mere earthly benefits ; He 
 regarded our holiness and meetness for a heavenly 
 state of enjoyment. And will He net protect 
 this institution against abuse 1 Surely He will. 
 The seventh commandment in the Decalogue is 
 one defence, and these Levitical statutes we 
 believe to be another. Such they evidently are, 
 even on the supposition that they refer to " single 
 acts of an incestuous character ;" for this view 
 of their design brings them, as observed before, 
 within the purview of the seventh commandment. 
 In truth, they constitute a law given to the 
 
AN ECCLESIASTICAL LAW. 93 
 
 Church, to preserve the purity of all her mem- 
 bers. They were made, by the express words of 
 the enactment, binding not only on native mem- 
 bers, but on all foreigners who might become 
 adopted members of the Church. See Lev. 
 18 : 26. 
 
 Our brethren who range these statutes under 
 the civil code, are misled by confounding the 
 eighteenth with the twentieth chapter of Leviticus, 
 and by not distinguishing between the law itself 
 and its penalties. The eighteenth chapter is 
 entirely distinct from the seventeenth, which 
 goes before it, and the nineteenth and the twen- 
 tieth, that follow it : for each of these chapters 
 begins with these words, " And the Lord spake 
 unto Moses, saying," to show that each chapter 
 contains a distinct communication to Moses to 
 be delivered to the children of Israel. The 
 eighteenth contains nothing of a ceremonial 
 nature. All is moral, not excepting the 19th 
 verse. See chap. 20 : 18. 
 
 The statutes appear, in the eighteenth chapter, 
 as the ecclesiastical law, enforced by an appro- 
 priate spiritual penalty ; and, in the twentieth 
 chapter, some of the statutes are referred to, and 
 
 9 
 
94 levitical law 
 
 enforced by the penalty of death to be inflicted 
 by the civil magistrate. This penalty belongs to 
 the civil code ; but the law itself belongs to the 
 ecclesiastical code. 
 
 The Puritan mistakes the nature of the 
 threatening in Lev. 18 : 29 ; he takes it to be 
 capital punishment — (p. 20, fifth par.) Gesenius 
 confirms him in his opinion. Both are, in our 
 judgment, in error. It is the same penalty that 
 enforces compliance with the rite of circumcision, 
 appointed as a seal of the covenant made with the 
 father of the faithful. " My covenant shall be 
 in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And 
 the uncircumcised man-child, whose flesh of his 
 foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be 
 cut off from his people ; he hath broken my 
 covenant." (Gen. 17 : 13, 14.) This did not 
 mean capital punishment, inflicted by the magis- 
 trate's hand, but exclusion from the Church, and 
 deprivation of the blessings of the covenant. The 
 text, Exod. 31 : 14, speaks of two distinct kinds 
 of punishment. The latter does not, as the 
 Puritan supposes, define the former. 
 
 Besides, let it be remembered, the punishment 
 does not always determine the nature of the law. 
 
NOT REPEALED. 95 
 
 A judicial sentence, to be executed by the civil 
 magistrate, is often annexed to a law that is 
 natural and moral. Idolatry, the breach of the 
 Sabbath, adultery, were all made capital offences; 
 the offender was to be punished with death by 
 the magistrate. If, therefore, any one will insist 
 that some of these Levitical statutes belonged to 
 the civil code, because offences against them 
 were punishable with death, he must, to be con- 
 sistent, carry o^it his argument and prove, for the 
 same reason, that the Jirst, the third, the fourth, 
 the fifth, the seventh precept, in the Decalogue, 
 belonged to the Jewish civil or judicial code ; 
 for the violation of these was made punishable 
 with death by the civil magistrate. See Deut. 
 13: 6-11, 17:2-7. Lev. 24 : 16. Exod. 35 : 2. 
 Lev. 20 : 9, 10. 
 
 This Levitical law has not been repealed. It 
 was given to the Hebrew Church, and it is now 
 the law of the Christian Church. 
 
 The Church of God is one society in every 
 age. It has existed fn different periods of time, 
 and under different dispensations. Still, how- 
 ever, it is one and the same society, which 
 Jehovah has chosen out of the world, and sepa- 
 rated from the rest of mankind, to the praise of 
 
96 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 the glory of his rich and sovereign grace. The 
 Jewish Church and the Christian Church were, 
 in many particulars, as parts of the same whole, 
 different from each other : but they were, in all 
 essential points, one and the same society ; having 
 the same glorious Head, governed by the same 
 laws, favored with the same gospel, animated by 
 the same Holy Spirit, cheered by the same 
 blessed hope, and destined to the same heavenly 
 happiness and eternal glory. 
 
 The Christian Church flourishes under the 
 same gracious covenant by which the Jewish 
 Church was formed. In that covenant, Abraham 
 was constituted the father of the faithful ; and 
 circumcision, the seal of that covenant, was 
 appointed to assure him that he was justified by 
 " the righteousness of faith," and that believers, 
 whether his natural descendants, or his adopted 
 seed, would be justified by the same glorious 
 righteousness. Rom. 4 : 9-17. Hence believers 
 are " Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the 
 promise." Gal. 3 : 29. The unity of the Church 
 Paul illustrates, by comparing it to a tree, of 
 which the Jews were the natural branches, but 
 broken off on account of their unbelief; and into 
 which Gentile believers, taken from a wild olive 
 
NOT REPEALED. 97 
 
 tree, were grafted. When the Jews shall be 
 converted and believe in Christ, they will, as 
 " natural branches, be grafted into their own 
 olive tree." Rom. 11: 17-24. They will become 
 members of the same church, adorned with 
 greater light and enriched with greater privi- 
 leges, from which, for the sin of unbelief, they 
 have been expelled. 
 
 Now, this one Church of God is governed by 
 all the laws that were ever given to it, excepting 
 those which have been abolished by the Supreme 
 authority that enacted them. It will not answer 
 to assert, This and that law have been repealed; 
 or, by a general remark, to sweep away a whole 
 code of laws. It must be shown, from Scripture 
 testimony, what laws the great Head of the 
 Church has abolished. 
 
 We admit the ceremonial law of Moses to have 
 been annulled ; because prophetic intimation had 
 been given that its authority would cease, and 
 because the inspired writer of the epistle to the 
 Hebrews has asserted and proved the fact. We 
 admit, also, that what belonged purely to the 
 Jewish civil or judicial code, does not bind 
 Christians, unless it have been adopted as part 
 9* 
 
98 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 of the municipal code of the country or state in 
 which they live. But these statutes of which 
 we speak are binding on all Christians, whether 
 adopted or not as the municipal law of the land 
 in which they live; because they were given to 
 the Church, and have not been repealed. 
 
 The Puritan thinks differently. Let us hear 
 him. Page 5, second paragraph, he speaks thus I 
 " As this is an important point, let us be well 
 understood. As the Jewish code, as a code, 
 expired by its own limitations, at the coming of 
 Christ, none of its precepts have any force, 
 derived from the circumstance that they stand in 
 that code. The force which any of its precepts 
 has, comes from the inherent justice and adapted- 
 ness seen to reside in those precepts." 
 
 Let us examine this passage. Jeremy Taylor, 
 whom the Puritan brings forward as advocating 
 his cause, but without sufficient reason, would 
 condemn such language. He, speaking of the 
 marriage of a man with his mother, in his Ductor 
 Dubitantium, (p. 223,) says, after showing it to 
 be contrary to nature, " But all this was not 
 sufficient to make it to become a natural law, 
 without the authority of God intervening. This 
 
NOT REPEALED, 
 
 99 
 
 made it to be excellently reasonable to be estab- 
 lished into a law ; and, therefore, God did so, 
 and declared it, and did not trust man's reason 
 alone with the conduct of it ; but then it became 
 an eternal law, when God made it so." 
 
 What was the Jewish code 1 What did it com- 
 prehend ? Only the ceremonial law ? or only the 
 civil law ? or only the moral law 1 An answer to 
 these questions is, we think, given by our brother, 
 when he says, (p. 4,) " And here we shall assume 
 no ultra ground respecting our relations to the 
 civil law of the Hebrew commonwealth. The 
 books of Moses contain, it is well known, a moral 
 law, summed up in the ten commandments, and a 
 ceremonial law, which regulated the ceremonies 
 and types of the Hebrew church, and a civil or 
 judicial law, which preserved the peace of the 
 commonwealth." Now, let it be remembered 
 that all these laws, distributed by the Puritan 
 into three classes, Jehovah, our Supreme Law- 
 giver, gave, by his servant Moses, to his ancient 
 people, denominated, at one time, Hebrews, and 
 at another, Jews. All were written by Moses in 
 his five books. They constituted the Jcioish 
 code ; not the moral law alone, nor the ceremo- 
 
100 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 nial law alone, nor the civil or judicial law alone ; 
 but. all combined together constituted that code, 
 of which each was a constituent part. 
 
 Has this Jewish code, as a code, as a whole, 
 " expired, by its own limitations, at the coming 
 of Christ" ? Where are those limitations marked 
 or recorded ? Nowhere. Or can it be, with 
 propriety, said, as it is said by the Puritan, that 
 " none of its precepts have any force derived 
 from the circumstance that they stand in that 
 code ?" The very fact of their standing in that 
 code, written under the inspiration and by the 
 authority of the Most High, imparted to them a 
 binding force over the conscience. To feel their 
 force, it was not necessary for a Jew to inquire 
 in regard to " the inherent justice and adapted- 
 ness seen to reside in those precepts." To an 
 intelligent and pious Jew, it was sufficient to 
 find a precept in the code which God had given 
 to His Church by Moses, to convince him it was 
 obligatory, and ought to be obeyed. He would, 
 indeed, perceive a difference in the precepts of 
 this Divine code, and know and feel some to be 
 more important than others ; and that, when they 
 came in conflict, or, in other words, when both 
 
NOT REPEALED. 101 
 
 could not be observed at the same time, it wan 
 his duty to observe the former. 
 
 This whole code was binding on the Jewish 
 Church till the coming of Christ ; and from no 
 part of it was the Christian Church released, till 
 the Head of the Church was pleased to repeal a 
 part, and publish his will accordingly. So felt 
 the first disciples of our Lord, both among the 
 Jews and among the Gentiles. Even the apos- 
 tles imagined themselves bound by the entire law 
 of Moses, till they were taught, by the Spirit, 
 that God had released his people from a burden 
 formerly imposed on them. See Acts x. xi. xv. 
 But where are we taught that the Levitical 
 statutes under consideration have been repeal- 
 ed ? Are Christians allowed to commit the acts 
 of lewdness which they prohibit ? Does not 
 God require us to abstain from them, as He did 
 formerly require the Jews to flee from them ? 
 
 But to all this the Puritan will perhaps reply, 
 that, by " the Jewish code" he meant the muni- 
 cipal code, and that this has been repealed. 
 Allow this to be his meaning, and what was 
 peculiar to the municipal code not binding on 
 Christians, the repeal of this Levitical law will 
 
102 LEVITICAL LAW NOT REPEALED. 
 
 not follow as a legitimate consequence. He 
 must first prove this law to be a purely municipal 
 law. This he has not even attempted. He 
 assumes it ; and, consequently, his whole argu- 
 ment rests on a petitio principii. It is what 
 he charges on others, in the paragraph imme- 
 diately preceding the one containing the quota- 
 tion, on which our animadversions have been 
 made, a mere begging of the question in debate. 
 Besides, we have, we think, proved this Levit- 
 ical law to be, not municipal but ecclesiastical , 
 and permanently binding on the Church, in every 
 age ; and that, even allowing it to be municipal, 
 he has failed, in the application of his criteria, 
 borrowed from Turrettin, to show the contrary. 
 
LEVITICAL STATUTES, ETC. 103 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Levitical statutes relate to marriage— Opinion of Talmudista 
 and Karaites— Judgment of the Primitive Church — Of the Re- 
 formed Church — Argument of the Puritan— His error shown. 
 
 1. That these statutes relate to marriage, and 
 determine the degrees within which it is not 
 lawful to contract marriage, has been, we have 
 reason to believe, the judgment of the Church 
 of God in every age. 
 
 In this manner, both the Talmudists and the 
 Karaites interpreted the law. On other points 
 of explanation they differed ; but in this they 
 were entirely agreed. 
 
 The judgment of primitive Christians coin- 
 cided with that of the Jews. 
 
 And, at the Reformation, when, by the in 
 quiry of Henry VIII., this Levitical law came to 
 be investigated anew, by the Universities of 
 
8 04 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 Europe, and by the Protestant Church, they all 
 arrived at the same result. The Universities, 
 without exception, regarded these statutes as 
 referring to marriage, and prescribing the law- 
 ful degrees. Among the Reformers there was 
 no difference of sentiment. This was the judg- 
 ment of the Protestant Church of Europe ; (see 
 pp. 31-34,) and it has continued to be the judg- 
 ment of the Church to this day, As there is no 
 evidence to the contrary, we may rationally 
 believe that this has always been the judgment 
 of the Church of God, from the first publication 
 of this law. 
 
 Now, has the Church, Jewish and Christian, 
 notwithstanding the careful examination of this 
 law, at different periods, by the ablest men, been 
 ignorant of its true meaning and design, in 
 every age ? So thinks the Puritan. Is he, 
 and the few who think with him, right, and the 
 whole Church wrong? It is possible, but it is 
 highly improbable. 
 
 2. Let us hear the Puritan. His first re- 
 liance is on the absence of the word marriage 
 in this law, and on the meaning of the term or 
 phrase, " Thou shall not uncover the nakedness" 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. 105 
 
 &>c, so often used in these statutes. " And the 
 first position that we shall take is, that they do 
 not prohibit any marriages. Marriage was a 
 familiar word in the vocabulary of Moses; and 
 if that were his meaning, it was quite as perti- 
 nent, and as delicate and euphonic, and every 
 way as suitable, as the term here used. And as 
 he has avoided the use of it, and has not used 
 even an accustomed synonyme of it, it is fair to 
 conclude that marriage was not his mean- 
 ing." 
 
 '■' But our opponents say, that though the term 
 does not necessarily import marriage, it imports 
 sexual intercourse in general, and that includes 
 marriage. And that may be true, unless it can 
 be shown that the term of its oxen force bears 
 the idea of criminal intercourse. If that can be 
 made appear, then, so far from including, it ex- 
 cludes marriage. Besides, the term, uncover 
 nakedness, is in this scries of statutes by paral- 
 lelisms made equivalent to another term, in 
 which both sodomy and bestiality are forbidden." 
 Pp. 10, 11. 
 
 3. In our reply we shall begin with the mean- 
 ing of the peculiar term, " uncover nakedness" 
 
 10 
 
106 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 and afterward notice what is said about the ab- 
 sence of the word marriage. 
 
 Let the reader carefully notice, that the term 
 is not simple, but compound; a phrase, not a 
 single word. 
 
 If the chapter devoted to the exposition of the 
 phrase under consideration, be carefully exam- 
 ined, it will be found that the author overlooks 
 the qualifying influence of the verb uncover, 
 and confines his attention almost exclusively to 
 the noun nakedness. This surely is not the 
 way to explain a phrase, however it may answer 
 for giving the meaning of a single word. 
 
 To show this to be the Puritan's mode of 
 criticism, may be cited what is said in the be- 
 ginning of the third paragraph : " But before 
 we proceed to the proof that the word is ex- 
 pressive of crime/' Observe, he does not say 
 the phrase, but the word, is expressive of crime. 
 In the last paragraph he, adverting to the phrase, 
 says, " A careful attention to this phrase will 
 show that it imports neither marriage, nor the 
 intercourse of married persons, but criminal 
 commerce, involving shame and dishonor." How 
 does he prove this ? By losing sight of the 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. 107 
 
 phrase, and confining his attention to the single 
 word ; for he immediately adds : " The Hebrew 
 word Fnns rendered nakedness, in its prevailing 
 use, imports uncleanness, mid that disgrace which 
 is inflicted by an act of lewdness. As this is an 
 idea, which seems mainly to have been over- 
 looked, by writers on both sides of this discus- 
 sion — as it is of itself decisive of the question, 
 and so may be admitted with difficulty, we must 
 be excused for exhibiting that proof in consider- 
 able detail." 
 
 Accordingly, he bestows through the two fol- 
 lowing pages a needless amount of research to 
 show the meaning of this single term, and the 
 corresponding Greek term. 
 
 In the last paragraph on the 13th page, he in- 
 sists that the phrase uncover nakedness has, in 
 Levit. 18 : 14, the same meaning when applied 
 to the male, as it has when applied to the fe- 
 male. Certainly it cannot be so. The naked- 
 ness of a female was uncovered by an act com- 
 mitted on her body ; but the nakedness of her 
 husband was uncovered by this act, and not by 
 an act committed on his body ; and by this act 
 his nakedness was said to be uncovered, because 
 
108 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 the body of his wife was his property ; therefore 
 what was done to her, was reputed as done to 
 her husband. 
 
 In the first paragraph, on the 14th page, the 
 Puritan insists that the term nakedness means 
 dishonor, both when applied to the male and to 
 the female. Allow this meaning, and make the 
 substitution in the 16th verse, and it will read 
 thus : " Thou shalt not uncover the dishonor of 
 thy brother's wife : it is thy brother's dishonor." 
 Now, such a disclosure might, in various ways, 
 be made, without involving an act of lewdness 
 on the part of the author. 
 
 4. Having made these remarks on the author's 
 critical reasoning, we go back to notice what 
 he asserts in the first paragraph of page 11, 
 " The term uncover nakedness," he says, " of 
 its own force bears the idea of criminal inter- 
 course." This we deny, and assert that the 
 phrase, abstractly considered, in relation to fe- 
 males, signifies sexual intercourse ; and that the 
 character of this intercourse depends entirely 
 on circumstances. It may be virtuous and hon- 
 orable, or it may be vicious and criminal, ac- 
 cording as it is the intercourse of persons legally 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. 109 
 
 married, or the intercourse of persons unmar- 
 ried, or not legally married. Alms given from 
 proper motives, and in a proper way, is widely 
 different from alms given from improper motives, 
 and in an improper manner. The former is a 
 Christian act, acceptable to God; the latter is 
 not.* 
 
 The Puritan is not only erroneous in his rea- 
 soning, but incorrect in his quotations. 
 
 He asserts (p. 14, third paragraph) that " Sel- 
 den, in all the numerous instances in which he 
 had occasion to use this word in all his writings, 
 renders it by the Latin word turpitudo ; and 
 that Jewish Rabbies define it as expressing all 
 things that are base and Jilthy, and every thing 
 base in word and deed. ,} 
 
 Now, in opposition to this, we say, that if the 
 Puritan had given correctly the first quotation 
 he offers from Selden, (p. 12, second paragraph,) 
 in support of the meaning he wishes to attach to 
 the Hebrew word, it would have disproved his 
 
 * Under the verb f-[^5 Gescnius' Lexicon, translated 
 by Robinson, says, " To uncover the nakedness of a 
 woman, i. e., to have carnal intercourse with her, Lev. 
 18 : 8 sq. 20 : 17 sq. 
 
 10* 
 
110 LEV1TICAL STATUTES 
 
 assertion; and shown too that these Levitical 
 prohibitions forbid marriages with certain rela- 
 tives, as well as single incestuous acts. His 
 quotation seems to be singularly defective ; and 
 of course misrepresents the meaning of Selden. 
 There are two defects, one at the beginning, 
 and the other at the end ; and the supply of both 
 is necessary to show the true meaning of the 
 passage. 
 
 We shall supply these defects, and mark the 
 first omission by brackets. 
 
 [" Lex sacra cle incestu ad hunc modum lo- 
 quitur,] (we omit the Hebrew text,) Nullu9 
 ad propinquum carnis suae accedat ad revel- 
 audum turpitudinem ejus, &,c. Scilicet to m-is 
 sic in Vulgata nee male vertitur, uti et Graecis 
 aa/r l fio(TvvT] i quod idem sonat." So far the Puri- 
 tan ; but immediately after Selden says, " Nuditas 
 item (quae primaria est vocis significatio) vercn- 
 da, pudibunda, pro eodem hie substituitur ; unde 
 m-ns Rabbinis turn omni modo incestus genere 
 turn pro foeminis hoc nomine hie interdictis 
 usurpari solet, uti et !THS pro earum qualibet, ut 
 matre, sorore, amita, martertsra, num."* 
 
 * Uxor Ebr. Lib. I. chap. 3, p. 539. 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. Ill 
 
 Now, when the whole passage, as it stands in 
 Sclden, is read, how apparent is it, that the 
 Puritan's quotation fails in presenting the true 
 meaning of this oriental scholar. Sclden here 
 certainly considered the 6th verse of Lev. 18, a 
 part of which he recites, as referring to incest. 
 What is incest? The crime of cohabiting or of 
 sexual intercourse between those who, on ac- 
 count of near relationship, are interdicted mar- 
 riage. If a man have commerce with a female 
 to whom he does not sustain such a relation, his 
 sin may be fornication or adultery ; but it can- 
 not be incest. If then Selden regarded the 
 sixth verse as referring to incest, he must have 
 regarded all the prohibitions in the subsequent 
 verses, which amplify and explain the general 
 rule in the sixth, as referring to the same of- 
 fence. Incest can be committed only by per- 
 sons whose marriage is interdicted. The words, 
 at the commencement of the above quotation, 
 omitted by the Puritan, are a key to Selden's 
 meaning, and ought to have been recited. 
 
 The words too that immediately follow his 
 quotation, should have been connected with it ; 
 because they were necessary to let the reader 
 
112 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 see the mind of this learned man in regard to 
 the signification of the Hebrew term on which 
 our brother labors so much. And what do they 
 discover ? Why, that Selden, while he admitted 
 that it was not badly rendered by turpitudo in 
 Latin, and by aayr^oavvri in Greek, believed its 
 primary signification to be nakedness, and that 
 it signified too verenda, pudibunda; and that 
 the Rabbins were accustomed to designate by 
 rrns any interdicted female, as a mother, a sis- 
 ter, an aunt by the father's side, an aunt by the 
 mother's side, a daughter-in-law . 
 
 Is it not then perfectly clear, that Selden does 
 not, as the Puritan affirms, always render this 
 word by turpitudo in Latin ; and that the Jewish 
 Rabbies apply it to designate objects or persons 
 that are far from being " base ^.nAjiltky ?" 
 
 In the next paragraph, referring to another 
 quotation from Selden, he says, " Here we have 
 his testimony direct, that the word which our 
 opponents suppose to mean marriage, expresses 
 some unlawful connexion." How unjust in our 
 brother to impute to us what we do not hold ! 
 We do not believe the word means mar- 
 riage ; and it may be fairly presumed, he never 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. 113 
 
 heard any intelligent person say so. We believe, 
 as Selden states, its primary signification to be 
 nakedness, and as it is used in the Levitical pro- 
 hibitions in connexion with the verb uncover, to 
 express sexual intercourse; and that the pro- 
 hibitions not only respect single incestuous acts, 
 but are also intended to interdict incestuous 
 marriages. 
 
 The quotation in the paragraph next to the 
 last, on the same page, (p. 12,) is faulty. The 
 translation is incorrect, and the Latin quotation, 
 at the foot of the page, leaves out very material 
 words. It is offered as " the testimony of a 
 Jewish Rabbi, Solomon Jarchi." As it is found 
 in Selden, in the same book and chapter from 
 which the preceding quotation was taken, we 
 presume the Puritan derived it from that source, 
 though it is not so stated. 
 
 It has been seen how he labors to support his 
 cause by the authority of the great oriental scho- 
 lar ; and that his first quotation, when fairly set 
 before the reader, by exhibiting it in connexion 
 with what went before and followed after it in 
 Selden, entirely fails to sustain his assertion. A 
 similar example is now to be presented where 
 
114 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 the Puritan has omitted at the besinninor what 
 was necessary to a correct understanding of his 
 quotation, as well as a parenthesis that throws 
 light upon it. 
 
 We shall quote the whole from Sclden, and 
 leave it with the reader to compare our quota- 
 tion with that of our brother. " Unde Salomon 
 Jarchius ad iilud Deut. xxiii. 2. Non ingredia- 
 tur Mamzer in coetum Domini (quod de matri- 
 monio cum Israelitide contrahendo, ac si dictum 
 fuisset, mbsna*' aWT *6, Non ducat in uxorem 
 Israelitidem, exponunt.) The Hebrew terms we 
 omit. "Mamzer, inquit, is duntaxat est, qui ez 
 coitu excisione plectendo nascitur, aut (quod 
 magis dicendum) ex eo qui ex sent entia for ensi 
 ultimo plectendus supplicio. Nam inter coitus, 
 qui nomine frhs ^aa/rjfioavvijg sue turpiduninis ) 
 signantius denotantur, (Levitico xviii. and xxi.) 
 nullus est ex sententia forensi ultimo supplicio 
 plectendus, ad quern simul excisionis pana non 
 attinet" If the reader will compare this quo- 
 tation with that of the Puritan, he will see that 
 there is a material difference; an important 
 omission at the becrinninor and the omission of 
 a material parenthesis in the middle of his quot- 
 ation. 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. 115 
 
 His translation too is incorrect; for it is made 
 to exclude the idea of marriage, which is pre- 
 sented so distinctly to our view by the part 
 omitted by him at the beginning. The word 
 coitus, which signifies conjunction, union, coi- 
 tion, he improperly renders, in one place, " an 
 act of lewdness," and in another, " acts of lewd- 
 ness :" and this is done to sustain his assertion 
 that rrl'iS always signifies, in Selden's writings, 
 what is base, and never has reference to mar- 
 riage. If the quotation be closely examined, it 
 will be seen that this Jewish Rabbi had two 
 kinds of coition in view ; one which cut off the 
 offspring from the congregation, and another 
 which was punishable with death. Dr. Clarke, 
 in his commentary on Deut. 23 : 2, says, 
 " Mamzer, which is here rendered bastard, 
 should be understood as implying the offspring 
 of an illegitimate or incestuous mixture." Such 
 an offspring might be the fruit of an illegal 
 marriage between an Israelitish woman and a 
 heathen man ; or of an incestuous marriage be- 
 tween a Hebrew man anc} a Hebrew woman ; or 
 of illegitimate intercourse. 
 
 How well this accords with the views of the 
 
116 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 great oriental scholar, will appear from the fol- 
 lowing quotation, in which he expresses his own 
 apprehension of what was signified by " children 
 born of incest." It is found on the same page 
 with the faulty quotation of the Puritan, and a 
 little before it. " De Liberis ex inccstu genitis 
 (quod et de concubinis et de uxoribus in- 
 genuis and Israeliticis, sed quibuscum sive ob af- 
 jinitatcms\xe ob consanguinitatem matrimonium 
 contrahi non poterat, intclligo) ita Moses Mai- 
 monides," &c. Maimonides speaks of a Mam- 
 zer, and asserts that he could succeed to the in- 
 heritance, just as another son or brother. 
 
 On this quotation we offer two remarks. 
 First, Selden here plainly asserts, that children 
 begotten of freeborn Israelitish concubines, or 
 wives, with whom, on account of affinity or con- 
 sanguinity, a Hebrew man could not lawfully 
 contract marriage, were children of incest. 
 Secondly, this implies that he believed that God 
 had given to his people Israel a law which pro- 
 hibited marriages, on the ground both of affinity 
 and consanguinity. And where is that law to 
 be found except in the eighteenth chapter of 
 Leviticus 1 the sixth verse of which he quotes, 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. 117 
 
 when he says, " The sacred law speaks of incest 
 in this manner." See above, page 118. 
 
 The Puritan's quotation from the Targum of 
 Jonathan (p. 15, 3d par.) is, like the preceding, 
 incorrect and faulty. 
 
 The Hebrew word rtlTO is not used by the 
 Jewish writer where he places it, nor in any 
 other part of the comment; but the Chaldaic 
 form, which in the Latin translation is rendered 
 by the term turpitudo. The translation is : 
 " Vir qui duxerit uxorem fratris sui in vita sui, 
 abominatio est : (a^rns) turpitudinem (x^* 1 ^^) 
 fratris sui retexit ; absque prole erunt." The 
 comment on Jonathan's meaning is entirely 
 wrong. He contends that this Jewish writer 
 believed that a brother's nakedness could not 
 be uncovered after his death, and that therefore 
 it necessarily followed, that the offence here 
 spoken of could have no reference to marriao-e. 
 If the Puritan had examined Jonathan* 's com- 
 ment on Levit. 18 : 16, he would have better 
 understood his mind. Here is the Latin trans- 
 lation : " Turpitudinem uxoris fratris tui non 
 revel abis vivente fratre tuo, aut post mortem ejus 
 si habeat filios : nuditas fratris tui est." From this 
 
 11 
 
118 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 we learn — 1. That, in the opinion of Jonathan, 
 if a man had sexual intercourse with his broth- 
 er's wife, while his brother was living, it would 
 be a violation of the prohibition in the 16th 
 verse ; — 2. That if his deceased brother had 
 children by her, it would be unlawful for him to 
 marry her ; — and 3. That uncovering her naked- 
 ness after his decease would uncover his naked- 
 ness ; because her nakedness was considered as 
 his nakedness : " nuditas fratris tui est." There 
 was only one exception to the general rule in 
 the 16th verse. If a Jew died without children, 
 his brother could lawfully marry his widow, or 
 uncover her nakedness without offence ; but in 
 'dll other cases, the prohibition was binding. 
 
 That this Jewish Rabbi did not (in Levit. 20 : 
 21) refer to an adulterous connexion with a 
 brother's wife, may be inferred from the penal- 
 ty specified by him : f absque prole erunt." 
 Such a connexion he well knew was punishable 
 with death (Levit. 20: 10) ; and this he notices 
 in his comment on the verse just named, and 
 points out the different modes of inflicting this 
 penalty, according as the crime was committed 
 with an espoused virgin or a married woman. 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. 119 
 
 The penalty specified by him, (" absque prole 
 erunt,") evinces that he had regard to the of- 
 fence committed by a man who married his 
 brother's divorced wife, while he was living. 
 Of the true meaning of the original Hebrew 
 text, we shall have occasion hereafter to speak. 
 
 This is confirmed by the Arabic version of 
 Levit. 20 : 21 : " Et quisque vir acceperit ux- 
 orem fratris sui quae est remota ah ipso quando- 
 quidem detexit turpitudinem fratris sui, morien- 
 tur ambo orbi." 
 
 How many erroneous quotations have been 
 made by the Puritan! 1. From Jeremy Tay- 
 lor ; — 2. From Turrcttin ; — 3. From Seidell ; 
 4. From Salomon Jarchi ; — 5. From Jonathan, 
 the Jewish Rabbi. See above, pp. 21, 22, 84. 
 110-116, 117. 
 
 6. Had the Puritan opened Simon's or Gese- 
 nius' Lexicon, he would have seen that the word 
 rrns> signifies — 1. Nakedness in general ; — 2. 
 Specially, nuditas pudendorum ; — 3. Metonymi- 
 cally, turpitudo. 
 
 The different meanings of the word being 
 thus ascertained from a Hebrew Lexicon, the 
 next point to be determined is, which of these 
 
120 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 three meanings is best adapted to its connexion 
 with the verb uncover, in application to a female. 
 In this connexion it seems obvious, that the 
 second meaning should be selected. 
 
 No one can doubt what is meant by the na- 
 kedness of Noah, (where the word MliS occurs 
 for the first time in the Bible,) which his two 
 sons so discreetly, and with such filial reverence, 
 covered with a garment, while they went back- 
 ward, that they might not see their father's na- 
 kedness. (Gen. 9 : 23.) 
 
 The word occurs a second time in Gen. 42 : 
 12, where it is rendered " the nakedness of the 
 land; and that this means its destitution of de- 
 fence, or defenceless condition, is very obvious. 
 In Exod. 28 : 42, we meet with it a third time, 
 where the signification of ni"»s> itoa, translated 
 their nakedness, cannot be misunderstood. Then 
 the word appears so often in Levit. 18 : 6-18.* 
 
 And when the great Lawgiver pronounces the 
 prohibition, that a man shall not uncover the 
 
 * Buxtorf, in explanation of the meaning of this 
 word, says, " JYuditas corporis humani propalam turpis 
 et pudenda ccnsetur, mazime partium genilalium, qua 
 natura tecta voluit." 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. 121 
 
 nakedness of sundry female relations, is it rea- 
 sonable to doubt which meaning of the Hebrew 
 word, translated nakedness, is suggested 1 Does 
 He not refer to the pudenda ? and is it not plain 
 that, connected as it is with the verb uncover, 
 the prohibition forbids sexual intercourse ? Com- 
 pare with these prohibitions Levit. 20 : 17. 
 
 This in effect is admitted by the Puritan ; 
 for, in p. 1 1, he denominates the acts forbidden, 
 " single' acts of an incestuous character." And 
 the whole paragraph, from which these words 
 are quoted, shows that he saw the acts prohibit- 
 ed to be acts of unlawful sexual intercourse. It 
 was, then, unnecessary for him to labor so much 
 on the meaning of the single word UTiS ; and 
 indeed his labor was worse than useless ; for it 
 led him astray. The meaning of the phrase he 
 presents, in the paragraph referred to before he 
 enters on his learned research ; but when he ar- 
 rives at the end of it, he is so misled, by dwell- 
 ing so much on a single word, that he substi- 
 tutes the meaning of this single word that best 
 pleased him for the two words ; and a general 
 for a definite phrase. The plain and obvious 
 terms of the law, he explains by terms that do 
 
 11* 
 
122 LEVIT1CAL STATUTES 
 
 not well define the acts prohibited. The law 
 says, " Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness 
 of thy father's wife ;" and he imagines he gives 
 its meaning, by saying, " Thou shalt not dis- 
 honor thy father's wife." Now, as such a rela- 
 tive might be dishonored in various ways and 
 by different acts, the question will arise, Does 
 the law refer to one act, to one way, or to all 
 acts and ways of dishonoring a relative ? This 
 we apprehend to be obscuring, rather than ex- 
 plaining the law. The particular act that would 
 produce dishonor to a female relative, is speci- 
 fied in the law ; but the Puritan thinks he ex- 
 plains the prohibition, by substituting the effect 
 for the cause. 
 
 At the top of p. 12 he says, "The Seventy 
 translate the word in all the instances in which 
 it occurs, in these chapters, by the word 
 aaxrifioavvr), which signifies baseness, or a base 
 act. And they render this text, ' Thou shalt not 
 dishonor or expose to shame,' " &c. In this the 
 Puritan is erroneous. 
 
 Robinson, in his Greek Lexicon of the New 
 Testament, gives, as one meaning of this word, 
 pudenda ; and very properly supporting it by 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. 123 
 
 Rev. 16 : 15, adds, " So Sept. and rtns Ex 20 : 
 26, Lev. 18 : 6, 7." Charles Thomson, in his 
 translation of the Septuagint, has rendered it, in 
 Lev. 18, as it is in our English translation of the 
 Hebrew: " The nakedness of thy father's wife 
 shalt thou not uncover," &,c. The nakedness 
 of thy brother's wife thou shalt not uncover, &,c. 
 Grotius, commenting on the word turpitudinem, 
 used by the Vulgate, in Levit. 18 : 6, says, rrns, 
 id est nuditatem, Hebraei vocant partes quae nudse 
 dedecent. IdeoLXX. aa/tjfioaw^p inhonestatem. 
 Paulus 1 Cor. 12 : 23, t« uayr^ova [inhonesta]. 
 
 In the 2d paragraph, on the 12th page, the 
 Puritan reiterates what he had before asserted : 
 " Now, both from the meaning of the word hV}S> 
 and ccawfiocrvvt], we put it beyond a reasonable 
 doubt, that unlawful intercourse is here the 
 thing forbidden." 
 
 The meaning of the phrase " uncover naked- 
 ness," as to the criminality of the act, depends, 
 we have shown, upon circumstances. The act 
 may be virtuous or vicious. The terms in which 
 it is expressed, do not of themselves denote its 
 character ; they merely signify, in a delicate way, 
 the act. In this chapter, as they are used in 
 prohibitory statutes, they do, in general, mark 
 
124 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 criminal intercourse. Yet there is found one 
 exception. The 17th verse says, " Thou shalt 
 not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her 
 daughter." Now, we apprehend, the law does 
 not here forbid a man to have intercourse with 
 a woman to whom he is married, but only to 
 have intercourse with the daughter of his wife. 
 Our translation is, we think, unfortunate. The 
 original word is precisely the same as that ren- 
 dered in other verses by the English word wife; 
 and had it been so translated, the ambiguity 
 would have been avoided. It would then have 
 read : " Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness 
 of a wife and her daughter." 
 
 The Hebrew word is translated uxor, wife, 
 both by the Septuagint and by the Vulgate ; and 
 Charles Thomson has very properly used the 
 term wife, in his version of the Septuagint. The 
 Hebrews understood the word to signify wife. 
 See Selden De Lege Nat. et Gen. Lib. v. chap. 
 i., p. 590. 
 
 Here, then, the phrase is used to express the 
 lawful intercourse of married persons ; and this 
 intercourse is pronounced by the Supreme Law- 
 giver to be " honorable in all." 
 
 O 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. 125 
 
 The reader may now look at the assertion of 
 the Puritan, which, by large capitals, he has 
 placed in bold relief, on page 14, and know how 
 to appreciate it. If the terms have not the sense 
 of marriage, they are sometimes used to express 
 the intercourse that pertains to marriage. He 
 may learn too that the author is in error, where 
 he confidently asserts, of this phrase, (p. 11,) 
 " It so embodies the idea of a criminal connexion, 
 as to exclude that of marriage ; and that a He- 
 brew writer would no more use it to express the 
 idea of marriage, than he would use the term 
 adultery." Moses, we see, writing under inspi- 
 ration, has used these terms in reference to the 
 intercourse of married persons. 
 
 7. If we felt disposed, we might put our bro- 
 ther, the Puritan, to some trouble to sustain 
 what he regards as so easy to sustain, the mean- 
 ing of " the term wife, in these texts." (Chap. 
 4, par. 3.) He alleges there are " forty-nine 
 cases where the proper term (wife) is used," 
 against seven in which the term widow is found. 
 In reference to this arithmetical criticism, we 
 might say, the primary meaning of the Hebrew 
 word, rendered in these statutes by the word 
 
126 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 wife, is woman. So it is translated in very many 
 places; and therefore, according to his rule, he 
 ought to assign a reason for its being rendered, 
 in these texts, by the term wife. Had he recol- 
 lected this primary sense of the Hebrew word, 
 he would not (guided by sound) have said, " It 
 may seem presumption in me, to contend that 
 the text means what it says." We shall not put 
 him to this trouble ; we shall agree to receive 
 the translation as correct. 
 
 We have however a reply to offer to a ques- 
 tion he proposes in p. 17 : " Is not then the in- 
 ference irresistible, that when no such special 
 reasons for departing from the accustomed use 
 can be shown, the term wife is to be understood 
 to mean wife, and nothing else ?" 
 
 Now, while we admit the correctness of the 
 version of the term, we contend, that in all the 
 statutes included in verses 6-16, the term wife 
 does signify more than what it usually express- 
 es; it means, from the very import of these pro- 
 hibitory statutes, the wife, not only while her 
 husband is living, but when he is dead, and she 
 left in a state of widowhood. How long is a 
 man forbidden to have incestuous intercourse 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. 127 
 
 with his mother ? Only during his father's life- 
 time ? May he marry his mother after his fa- 
 ther's decease, and thus render sexual intercourse 
 with her who bare him and brought him into the 
 world lawful and honorable ? Nature abhors 
 the idea; the divine statute prohibits forever all 
 such unnatural commerce between a parent and 
 her child, as peremptorily when his father is 
 dead, as while he is living. Is not the prohibi- 
 tion perpetual too in regard to a father's wife? 
 in regard to an aunt, the wife of a father's bro- 
 ther? in regard to a son's wife ? Can any form 
 of marriage cover the iniquity of intercourse be- 
 tween such near relations ? Is not sexual com- 
 merce forever forbidden between a man and 
 such females, as well when they are widows, as 
 while their husbands are living? Do not these 
 statutes prohibit even the thought of such inti- 
 macy, under any circumstances? 
 
 8. The Puritan asks, Why the term marriage 
 was not used, if the Lawgiver intended by these 
 statutes to prohibit marriage ? We promised an 
 answer to his question. The preceding remarks 
 will suo-aest one. Infinite Wisdom, designing by 
 these statutes, to fix the mark of reprobation on 
 
128 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 all sexual intercourse between near relations, 
 under all circumstances, uses the terms here 
 recorded, as the fittest to express His will ; and, 
 therefore, forebore to employ the term marriage 
 in reference to connexions that no form of mar- 
 riage could sanctify and render honorable. 
 
 These statutes, then, while *they prohibit all 
 sexual intercourse between near relations, as 
 incestuous, have reference to marriage, and do 
 impliedly forbid it. 
 
 Another proof of such reference may be found 
 in Levit. 20 : 21. Mark the penalty annexed to 
 the crime. " They shall be childless." And 
 what was the crime from which this threatening 
 was designed to deter 1 Was it, as the Puritan 
 imagines, an adulterous connexion with a bro- 
 ther's wife? Was adultery committed with such 
 a relative less heinous, than adultery committed 
 with another woman to whom the offender was 
 not nearly related 1 Certainly not. It was a 
 greater crime. By the 10th verse of this chap- 
 ter, the crime of adultery was to be punished 
 with death ; and it will follow, that if the crime 
 contemplated in the 2 1st verse had been adul- 
 tery, the offender would have been deserving of 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. 129 
 
 this punishment, and the appropriate penalty 
 would have been annexed, as in all the preced- 
 ing verses. 
 
 Besides, the desire of procreating children is 
 no incentive to defile the bed of a brother. The 
 adulterer is prompted to his crime merely by his 
 unbridled lusts, which he seeks to gratify. The 
 threatening of being childless was no appropriate 
 punishment of such a crime. 
 
 But to deter from marrying a brother's wife, 
 when repudiated by him, or after his death, it 
 was appropriate. The Jews had a great desire 
 for children ; and a threatening that they should 
 be childless, if they violated the law by contract- 
 ing marriage, was likely to deter from this sin. 
 
 The Jews, in the time of Henry VIII., re- 
 garded the Levitical prohibitions as having re- 
 spect to marriage. " Many of the Jewish Rab- 
 bins," says Burnet, " did give it under their 
 hand in Hebrew, That the laws of Leviticus and 
 Deuteronomy were thus to be reconciled : That 
 the law of marrying a brother's wife, when he 
 died without children, did only bind in the land 
 of Judea, to preserve families, and maintain 
 their successions in the land, as it had been 
 12 
 
130 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 divided by lot; but that in all other places in the 
 world, the law of Leviticus of not marrying the 
 brother's wife, was obligatory."* 
 
 Indeed, the Puritan has in fact yielded the 
 reference of these statutes to marriage, in the 
 character (so often referred to) which he gives 
 to sexual intercourse between relations designa- 
 ted in the Levitical law ; for, if it were at any 
 time lawful for them to marry, their intercourse 
 might be denominated fornication or adultery, 
 but it could not be called incest ; because incest 
 is the crime of cohabiting or sexual commerce 
 between persons so nearly related, that their 
 marriage is declared to be unlawful. Hence, 
 the Jews, who never thought of calling in ques- 
 tion the application of these Levitical statutes to 
 marriage, maintained, as Selden informs us, that 
 if an unmarried man were to lie with a woman 
 and her dauphter, or with a woman and her sis- 
 ter, he would not be guilty of incest, however 
 criminal his conduct might be.f 
 
 * Burnet's Hist., p. 143. 
 
 t De Jure Nat. et Gen. Lib. V., chap, x., pp. 545, 
 546. 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. 131 
 
 From all the evidence presented to prove the 
 reference of the Levitical prohibitions to mar- 
 riage, we may conclude, that the Puritan has 
 failed to establish the contrary doctrine, which, 
 at the close of his fourth chapter, he imagines 
 to be fully proved. All the statutes refer to 
 marriage ; and as those which prohibit sexual 
 intercourse between parents and children, bro- 
 thers and sisters, uncles and nieces, prohibit, at 
 the same time, all attempts to sanctify such in- 
 tercourse by marriage ; so it is with the prohi- 
 bitions that respect a brother's wife, and a wife's 
 husband. All are near of kin, and may not be 
 approached. God has forbidden it by his law. 
 
 9. But the Puritan objects, (p. 8, 3d par.) 
 " In our view, the fact that God commanded a 
 man to marry a brother's widow, proves that 
 there is no immorality in such marriages." Nor 
 was there immorality in the marriages of broth- 
 er's and sisters, when in the commencement of 
 our race God commanded such near relations to 
 marry. In the purpose of Abraham to slay his 
 son, when God commanded him to " offer him 
 as a burnt sacrifice," (Gen. 22 : 2 ; Heb. 11: 
 17-19,) there was no immorality, but a signal 
 
132 LEVITICAL STATUTES 
 
 act of obedience to the Divine will; nor would 
 there have been any immorality in the patri- 
 arch's conduct, if, at the command of God, he 
 had actually deprived him of life. But, when 
 " the angel of the Lord called unto him out of 
 heaven, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither 
 do thou any thing unto him ;" if he had executed 
 his purpose, there would have been great immo- 
 rality in his murderous act. When, in conse- 
 quence of the multiplication of the human race, 
 the marriage of brothers and sisters became un- 
 lawful, they who, contrary to the Divine will, 
 contracted such marriages, were chargeable 
 with great immorality. And so now, when a 
 man marries his brother's widow, he acts in a 
 very immoral manner ; because God prohibits 
 in his word such marriages. Levit. 18 : 16, and 
 20 : 21. 
 
 But, as it was the duty of a brother, under 
 the Jewish economy, to marry the childless 
 widow of his brother, and raise up seed to him, 
 the Puritan still objects, and says, (in the close of 
 the above paragraph,) " We must insist, that 
 this command to marry a brother's widow proves 
 that such marriages were not abhorrent to na- 
 
RELATE TO MARRIAGE. 133 
 
 ture." This objection he has himself, in effect, 
 answered by a quotation from Turrettin ; from 
 which it appears, that some precepts of the Di- 
 vine law are so founded in the nature of God 
 and the nature of things w T hich he has consti- 
 tuted, that they cannot be altered, and must 
 remain unchanged ; and that others are not so 
 founded, but " founded in the nature of things 
 constituted in a particular way." Such precepts 
 may be changed by the exercise of God's sove- 
 reign authority. (See his p. 8, last par.) 
 
 And were we to admit the marriage in ques- 
 tion was " not abhorrent to nature," in the 
 sense attached to the phrase by the Puritan, it 
 would not follow that it is now lawful. Can 
 Jehovah forbid no marriages but such as nature 
 abhors? or, in other words, his short-sighted, 
 erring, and misguided creatures see and allow 
 to be improper and wrong 1 In commemoration 
 of his resting from his works of creation, He 
 enacted the fourth commandment in the Deca- 
 logue, which required the Hebrew people to 
 sanctify the seventh day ; and violations of this 
 dJay were, by his judicial law, punishable with 
 death, by the civil magistrate, as long as the 
 
 12* 
 
134 LEVITICAL STATUTES, ETC. 
 
 fourth commandment remained unchanged ; but 
 now, under the new dispensation, we observe, 
 as the Christian Sabbath, the first day of the 
 week, in commemoration of the resurrection of 
 our Lord, and the finishing of the glorious work 
 of redemption. So in regard to the statute pro- 
 hibiting a man marrying his brother's widow, the 
 sovereign authority that enacted could, at anytime 
 and in such circumstances as He deemed proper, 
 suspend its operation ; and, as the reason for 
 which its operation was suspended does not, 
 under the Christian dispensation, ever occur, 
 the statute has become invariable, and perpetu- 
 ally forbids the marriage of a man with his bro- 
 ther's widow. 
 
 In regard to the interesting subject of mar- 
 riage, the Puritan may prefer being guided by 
 human legislators and his own interpretation of 
 nature; but we prefer being guided by the great 
 and unerring Lawgiver of the universe ; who 
 knows the nature of things which He has con- 
 stituted, unspeakably better than we do, and 
 how to protect his own institution, so as best to 
 promote His own glory and the best interests of 
 the human race. 
 
LEVITICAL LAW, ETC. 135 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Levitical law a natural law. — Classification of the Statutes. — 
 Marshall's objection. — His singular mistake. — Proofs of its being 
 a natuial law. — How made known. — Opinion of Jurists. — Sum- 
 mary of its prohibitions. — Chancellor Kent's definition. — The 
 Puritan's objections answered. 
 
 In the preceding discussion it has been prov- 
 ed, that this law is neither ceremonial, nor civil 
 or judicial, but ecclesiastical and moral ; moral, 
 because it forbids lewd acts of an incestuous 
 character, and because it prescribes the limits 
 of marriage. 
 
 These statutes constitute one law. The 
 number of the prohibitions does not affect the 
 unity of the law. The Decalogue has ten pre- 
 cepts ; but they are one moral law. The human 
 body has many members ; yet they constitute 
 one body. 
 
 So these statutes form but one law of incest. 
 
136 LEV1TICAL LAW 
 
 All are founded on the same basis of relation- 
 ship by consanguinity or affinity ; all have the 
 same object, domestic purity and good morals in 
 the community ; all are enforced by the same 
 spiritual penalty, excision from the Church. 
 
 But the classification of the prohibitions, from 
 the sixth to the eighteenth verse inclusive, but 
 excluding " those from nineteenth to the twenty- 
 fourth," under the general prohibition contained 
 in the sixth, is deemed arbitrary. Mr. Marshall, 
 regarding the sixth verse as containing " the 
 title or general principle" of all the statutes in 
 this chapter, finds it to be unsuitable, and not in 
 accordance with the accuracy of " European or 
 American legislators ;" and then goes on to 
 apologize for the inaccuracy of the inspired law- 
 giver, by pleading the want of " exact classifica- 
 tion or logical arrangement in discourse " in 
 "the Asiatics."* But to this he is driven by 
 his own mistake. Had he carefully inspected 
 the chapter, he would have found in the third 
 and fourth verses a more general title or princi- 
 ple, than is contained in the sixth. " After the 
 
 * Marshall, pp. 86-88. 
 
A NATURAL LAW. 137 
 
 doings of the land of Egypt wherein ye dwelt, 
 shall ye not do ; and after the doings of the land 
 of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do : 
 neither shall ye walk in their ordinances. Ye 
 shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinan- 
 ces, to walk therein : I am the Lord your God." 
 Here is a principle broad enough to comprehend 
 all the prohibitions contained in this chapter. 
 How came our brother to overlook it? Mr. 
 Marshall needs an apology, not Moses. 
 
 The prohibitions are various. Let us glance 
 at them. They are : 
 
 1. Against incest, in various specifications 
 (v. 7-18) ; all contained in one general prohibi- 
 tion : v. 6. 
 
 2. Against unseasonable intercourse : v. 19. 
 
 3. Against adultery : v. 20. 
 
 4. Against idolatrous worship : v. 21. 
 
 5. Against sodomy : v. 22. 
 
 6. Against bestiality : v. 23. 
 
 All these prohibitions certainly range under 
 the general principle expressed in the third and 
 fourth verses. And is it not equally manifest, 
 that the specifications in verses 7-18, come na- 
 turally under the general rule delivered in the 
 
138 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 sixth verse ? They all refer to incestuous in- 
 tercourse between persons nearly related by 
 consanguinity or affinity. We repeat it, these 
 prohibitions all rest upon the same common basis ; 
 they form one law of incest ; or, if you prefer it, 
 one section of the general law. Their basis, 
 their object, their penalty, are one and the 
 same. 
 
 This law is rightly denominated a natural law ; 
 for it is founded in nature. By this we mean, 
 it is founded on the natural relation which sub- 
 sists between us, dependent creatures, and God, 
 our creator and preserver ; and the relations 
 which He has constituted between us and some 
 of our fellow-creatures, as social beings. It may 
 in part be discovered by the deductions of right 
 reason, unaided by a icritten revelation ; but it 
 can be fully known only by the light of that 
 written revelation which God has given to His 
 Church. 
 
 The Puritan speaks of " the voice of nature," 
 — "the book of nature," — " the law of nature," 
 — and of being " abhorrent to nature." But he 
 has not explained his meaning. He has not told 
 us how the voice of nature speaks to us, nor 
 
A NATURAL LAW. 139 
 
 how we learn to know what in regard to mar- 
 riage is abhorrent to nature. 
 
 At the commencement of the human race, it 
 is certain the voice of nature did not forbid the 
 marriage of brothers and sisters ; nor did nature 
 abhor such connexions. They were right, and 
 approved by God ; and in the circumstances in 
 which the first children of Adam were placed, 
 brothers and sisters felt no repugnance of nature 
 to marry one another. 
 
 But, in subsequent times, when the human 
 race had multiplied, so that wives could be 
 found without the family circle, a different state 
 of feeling was produced, and men regarded the 
 marriage of brothers and sisters as unlawful, 
 and contrary to the Divine will. There is now 
 a repugnance to such connexions. They are 
 felt to be incestuous, and are to be abhorred. 
 
 How was this change in the views and feel- 
 ings of men on this subject produced ? Was a 
 change wrought by the Creator's hand, in the 
 nature of man, that gave rise to new feelings 
 and new views 1 or did the great Lawgiver in- 
 terpose, by an announcement of His will, that 
 such marriages should no longer be contracted, 
 
140 LEVIT1CAL LAW 
 
 and thus excite new views and new feelings ? 
 Which is the more probable ? When we con- 
 sider how frequently, and in what various ways, 
 He has graciously condescended to reveal His 
 will to the children of men, does not the latter 
 mode appear the more probable ? 
 
 We know inspired teachers were not wanting 
 in the first ages of the world. Such were Adam, 
 Enoch, and Noah ; and probably others of whom 
 we have not heard. Adam, our great progeni- 
 tor, had, at his creation, a perfect knowledge of 
 moral duty ; for he was created in the image of 
 God, in knowledge, righteousness, and true holi- 
 ness. He had also a vast extent of intellect, as 
 appears from his intuitive view of the nature of 
 marriage, and from his ability to give appropri- 
 ate names to all cattle, and fowls, and beasts, 
 as they were brought before him by the Creator. 
 Gen. 2 : 19, 20. His intellect was indeed dark- 
 ened by his mournful apostasy (Gen. 3 : 10) ; 
 yet we have reason to believe, he retained much 
 of the knowledge imparted to him at his creation, 
 and was competent to instruct his posterity on 
 subjects of moral duty, as well as to preserve 
 among them the great promise of a coming De- 
 
A NATURAL LAW. 141 
 
 liverer, the expected seed of the woman, who 
 was to bruise the serpent's head. Was not 
 Adam acquainted with the law of incest? Did 
 he not, in the course of his long life, extending 
 over 930 years, inform his descendants, at a 
 proper time, that it was the will of God that 
 marriages between brothers and sisters should 
 cease? By the inspired historian it is stated, 
 that the improper marriages between "the sons 
 of God," the professors and followers of the true 
 religion, and "the daughters of men," apostates 
 from the true religion, ungodly men, were dis- 
 pleasing to the Lord, and became a source of 
 irreligion and wickedness. (Gen. 6 : 1-4.) 
 
 Enoch, the seventh from Adam, was a man of 
 eminent piety. " He walked with God ;" and 
 as a reward of his singular piety, he was trans- 
 lated to heaven, and exempted from the pains 
 and corruption of death. (Gen. 5 : 24. Heb. 
 11 : 5.) This pre-eminently pious man was a 
 prophet, as we are informed by the apostle Jude ; 
 and he prophesied to the Antediluvians of the 
 second coming of our Lord, with his holy angels, 
 to execute judgment on all unrighteous and un- 
 godly men. And while he warned them of the 
 13 
 
142 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 approaching judgment and coming wrath, by 
 which they would be most justly punished for 
 their sins, did he not state distinctly what were 
 the sins of which they were guilty, and what 
 were the commandments which they had viola- 
 ted? And was not the law of marriage then 
 known, so far as to prohibit the union of broth- 
 ers and sisters'? 
 
 Noah, we are informed by Peter, (2 Pet. 2 : 
 5,) was " a preacher of righteousness ;" and, 
 during the one hundred and thirty years of God's 
 forbearance, when He afforded space for repent- 
 ance to that wicked generation of men who 
 were destroyed by the flood, this godly man did 
 not cease to warn them of their imminent dan- 
 ger, and urge them to flee from their sins. Was 
 not this inspired man acquainted with the law 
 of incest ? Had not God as yet revealed His 
 will on this interesting subject? 
 
 The Jews had a tradition about the seven pre- 
 cepts of Noah; among them was one relating to 
 incest. It is highly probable that his descend- 
 ants were instructed on the law of marriage, 
 and the limits set to this intimate connexion. 
 The religious information imparted by Noah, 
 
A NATURAL LAW. 143 
 
 was retained, more or less, by the nations that 
 sprung from him ; and additional light in regard 
 to religious subjects, was diffused among Gen- 
 tile nations, by intercourse with the Jewish peo- 
 ple, who lived in their own land, and those who 
 were scattered abroad in different parts of the 
 world, especially after the Babylonish captivity. 
 Their sacred scriptures were translated into the 
 Greek language, two hundred and fifty years 
 before the Christian aera. 
 
 It is no unreasonable supposition, that the 
 best laws and customs of the ancient heathen 
 nations were derived from Divine revelation. 
 Selden expresses his belief on this point, in the 
 strongest terms. Referring to the received sen- 
 timents and institutions of Gentile nations, an- 
 cient and modern, in regard to incestuous mar- 
 riages, on account of relationship, he says, in a 
 parenthesis : " Q,uae, procul-dubio, Legi Sacrae 
 ejus que interpretamentis diversimode acceptis, 
 originem suam inprimis debent." Uxor Ebraica 
 Lib. I. chap. vi. This learned man had well 
 studied the subject, and his opinion is probably 
 correct. 
 
 The repeated revelations of the Divine will, 
 
144 
 
 LEV1TICAL LAW 
 
 given at various periods of the world, will justi- 
 fy the belief, that God has left none of his crea- 
 tures to collect the knowledge of duty, merely 
 from the contemplation of the nature of things ; 
 but has revealed and announced a law of moral 
 duty and of marriage, corresponding with the 
 nature of things established by Himself, and 
 which of course He knows most perfectly. A 
 portion of the light of His revelations has reach- 
 ed, more or less, all nations. 
 
 If this reasoning be or be not admitted as 
 correct, one thing has, we think, been proved : 
 God has revealed a law of incest, and authorita- 
 tively determined the limits of legitimate mar- 
 riage; and this law is found in these Levitical 
 statutes. The prohibition against the marriage 
 of parents with children, and of brothers with 
 sisters, is generally admitted to be founded in 
 nature, and therefore to be a natural law. 
 
 But beyond this, jurists and legislators seem 
 unwilling to extend the limits of unlawful mar- 
 riages. Sir William Scott, however, (after- 
 wards Lord Stowell,) who is styled, we repeat 
 it, by Chancellor Kent, " a great master of pub- 
 lic and municipal law," has recently adjudged a 
 
A NATURAL LAW. 145 
 
 marriage between an uncle and a niece to be 
 incestuous; " a nuisance extremely offensive to 
 the laws and manners of society, and tending to 
 endless confusion, and the pollution of the sanc- 
 tity of private life."* 
 
 Jurists see the first part of the Levitical law to 
 be founded in nature. For this ihey are able to 
 assign sufficient reasons to satisfy their minds 
 on the point ; but in regard to the rest of these 
 statutes, they cannot assign the same reasons for 
 the prohibitions : and, therefore, they chose to 
 denominate these positive law. Is this reasona- 
 ble? The law, we have seen, is one law. Ali 
 its prohibitions rest on the same basis ; all have 
 the same object in view ; and all are enforced by 
 the same spiritual punishment. Why then should 
 a part of this one and the same law be regarded 
 as founded in nature, and another part be con- 
 sidered as only positive? The inability of jur- 
 ists to discover by the deductions of their own 
 reason the whole extent of the law of nature, is 
 no sufficient reason for not admitting the whole 
 of this Levitical law to be a natural law, found- 
 
 * Kent's Com., vol. ii. p. 82. 
 
 13* 
 
146 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 ed in nature. The ignorance of uncultivated 
 minds, unable to determine what is the law of 
 nature, and what is not, cannot affect the char- 
 acter of {he natural law, acknowledged to be 
 such by the common consent of jurists and 
 legislators. And why should the weakness of 
 the human mind to discover the whole extent of 
 a natural law, affect the natural character of 
 this one Levitical law of marriage ; when it is 
 evident, from an inspection of it, that the whole 
 rests on the same basis, the natural relations 
 which rational creatures sustain to their Creator 
 and to one another ? Can not His omniscient 
 eye see farther than the human eye? Does not 
 the Maker of all things, the Architect of nature, 
 know perfectly that nature which He created, 
 and all the relations which He has constituted 
 between his rational creatures'? 
 
 Let us for a moment look at the particulars 
 in this law. It prohibits marriage between 
 
 1. Parents and children : vs. 7, 8. 
 
 2. Brothers and sisters : v. 9. 
 
 3. A man and his grand-daughter : v. 10. 
 
 4. A man and his father's wife's daughter : 
 v. 11. 
 
A NATURAL LAW. 147 
 
 5. A man and his aunt, either his father's or 
 his mother's sister: vs. 12, 13. 
 
 6. A man and his uncle's wife : v. 14. 
 
 7. A man and his daughter-in-law: v. 15. 
 
 8. A man and his brother's wife : v. 16. 
 
 9. A man and his wife's daughter : v. 17. 
 
 10. A man and his wife's son's daughter, or 
 her daughter's daughter : v. 17. 
 
 11. A man and his sister-in-law : v. 18. 
 Why should the prohibition of any of these 
 
 marriages be regarded as not belonging to natu- 
 ral lawl? Let the question be again proposed, 
 What is meant by the law of nature 1 Chancel- 
 lor Kent has well answered this question. In his 
 adjudication of the case of Whitman vs. Whit- 
 man, he says, "By the law of nature I under- 
 stand those fit and just rules of conduct, which 
 the Creator has prescribed to a man, as a de- 
 pendent and social being ; and which are to be 
 ascertained from the deductions of right reason, 
 though they may be more precisely known and 
 more explicitly declared by Divine revelation."* 
 
 * Conflict of Laws, p. 105, a note, 4 Johns. Ch. R. p 
 343. 
 
148 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 This definition is just. It involves the follow- 
 ing points : — 1. The law of nature is the Crea- 
 tor's law; — 2. It is founded on relations; — 3. 
 Human reason is incompetent to discover it in 
 its full extent ; — 4. Divine revelation alone can 
 make it fully known. 
 
 The law of nature is indeed the Creator's 
 law ; and rules derived from the consideration 
 of the nature of things, have no binding autho- 
 rity on the conscience, except so far as they in- 
 dicate the Divine will. They bind the con- 
 science anterior to human legislation. God has 
 not left the law of incest to be collected from 
 the deductions of fallible reason. He himself 
 has promulgated it at different periods, so that 
 heathen nations have learned something of it by 
 tradition ; and by his servant Moses, He vouch- 
 safed, in writing, to his chosen people, a full 
 revelation of His will on this interesting subject. 
 Why, then, should any reject the light He has 
 shed on a part of moral duty, so important to be 
 known ? We needed the light of revelation to 
 ascertain our duty fully. God has given this 
 heavenly light. Let us thankfully receive the 
 gift, and walk in the light. 
 
A NATURAL LAW. 149 
 
 Is it reasonable to deny any part of this law 
 to be founded in nature, when every part so 
 manifestly rests upon the same basis, relation- 
 ship by consanguinity and affinity ? Why assert 
 a part, and not the whole, to be binding on us? 
 Why denominate it a revelation to the Hebrew 
 commonwealth, and not to the Church ? Why 
 call it a municipal, and not an ecclesiastical 
 law? 
 
 The Puritan has assailed particularly that 
 part of this law which prohibits the marrying of 
 a brother's widow. This he will have to belong 
 to the Jewish civil law, and to have been re- 
 pealed. He however has offered no arguments 
 in favor of his position. It is merely assumption. 
 
 We have proved, we believe, this whole Levit- 
 ical law to be an ecclesiastical, moral, and natu- 
 ral law, unrepealed, and binding on all Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 One objection remains to be noticed. On p. 
 9, 2d par., the Puritan says, " Since ever after 
 the race was fully constituted for multiplication, 
 it was against the law of nature for brothers and 
 sisters to marry, and God himself could not 
 either allow or command it." 
 
150 LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 It has been already remarked, that our bro- 
 ther speaks of " the law of nature" without ex- 
 plaining his meaning. But what is this law of 
 nature but the law of God, the Author of nature? 
 Distinct from the Creator's law there is no law 
 of nature. Some parts of the laws of God are 
 mutable, and others immutable. The Decalogue 
 is a moral and natural law ; natural, because it 
 is founded in the natural relations that subsist 
 between us and the Creator, and between us 
 and our fellow-creatures. This law requires us 
 to love God ; and we cannot conceive this obli- 
 gation should ever cease, or that the contrary 
 should ever " be allowed or commanded." We 
 are required to love our neighbor, not excepting 
 our enemies ; and this precept involves the duty 
 of praying for them: but we are not permitted 
 to pray for the wicked when dead ; we must 
 leave them in the hands of their Judge, who will 
 do them no act of injustice. Before death the 
 obligation to pray for a sinner may cease : " If 
 any man see his brother sin a sin which is not 
 unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him 
 life for them that sin not unto death." " But," 
 adds the inspired writer, " There is a sin unto 
 
A NATURAL LAW. 151 
 
 death : I do not say that he shall pray for it.'' 
 1 John 5 : 16. 
 
 So it is with the law of marriage. We cannot 
 conceive of a case in which k could be lawful 
 for a parent to marry his daughter. But we 
 know that, at the commencement of the human 
 race, it was lawful for brothers and sisters to 
 marry. And since the multiplication of the 
 human race, affirms our brother, " God could 
 not either allow or command it." We dislike 
 this language ; it savors of irreverence. Sup- 
 pose Noah and his wife alone had been saved 
 from the destructive deluge, and they had be- 
 gotten children after the flood, would it not 
 have been again lawful for brothers and sis- 
 ters to marry ? Or suppose Noah, during the 
 three hundred and fifty years he lived after the 
 deluge, had begotten children, would not mar- 
 riages between uncles and nieces have been al- 
 lowed 1 
 
 The Puritan goes on, in the same paragraph 
 to affirm : " And we repeat, that if it were a 
 moral wrong for one to marry his brother's wid- 
 ow, God could not have commanded it as he 
 
152 LEV1TICAL LAW 
 
 did." What is a moral wrong? Is it not sin? 
 And what is sin? An inspired writer has an- 
 swered the question : " Sin is a trangression 
 of the law," Did not the Israelites, when, in 
 opposition to a Divine command, they refused 
 to march forward and take possession of the 
 promised land, and when they threatened to 
 stone Joshua and Caleb who exhorted them to 
 go forward, sin? Did they not commit a " mo- 
 ral wrong?" And when God, to punish them 
 for their disobedience, reversed his command, 
 and swore they should perish in the wilderness, 
 did they not sin again — again commit a " moral 
 wrong" by attempting to march forward in 
 opposition to His will ? See Num. xiii. and 
 xiv. 
 
 The Puritan has failed in his attempt to 
 prove, the prohibition to " uncover the naked- 
 ness of a brother's wife," does not involve a 
 prohibition to marry a brother's widow. We 
 have shown that the Levitical law relates to 
 marriage, as well as to single incestuous acts ; 
 and it follows, that in all cases, except one, if a 
 Jew married the widow of his brother, he sin- 
 
A NATURAL LAW. 153 
 
 ned, he committed a " moral wrong ;" because 
 he violated a command of God. There is now. 
 under the Christian dispensation, no exception 
 to this prohibition*. This ecclesiastical law of 
 marriage, of permanent obligation, prohibits 
 every one who hears it, marrying his brother's 
 widow ; and whoever does form such a connex- 
 ion sins, he commits " a moral icrong." 
 
 Our brother, holding fast to his error, and 
 confident of being right, boldly affirms, in the 
 fifth paragraph, " So that, after all the objections 
 that have been urged, the argument remains in 
 all its force, that the marriage of a brother's 
 widow is not an immorality per se ; for if it had 
 been, God could not, in any case, have com- 
 manded it." By " an immorality per se," our 
 brother means an act which, in no possible cir- 
 cumstances, it would become a holy God to al- 
 low. We cordially agree with him that the 
 marriage of a brother's widow is not such an 
 act. Nor is the marriage of brothers and sis- 
 ters such an act ; for this plain reason, there 
 have been circumstances in which God did per- 
 mit and require such marriages. Still, however, 
 as it is now unlawful for brothers and sisters, in 
 
 14 
 
154 LEVITICAL LAW. 
 
 any case, to marry, so it is now unlawful for a 
 man, in any case, to marry his brother's widow. 
 Both are forbidden by the law of God, given to 
 His Church, which law is really a moral and a 
 
 NATURAL law. 
 
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 155 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Summary view of the Argument. 
 
 It is now time to present the reader with a 
 summary of the whole discussion. 
 
 After an introduction designed to trace the 
 rise of the present debate, we entered on the 
 subject, by making various remarks on the 
 Puritan's historical facts. 
 
 In the first and second chapters we detected 
 many mistakes and misstatements of our bro- 
 ther ; showed how he has misrepresented Jeremy 
 Taylor, and greatly erred in regard to the views 
 of the Protestant Church of Europe; and that 
 he has no right to claim Calvin, or Grotius, or 
 Selden, as favoring the marriage of a man with 
 his deceased wife's sister. 
 
 His attempt to ascribe a papal origin to the 
 prohibition of such marriages, was frustrated. 
 
156 SUMMARY OF 
 
 It was also seen there is more reason to appre- 
 hend the change that has occurred in the views 
 and laws of various States on this subject, may 
 be traced to the influence of infidelity ; and that 
 it dees not augur well, that, in this retrograde 
 movement, the State has taken the lead, and 
 wishes to draw after it the Church of God, 
 which, in former times, very properly influenced 
 and instructed the State. 
 
 In our third chapter, the consequences that 
 must result from the principles the Puritan has 
 endeavored to establish, were exhibited. If the 
 law in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus has 
 been repealed and is not binding on the Chris- 
 tian Church, and especially if it have no refer- 
 ence at all to marriage; then it follows, as a 
 necessary consequence, that the Church, in 
 every age, since the days of Moses, has been 
 destitute of a written rule on the subject of un- 
 lawful marriages, and left entirely to the single 
 intimation in the second chapter of Genesis, and 
 the unaided light of human reason. This we 
 believe to be highly improbable : and consider- 
 ing how clearly God has announced the Deca- 
 logue, the moral law, first engraven on tables of 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 157 
 
 stone, and then recorded by the pen of Moses ; 
 how it was afterwards explained by the writings 
 of the Prophets, by the teaching of the Redeem- 
 er, and in the writings of inspired Apostles ; and 
 considering also what particular instructions are 
 given in regard to the Divine ordinance 6T hu- 
 man government ; we felt it to be reasonable to 
 infer from what God had done for our benefit in 
 these matters, He had not withheld from us a 
 written announcement of His will on a point re- 
 lating to His own peculiar institution, which 
 lies at the foundation of human society ; an an- 
 nouncement so necessary to protect this institu- 
 tion against abuse, and to secure domestic puri- 
 ty, as well as to preserve good morals in the 
 community. 
 
 The fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters are de- 
 voted to the proof of the perpetuity of the Levit- 
 ical law. 
 
 In establishing this point, beside offering di- 
 rect proof, we reasoned on the Puritan's own 
 principles. He assumes, without proof, that this 
 law belongs to the Jewish civil or judicial code ; 
 and then admitting that some parts of this code 
 are binding on Christians, he applies to this law 
 
 14* 
 
158 SUMMARY OF 
 
 the criteria laid down by Turrcttin, to ascertain 
 what portions of the Jewish civil code are, and 
 what are not, binding on us ; and by the appli- 
 cation of these criteria, he thinks he has proved 
 the Levitical law, in the eighteenth chapter, to 
 have been repealed, and thus deprived of its 
 binding authority. But, in opposition to our 
 brother, we have endeavored to show, that he 
 has not followed his guide, and that, by a cor- 
 rect application of Tar renin* s criteria, these 
 Levitical statutes are proved to be permanent 
 and obligatory on the Christian Church. 
 
 It was also shown that this law is ecclesiasti- 
 cal and not municipal, and has not been repeal- 
 ed ; and that, even admitting it does not relate 
 to marriage, it must be unrepealed; because, 
 according to the Puritan's own showing, it for- 
 bids lewd, unclean " acts of an incestuous char- 
 acter," and is, therefore, a natural and???oroZlaw. 
 
 In the seventh chapter, which contains re- 
 marks on the Puritan's reasoning and exposure 
 of its fallacy, we have, among other things, en- 
 deavored, from the uniform judgment of the 
 Church, both Jewish and Christian, to prove 
 that this Levitical law relates to marriage. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 159 
 
 We have also attempted to prove, in opposi- 
 tion to all the needless labor of our brother to 
 establish what he deems the meaning of the 
 phrase, " uncover nakedness," that it does mean 
 sexual intercourse ; that this intercourse receives 
 its character from circumstances, and is, accord- 
 ing to circumstances, virtuous or vicious, honor- 
 able or disgraceful ; and that, in this very chap- 
 ter of Leviticus, it is, in one place, applied to 
 the commerce of married persons. 
 
 In regard to the term wife, on which the 
 Puritan lays so much stress, it has been evinced 
 that it does, in this chapter, mean more than 
 wife, in the ordinary signification of the term ; 
 because the prohibition of sexual intercourse be- 
 tween a son and his mother, a man and his father's 
 wife, a man and his aunt, is permanent; apply- 
 ing not only to the lifetime of the husband, but 
 to the time subsequent to his death, when his 
 wife has become a widoiv. 
 
 In the eighth chapter, this Levitical law is 
 proved to be one natural\a\v ; being founded in 
 nature, as it has for its basis the natural rela- 
 tions subsisting between man and his Creator, and 
 between man andhis fellow-creatures; and that 
 
160 SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 no prohibition in this law is to be excepted, be- 
 cause all are founded on the same common basis. 
 Through all this extended discussion it was 
 necessary to pass, in order to prepare the way 
 for proving the marriage of a man with his de- 
 ceased wife's sister to be unlawful and incestu- 
 ous. Had our brother not denied the true de- 
 sign and perpetuity of the Levitical law, but 
 admitted it as prescribing limits to marriage, 
 and permanent in its obligation, we might, with- 
 out all this previous labor, have entered imme- 
 diately on the proof that such marriages are 
 prohibited by these Levitical statutes. 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 161 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Marriage unlawful. — Rules of interpretation — proved to be correct. — 
 Objections of Omicron and the Puritan answered. — Eight rela- 
 tions by affinity. 
 
 Omitting for the present the prohibition of 
 this marriage found in the eighteenth verse of 
 the chapter, we contend, that by a fair and just 
 construction of the Levitical law, it is forbidden. 
 To prove this, the following rules of interpreta- 
 tion are laid down as correct and true. 
 
 I. This law is to be interpreted in conformity 
 with its general and permanent character. 
 
 Had it been delivered as a temporary and 
 civil law, designed only for the government of 
 the Hebrew commonwealth, it ought to receive 
 a corresponding interpretation. But as it is a 
 permanent, ecclesiastical law, designed for the 
 Church in all ages, it must be interpreted ac- 
 cordingly. 
 
162 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 II. This law settles the degrees of marriage ; 
 without specifying all the particular cases which 
 come within the compass of these degrees. 
 
 This, with few exceptions, has been the judg- 
 ment of the Church in every age. So thought 
 the Jews. " The Jews," says Poole, " and even 
 the Karaites, (who followed most rigidly the 
 letter of the Scriptures,) admitted it to be cor- 
 rect to ascertain the cases not specified, by just 
 reasoning."* If this rule were not allowed, 
 neither marriage with a sister from the same 
 father and mother, nor marriage with the wife 
 of a mother's brother, nor marriage with a sis- 
 ter's daughter, could be proved to be unlawful ; 
 for neither of these cases are specified in the 
 law. See vs. 9, 10, 11, 14. In this the law re- 
 sembles the Decalogue ; which lays down gene- 
 ral principles to be applied to cases as they may 
 arise. Had all the cases been specified, the law 
 would have been unnecessarily prolix. 
 
 III. This law is addressed to women, as well 
 as to men. 
 
 This rule is not regarded either by the Puri- 
 
 * Synopsis Crit. vol. I. Levit. 18 : 16. 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 163 
 
 tan, or by Omicron. They seem to think the 
 law speaks only to men. A serious error that 
 runs counter to the whole analogy of Scripture. 
 All general laws are alike addressed to both 
 sexes. "The Rabbins say, that whatsoever is 
 forbid to men, in the negative precepts of the 
 law, is also forbid to women." See Calmet's 
 Diet, under Woman. Wild as they were in other 
 matters, they were correct in this. 
 
 The first prohibition given to man, as a test 
 of his obedience, seems to have been delivered 
 to Adam before Eve was made — (Gen. 2 : 15- 
 22 ;) yet our common mother knew it was im- 
 posed on her, as well as on her husband. (Gen. 
 3 : 1-3.) The Decalogue was addressed to men, 
 just as this marriage law is ; but who doubts it 
 was addressed also to women ? In the tenth 
 commandment the Lawgiver says to man, 
 " Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife ;" and 
 does He not, at the same time, say to woman, 
 " Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's husband V 1 
 
 But Omicron objects, " The Hebrew wife 
 was, in fact, comparatively little more than the 
 husband's slave, whom he might dismiss at plea- 
 sure." — " It follows, from these considerations, 
 
164 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 that the Mosaic laws relative to marriage and 
 the sexes, such as those in Levit. 18 : 6-18, 
 (however we might understand them, if now first 
 given to us in the present state of society,) were 
 addressed only to Hebrew men. They could 
 not have been intelligible as addressed to He- 
 brew women ; because they had no voice or lot 
 in carrying them into execution; but were them- 
 selves merely passive in the arrangements be- 
 tween one family and another." (P. 27, par. 3, 
 5, Appendix.) 
 
 In reply the following remarks are offered : 
 1. The inquiry before us is, What is the duty of 
 Christian men and women ? If " the Hebrew 
 wife was little more than the husband's slave," 
 a Christian wife is not the slave of her husband, 
 nor can he dismiss her at pleasure. The law is 
 intelligible to a Christian woman. What is her 
 duty ? Is she not bound to obey the marriage 
 law? If a man be so wicked as to propose to 
 marry his sister, can she consent without sin? 
 Or if a man propose to contract any marriage 
 within the Levitical degrees, can the female ac- 
 cept his proposals, and be free from guilt ? 
 
 2. Why could not Hebrew women understand 
 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 165 
 
 the law? Were they so stupid as to be incapa- 
 ble of instruction ? Were not the precepts that 
 prohibited a son to marry his mother, or a bro- 
 ther to marry his sister, as intelligible to Hebrew 
 women as the precepts in the Decalogue, 
 " Thou shalt not commit adultery," and " Thou 
 shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife ?" 
 
 3. The Hebrew women were not passive in 
 marriage. They had a voice in forming this 
 interesting contract. Rebecca was consulted in 
 
 © 
 
 regard to her marriage with Isaac. This indeed 
 
 © © 
 
 occurred before the giving of the Mosaic law; 
 but it indicates the custom among the ancient 
 Hebrews. Ruth certainly was not passive in 
 forming a matrimonial connexion with Boaz. 
 She took decisive measures for effecting it. See 
 Ruth, chap. 3. The childless widow was autho- 
 rized by law to require her husband's brother to 
 marry her, and to treat him with great indignity 
 if he refused. (Deut. 25 : 5-10.) A daughter 
 betrothed by her parents, was allowed, when she 
 came of age, the privilege of refusing to con- 
 summate the marriage with the man selected, 
 and afterwards forming- a matrimonial connexion 
 
 © 
 
 with any one she might choose. See the form 
 15 
 
166 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 of renunciation in Selden's Uxor Ebr. Lib ii., 
 chap. 3. 
 
 4. " A Hebrew wife was, in fact, compara- 
 tively little more than the husband's slave I" So 
 says Omicron ; and the Puritan makes the same 
 assertion. (P. 7, at the bottom.) What proof 
 is offered? None by either writer, except the 
 law of divorce. This we shall examine presently. 
 In the meantime we deny the fact. In Christian 
 lands some wives are treated by their husbands 
 worse than slaves. But such cruel treatment is 
 not authorized by the Divine law ; nor does it 
 affect the relation of women to its binding au- 
 thority. Did Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, treat 
 their wives little better than slaves ? Did Moses 
 and Aaron act thus towards their wives 1 Did 
 Elkanah treat- his wives as slaves ? (1 Sam. 1 : 
 4-8.) Did King David so treat his wives ? 
 
 The Hebrews did, it is allowed, in corrupt 
 periods, act toward their wives with great cruel- 
 ty. But such conduct was unauthorized by their 
 laws. It was acting in opposition to the origi- 
 nal design of the marriage institution. Woman 
 was formed by the Creator to be " a help-meet " 
 for man. (Gen. 2 : 18.) It was always His will 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 167 
 
 that wives should be the companions of their 
 husbands, (Deut. 24 : 5 ;) and the bill of divorce- 
 ment which the law directed to be given to a 
 woman, when put away by her husband, was 
 allowed on account of the hardness of men's 
 hearts. 
 
 5. Nor were the Hebrews authorized to put 
 away their wives " at pleasure." Restraints 
 were laid on them. Some wives they were for- 
 bidden to divorce. See Deut. 22 : 13-19, 28, 
 29. The text referred to by Omicron (Deut. 
 25: 1) is altogether insufficient to sustain his 
 sweeping assertion, that a " Hebrew husband 
 might divorce his w r ife at any time, on slight 
 grounds," and " at pleasure." (P. 27.) The 
 " uncleanness " referred to in the text, was in the 
 judgment of Scott, something that formed " a 
 real grievance." Commentators, however, are 
 divided in their opinions ;* and so were the two 
 famous Jewish schools in our Saviour's time.f 
 
 The lax interpretation should not be admitted 
 for the following reasons : — 1. The condemna- 
 tion of it by our Great Teacher, when the Phar- 
 
 * Poole on Deut. 25 : 1. 
 t Clarke on Matt. 19 : 13. 
 
163 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 isees put to him this question : " Is it lawful for 
 a man to put away his wife for every cause?" 
 See Matt. 19 : 3-9. 2. The pungent rebuke 
 of the licentious conduct of the Jews, by Mala- 
 chi, God's last prophet under the Old Testament. 
 The Jews had divorced their wives, and mar- 
 ried other women ; so that the altar of the Lord 
 was covered " with tears, with weeping, and with 
 crying out, insomuch that He regarded not the 
 offering." " Yet ye say, Wherefore 1 Because 
 the Lord hath been witness between thee and 
 the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast 
 dealt treacherously : yet she is thy companion, 
 and the wife of thy covenant. And did he not 
 make one? Yet had he the residue of the 
 spirit. And wherefore one ? That he might 
 seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your 
 spirit, and let none deal treacherously against 
 the wife of his youth. For the Lord, the God 
 of Israel saith, that he hateth putting away." 
 
 Compare this scripture with the above quota- 
 tion. O micron says, " The Hebrew wife was 
 little better than her husband's slave V God says 
 she is his " companion, and the wife of his cove- 
 nant." Omicron says, The husband could dis- 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 169 
 
 miss his wife " at pleasure ;" God says, " He 
 hateth putting away" and warns the husband 
 not to " deal treacherously against the wife of 
 his youth." Now, was the Hebrew wife, whom 
 God denominates the companion of her husband, 
 and whom He condescends thus to protect in 
 the enjoyment of her rights, little better than 
 his slave? If a wicked man treated her so, it 
 was in opposition to Jehovah's known will. 
 
 6. That this Levitical law was addressed to 
 Hebrew women, as well as to men, is plain from 
 the twentieth chapter, which denounces the civil 
 penalty equally against both sexes. See vs. 11, 
 12, 14, 17, 20, 21. If the law was not address- 
 ed to women, they were guiltless, and were not 
 deserving of punishment. But, as they were to 
 be punished for its violations, it is evident they 
 were considered as guilty ; and it follows that 
 the law was addressed to them: for Paul says, 
 "Where no law is, there is no transgression." 
 And again, " Sin is not imputed when there is 
 no law." Rom. 4 : 15, and 5 : 13. 
 
 7. The last proof of the correctness of this 
 rule which we offer is, the interpretation 
 which Jonathan, the son of Uzziel, has given of 
 
 15* 
 
170 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 the seventh verse of this chapter. " He was," 
 says Adam Clarke, in his Succession of Sacred 
 Literature, (p. 50,) " brought up in the celebra- 
 ted school of Rabbi Hillel, grandfather to Ga- 
 maliel, at whose feet St. Paul was brought up. 
 Hillel died about the time of our Saviour's birth ; 
 and Jonathan, who was the most famous of all his 
 scholars, and equalled by the Jewish Rabbins to 
 Moses himself, continued to flourish a long time 
 after." This famous Jewish Rabbi regarded the 
 seventh verse as addressed directly to the woman, 
 as well as to the man. His interpretation is this : 
 " Turpitudinem patris. tui et turpitudinem ma- 
 tris tuae non contemnes : mulier non rem habebit 
 cum patre suo, et vir non coibit cum matre sua; 
 mater tua est, non revelabis turpitudinem ejus.* 
 
 Compare this with Omicro?i's assertion, (p. 
 27, 5th par.,) " that the Mosaic law relative to 
 marriage and the sexes, such as those in Levit. 
 18 : 6-18, (however we might understand them, 
 if now first given to us in the present state of 
 society,) were addressed only to Hebrew men." 
 How opposite to the views of this famous Jew- 
 ish Rabbi ! 
 
 * See his Targum in the London Polyglott. 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 171 
 
 Let us now exemplify the operation of this 
 rule. 
 
 Does the law say to man, "Thou sh alt not 
 uncover the nakedness of thy mother V 1 (V. 7.) 
 It says to woman, Thou shalt not cohabit with 
 thy father. 
 
 Does the law say to man, " Thou shalt not 
 uncover the nakedness of thy father's sister?" 
 (V. 12.) It says to woman, Thou shalt not co- 
 habit with thy father's brother. 
 
 Does the law say to man, " Thou shalt not 
 uncover thy father's brother's wife?" (V. 14.) 
 It says to woman, Thou shalt not cohabit with 
 thy mother's sister's husband. 
 
 Thus this marriage law accords with the mo- 
 ral law : for when the Decalogue says to man, 
 " Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife ;" it 
 says to woman, Thou shalt not covet thy neigh- 
 bor's husband. 
 
 IV. In interpreting the marriage laiv, we are 
 to avail ourselves of the light of Christianity. 
 
 This seems so plain as to need no proof. But 
 what says Omicron 1 " Some minds are doubt- 
 less led to look at the subject in a wrong light, 
 by making no distinction between the relative 
 
172 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 position of man and woman, husband and wife, in 
 our day, and their relative position under the 
 Hebrew commonwealth. Because the two sexes 
 stand on an equal footing in the eye of the law 
 and in general usage, it is natural, though not 
 correct, to regard them as having stood on the 
 same ground in respect to Hebrew law and cus- 
 tom." (P. 26, Appendix.) 
 
 Is this in point ? Had Omicron been called 
 upon to frame an excuse for the conduct of the 
 Jews in violating their law, this might be intro- 
 duced with some plausibility. But, in debating 
 the question, "Whether it is now lawful for a 
 Christian man, living under the light of the new 
 dispensation, to marry his deceased wife's sis- 
 ter, what has it to do with the question ? Are 
 we to shut our eyes against the light of Christi- 
 anity, and placing ourselves under the obscurity 
 of the old dispensation, and viewing ourselves 
 as citizens of "the Hebrew commonwealth," to 
 interpret the law as a civil or judicial law, and 
 thus ascertain our duty 1 Are we to look at this 
 subject with Jewish, and not with Christian 
 eyes ? How unreasonable ! The law laid down 
 in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus, is a law, 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 173 
 
 not of the Hebrew commonwealth, but of the 
 Church of God in all ages. We are Christians; 
 we live under the glorious light of the gospel; 
 Jesus Christ has explained to us the law of mar- 
 riage ; He prohibits divorce, except for one 
 cause : all this we are to remember, and to inter- 
 pret the law in all the light which Christianity 
 sheds upon it for ourselves. 
 
 But says Omicron, (p. 27,) " With us, in- 
 deed, this question assumes a somewhat differ- 
 ent shape, in consequence of our Saviour's pro- 
 hibition of divorce. Matt. 5: 31, 19: 6. But 
 t this, it must be remembered, was unknown to 
 the ancient Hebrews." The declaration which 
 God made by Malachi, " that he hateth putting 
 away," was also unknown to the ancient Hebrews; 
 but were the later Jews, who knew it, to pay no 
 regard to it, in their interpretation of the law of 
 divorce 1 Or are we, who not only know this, 
 but what our Saviour has said of divorce and 
 polygamy, and who enjoy the light which our 
 Redeemer has shed upon all laws, not to avail 
 ourselves of the light imparted to us in interpret- 
 ing the law of incest and of marriage? What 
 inexcusable ingratitude would this be ! If the 
 
174 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 ancient Hebrews erred for want of light, we 
 cannot plead the same excuse. We have ample 
 light ; let us walk in the light. 
 
 V. Affinity is as permanent as consan- 
 guinity. 
 
 ^This is denied both by Omicron, (p. 27,) and 
 by the Puritan, (p. 9.) " The Hebrew," says 
 the former, " at least would hardly have thought 
 so, judging from the customs of his country, 
 and from the provisions of the Mosaic law in 
 respect to inheritance and other like matters. 
 Yet so thouo-ht Maimonides, that learned and 
 celebrated Hebrew scholar. ' Conjunctiones 
 hie ceque prohibentur cum propinquis affmitate 
 et nuptiis atque cum propinquis sanguine, 
 teste etiam Maimonide.'* 
 
 " Even Maimonides testifies, that conjunctions 
 with relations by affinity and marriage, are as 
 much prohibited as with relations by blood." 
 
 The death of a wife does not, as the Puritan 
 supposes, (p. 9,) affect the affinity of her hus- 
 band to her surviving kindred. Her mother is 
 still his mother-in-law ; her brothers and sisters 
 
 * Poole Synop. Lev. 18 : 14. 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 175 
 
 are his brothers and sisters ; and they are still 
 the uncles and aunts of his children. Were 
 it otherwise, were the affinity established by 
 marriage dissolved by the death of a wife, there 
 would exist, on the ground of relationship, no 
 bar to his marriage with her daughter, or with 
 her mother ; but the first is expressly forbidden, 
 (Levit. 18: 17;) and the second was declared 
 to be wicked and punishable with death. See 
 Levit. 20 : 14. 
 
 If the Jews, by abusing the law of divorce, 
 repudiated their wives frequently and for trifling 
 causes, or, contrary to the original design of mar- 
 riage, multiplied their wives, their unwise and sin- 
 ful practices did not change the prohibitions of 
 the Levitical law, nor alter the affinity created by 
 marriage. The perplexities that may have arisen 
 from their folly in interpreting the law in re- 
 gard to themselves, are not to be brought for- 
 ward to obscure its obvious meaning in applica- 
 tion to Christians, to whom polygamy has been 
 plainly interdicted, and who are permitted to 
 divorce their wives for one cause only. The 
 true question is, What does the law say to us ? 
 not What does it say to the ancient Hebrews ? 
 
l?f) UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 In confirmation of his reasoning, Omicrorl 
 says, just before the preceding quotation, " As 
 a Hebrew, I might take a wife to-day, and di- 
 vorce her to-morrow. I might take a second, 
 and a third, yea, even a twentieth wife, and di- 
 vorce them all." And does he really believe 
 he could act in this licentious manner, under the 
 sanction of a divine law? Does he believe he 
 might, under a divine sanction, dismiss a wife 
 for every trifle, and, to gratify his lusts, dismiss 
 twenty wives 1 
 
 Omicron goes on to inquire, " Am I to un- 
 derstand, that affinity arising from these preca- 
 rious and transient connexions, was a bond as 
 close, and valid, and permanent, as the ties of 
 blood? and that the Hebrew was as strongly 
 bound to all the various relatives of his twenty 
 wives, as he was to his own blood-kindred of the 
 like degree V These are questions that might 
 be asked by a Hebrew, who, to gratify his law- 
 less passions, had divorced twenty wives, and 
 then found himself involved in a maze of difficul- 
 ties ; but surely they do not become a Christian 
 divine, who is discussing the duty, not of Jews, 
 but of Christians. 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE, 17? 
 
 The God of Israel had forbidden the king to 
 "multiply wives to himself," (Deut. 17:17,) 
 and prohibited to all Israel to form matrimonial 
 alliances with other nations, (1 Kings 11: 2;) yet 
 Solomon had seven hundred wives, and three hun- 
 dred concubines, (v. 3;) and among them were 
 " many strange women, together with the daugh- 
 ter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammon- 
 ites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites." (V. 
 1.) The mournful consequences of such viola- 
 tions of the Divine law, are recorded in sacred 
 history. See 1 Kings 11. Why did not O mi- 
 cron brinor forward this strong case of this licen- 
 tious king of Israel, who had, besides three 
 hundred concubines, thirty-Jive times twenty 
 wives, and then triumphantly propose his ques- 
 tions about affinity ! 
 
 The number of relations by affinity with 
 whom we may not cohabit, specified in the law, 
 are the following : 
 
 1. Step-mother, v. 8. 
 
 2. Father's brother's wife, v. 14, 
 
 3. Daughter-in-law, v. 15. 
 
 4. Brother's wife, v. 16. 
 
 5. Wife's daughter, v. 17. 
 
 16 
 
178 Ux\L AWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 6. Her son's daughter, v. 17. 
 
 7. Her daughter's daughter, v. 17. 
 
 8. Wife's sister, v. 18. 
 
 All these are obviously relations by affinity ; 
 and they are as numerous as the relations by 
 consanguinity, specified in the law : so that it is 
 very evident, from the explanation given by the 
 Lawgiver himself of the general rule laid down 
 in the sixth verse, that near of kin compre- 
 hends affinity as well as consanguinity.* 
 
 * The Supreme Court of Massachusetts has, by a re- 
 cent decision, reversed that of an inferior court which 
 had pronounced the marriage of a man with his deceased 
 wife's daughter to be incestuous, on the ground that, 
 by the death of his wife, the affinity between him and 
 his wife' s daughter entirely ceased ; and therefore he 
 could lawfully marry his step-daughter. So state the 
 public papers. 
 
 Such is the decision of a Supreme Court in the land 
 of steady habits — in the land of the descendants of the 
 Puritans! This is the doctrine of the Puritan. See 
 p. 9, paragraph next to the last. He will hail it as an- 
 other advance of the public mind towards the truth ! 
 
 Let us look at the consequences of this decision of 
 the Supreme Court. 
 
 If the death of a wife dissolve the affinity between 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 179 
 
 her husband and her daughter, it must dissolve the af- 
 finity between him and all her kindred. What follows? 
 
 1. A man marries a woman ; and by his marriage he 
 sustains affinity to all her kindred. Her mother be- 
 comes his mother-in-law ; her father his father-in-law ; 
 her sons and daughters his step-sons and step-daugh- 
 ters ; her uncles and aunts his uncles and aunts. She 
 dies; and, according to the doctrine of the Supreme 
 Court, all these relations, which had subsisted till the 
 moment of her last breath, cease. The husband sur- 
 vives, and her blood kindred survive ; but the relation 
 which bound them together has vanished with her 
 breath. Her mother and father were his mother and 
 father-in-law, but they are so no longer. Her brothers 
 and sisters were his brothers and sisters-in-law, but 
 they are so no longer. Her sons and daughters were 
 his step-sons and daughters, but they are so no longer. 
 These endearing ties may have subsisted long, and 
 strengthened with revolving years; but by her death, 
 they have all been dissolved in a moment, and all these 
 survivors are sundered apart, as if they had never been 
 united. How revolting to common sense ! 
 
 2. Let us see what marriages become lawful by this 
 doctrine. 
 
 A man may marry his deceased wife's sister, her 
 daughter, and her mother; although these marriages 
 are prohibited by the law of God. See Levit. 18 : 17, 
 18, and chap. 20 : 14. 
 
 As the death of a husband must produce on affinity 
 
180 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 the same effect as the death of a wife, a man may, after 
 the death of the husband, marry his brother's wife ; — 
 his father's brother's wife ; — his daughter-in-law ; — and 
 his step-mother ! — although these marriages are all ex- 
 pressly forbidden by the Divine law. See Levit. 18 : 
 8, 14, 15, 16. 
 
 Whither are we going ? Of what advantage is the 
 light of Divine revelation to civil Courts, if decisions 
 which draw after them such consequences are to pre- 
 vail ? Has the spirit of the Puritans departed from the 
 Courts of their descendants? "Tell it not in Gath ; 
 publish it not in the streets of Askelon !" 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 181 
 
 CHAPTER XI, 
 
 Subject continued. — Rules of inteipretation. — Proofs that the mar- 
 riage is unlawful. — Opinion of Basil the Great. — Meaning of near 
 of kin. — Omicron's interpretation. — His error. — His imaginary re- 
 lation. — But two kinds of relations. 
 
 Let the reader review the rules of interpreta- 
 tion laid down in the preceding chapter, and ex- 
 amine whether they are sound and correct. That 
 he may see them in one view, we repeat them. 
 
 I. This law is to be interpreted in conformity 
 with its general and permanent character. 
 
 II. This law settles the degrees of marriage, 
 without specifying all the particular cases which 
 come within the compass of these degrees. 
 
 III. This law is addressed to women as well 
 as to men. 
 
 IV. In interpreting this law we are to avail 
 ourselves of the light of Christianity . 
 
 V. Affinity is as permanent as consangui- 
 nity. 
 
 16* 
 
182 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 By these rules of interpretation, the marriage 
 of a man with his deceased wife's sister can be 
 proved to be unlawful. 
 
 1. The fiftli rule shows that the near relation 
 which a man sustains to his wife's sister, is not 
 destroyed by her death ; and, by the second rule, 
 she is brought within the interdicted degrees : 
 for she sustains to her sister's husband precisely 
 the same relation he sustains to his brother's 
 wife, w r hom he is expressly forbidden to marry. 
 
 2. Such a marriage is unlawful by the third 
 rule ; for it teaches us that the law addresses 
 women as well as men. When, therefore, it 
 prohibits a man to marry his brother's wife, it 
 virtually prohibits a woman to marry her sister's 
 husband. 
 
 3. This marriage is prohibited by the general 
 rule laid down in the sixth verse of the chapter; 
 for tha husband is " near of kin ' to the sister of 
 his deceased wife, according to the true meaning 
 of the phrase, as explained by the subsequent 
 prohibitions, which prove that it refers to rela- 
 tions by affinity as well as by consanguinity. 
 
 Basil, surnamed the Great, who flourished 
 in the fourth century, denominates this mar- 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 163 
 
 riage " an obscene transaction ;" and afterwards, 
 in proving it to be unlawful, reasons thus : " We 
 might, in the first instance, object, (and in mat- 
 ters of this kind, such objection is of great im- 
 portance,) that among Christians, there is no 
 such custom ; and custom has the authority of 
 law. But I am far from admitting that the di- 
 vine Lawgiver has been silent on this subject. 
 On the contrary, I assert that he has most se- 
 verely and pointedly condemned such marriages ; 
 for that alone, Thou slialt not approach to any 
 who is near of kin, certainly includes this spe- 
 cies of relation ; for what is so near to a man as 
 his wife ? are they not one flesh 1 By the wife, 
 therefore, her sister becomes nearly related to 
 the husband. For as he may not marry the 
 mother of his wife, or the daughter of his wife, 
 so, for the same reason that he may not take the 
 mother or the daughter, he may not take the 
 sister of his wife ; yea, no more than he may 
 take his own sister by blood. 55 * 
 
 In this extract we have, besides the reasoning 
 of this great Christian divine, his testimony to 
 
 * Dr Livingston's Disser. pp. 149, 150. 
 
184 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 two points : — first, that such marriages were not 
 customary among Christians, being deemed un- 
 lawful : and, secondly, that the Levitical law was 
 held by the Church to be binding. 
 
 To all this Omicron will object. He lays great 
 stress on the original terms, in the sixth verse, 
 translated near of kin, and attempts to prove 
 that they refer only to 6/oorZ-relation. We think 
 he has failed in his criticism. 
 
 The plain and obvious interpretation is, that 
 they comprehend all the degrees specified, wheth- 
 er of consanguinity or of affinity, and that the 
 specifications are designed to show the true ex- 
 tent and compass of the general rule. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor says, "For near of kin is an 
 indefinite word, and may signify as uncertainly 
 as great and little ; nothing of itself determinate- 
 ly, but what you will comparatively to others ; 
 and it may be extended to all generations, where 
 any records are kept, as among the Jews they 
 were ; from Judah to Joseph, the espoused of the 
 Blessed Virgin." 
 
 Again, "Affinity makes conjunctions equal to 
 those of consanguinity : and, therefore, thou 
 must not uncover that nakedness which is thine 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 185 
 
 own in another person of blood or affinity, or 
 else is thy father's or thy mother's, thy brother's 
 or thy sister's, thy son's or thy daughter's naked- 
 ness."* 
 
 There is justice in Taylor's remarks on the 
 meaning of the words he quotes. Jesus Christ 
 is our Redeemer, the God, near kinsman, (Levit. 
 25 : 49,) who redeems the forfeited inheritance. 
 " We are members of his body, of his flesh, and 
 of his bones," Ephes. 5 : 30. And what does 
 this signify ? Why, that Jesus Christ assumed 
 human nature, and thus became our near ki?is- 
 man ; or, as the apostle says, "Forasmuch, then, 
 as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, 
 he also himself likewise took part of the same ; 
 that through death he might destroy him that had 
 the power of death, that is, the devil ; and de- 
 liver them who, through fear of death, were all 
 their lifetime subject to bondage," Heb. 2 : 14. 
 
 Paul calls all the Israelites " his brethren, his 
 kinsmen according to the flesh," Rom. 9:3; and 
 what did he mean but that he and they were de- 
 scended from the same patriarchs, Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob? 
 
 * Duct. Dubit. pp. 230, 231. 
 
1S6 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 Every man is my kinsman according to the 
 flesh. Why ? Because we are all descended 
 from the same common pair, have the same 
 blood flowing in our veins, and partake of the 
 same nature. " God," says an inspired writer, 
 " hath made of one blood all the nations of the 
 earth, for to dwell on all the face of the earth." 
 Acts 17 : 26. Hence the language of the pro- 
 phet, " And that thou hide not thyself from thine 
 ownjlesh" (original tpiBlaa ; Sept. uno tmv olxtlav 
 tov o-TiEQpaxog,) Isai. 58. 7. All these expressions 
 are to be determined by the context and the oc- 
 casion. They are, according to the context 
 and occasion, more general or more restricted 
 in their meaning. 
 
 The meaning of the terms in Levit. 18 : 6, is 
 explained in the context, by the prohibitions ; 
 which obviously show, that it includes relations 
 by affinity, as well as relations by consanguinity ; 
 and that it is to be extended as far as the degrees 
 specified, and no farther. 
 
 Philology does not, as Omicron asserts, " con- 
 fine the prohibition in verse 6 to Wood-kindred," 
 (p. 27,) in his sense of the terms. He means, 
 as is manifest from the two preceding para- 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 187 
 
 graphs, blood-kindred, to the exclusion of " af- 
 finity, or relationship by marriage." Neither 
 the original Hebrew nor Greek terms will justi- 
 fy the assertion. Look at his proofs in the par- 
 agraphs. ^232, as we have already seen, is a 
 word of extensive signification. In Gen. 6 : 12, 
 it means all mankind ; and in Gen. 7 : 21, it sig- 
 nifies all animals as well as men. Simon, in his 
 Lexicon, says it means relatives by blood and 
 affinity. That the latter are embraced, see Judg. 
 9 : 2, and 2 Sam. 19 : 11, 12. The passages re- 
 ferred to by Omicron, use the Hebrew word "isitt) 
 for &fooc?-kindred ; but his comment on Num. 27 : 
 11, is not correct. He says, " This last passage 
 in Numbers, is especially decisive; for it directs 
 that the inheritance of land, in default of a son 
 or other near heir to any person, shall go to the 
 next of his 'kin;' ^i, (she-er,) in his clan or 
 division of his tribe, (not in his family , as in the 
 English version.) But inheritance went only 
 by blood, never by affinity ; and in this very in- 
 stance it passed over all the nearest relations by 
 affinity, to go to a blood-kinsman, however re- 
 mote. This word, then, did not of itself include 
 even the nearest degrees of affinity.'' 
 
188 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 On this passage of Omicron we offer the fol~ 
 lowing remarks : 
 
 1. His censure of the English version is 
 groundless ; for the original word is not the one 
 quoted by him, but a very different word, which 
 is rightly rendered by the English word family. 
 
 2. The kinsman spoken of is the kinsman of 
 the deceased maris father, that is next to him of 
 his familv. 
 
 3. When a Hebrew died without a son, the 
 inheritance went, according to law, to his daugh- 
 ter, (v 8;) but if he had no daughter, then it 
 went to his brethren ; if he had no brethren, 
 then to his father's brethren ; and if his father 
 had no brethren, then to his father's kinsman 
 that is next to him of his family. It is true that 
 the inheritance passed the nearest affinity-rela- 
 tions ; and so, with the exception of a daughter, 
 it passed the nearest female blood-relations, as 
 sisters and mother, and even his father, that it 
 mio-ht cro to his father's brethren or a more remote 
 kinsman, (Num. 27 : 9-11.) Now, from this 
 legal arrangement about inheritance, what argu- 
 ment can, with propriety, be drawn to limit the 
 signification of the Hebrew word to blood-kin- 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 189 
 
 <ired, to the exclusion of relations by affinity, or 
 marriage ? It will be seen, by examining the 
 prohibitions, (although Omicron thinks this ex- 
 clusive signification is confirmed by the addition 
 of another Hebrew term,) that the meaning of 
 the original term does include affinity, as well 
 as consanguinity, even by his own admission. 
 
 It is added by Omicron, " The Seventy also 
 understood it in the same restricted sense; and 
 have always rendered it by some form of oixo, 
 oixeiog, and the like, implying a relationship 
 in one's own house or family, that is, by 
 blood ; and not contracted from abroad by 
 marriage." 
 
 Now we undertake to prove that the mean- 
 ing of this Greek term is not restricted to rela- 
 tionship by blood, and that instead of excluding 
 relationship by marriage, it really includes it 
 " And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and 
 all thy house (otv.og, *|fc*5) into the ark," Gen. 
 7; 1. Who constituted all Noah's family? 
 Were they all blood-relations, and none by affi- 
 nity? Noah obeyed the command ; and whom 
 did he take with him into the ark ? We have an 
 answer in the seventh verse : "And Noah went 
 
 1? 
 
190 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 in, and his sons, and his wife, and his son's 
 wives with him, into the ark." Were the wives 
 of Noah's sons &Zoof?-relations 1 Take another 
 proof. " For I know him, that he will command 
 his children and his household (or/.og) after him/' 
 &c, (Gen. 18 : 19.) Who constituted the house- 
 hold of Abraham, as distinguished from his 
 children ? We find an answer in chap. 17 : 23. 
 " And Abraham took Ishmael, his son, and all 
 that were born in his house, (oixoyevttg.) and all 
 that were bought with his money, every male 
 among the men of Abraham's house, (otxoc,) 
 and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in 
 the self-same day, as God had said unto him." 
 So extensive is this Greek term, that it includes 
 in its meaning not only relations by affinity, but 
 even servants bought with money. Robinson, in 
 his Greek and English Lexicon, gives as the 
 meaning of this term, under " c) meton. a house- 
 hold, family, those who live together in a 
 house."* See also Gen. 35 . 2 ; 42 : 33 ; 47 : 12, 
 24. Exod. 1 : I ; 12 : 4. Levit. 16 : 17, and 
 twenty more. Omicron is entirely mistaken as 
 
 * Omicron is Robinson. 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 191 
 
 to the meaning of this Greek term. It certainly 
 includes relations by affinity. 
 
 Omicron, to establish what he deems the mean- 
 ing of the original term translated " near of kin;' 
 subjoins this remark, (p. 27 :) " Farther, the 
 addition here of the other Hebrew word "pbn, 
 be-sa-ro, ' of his flesh,' renders the expression 
 still more specific, and makes it equivalent to 
 'flesh of his flesh.'" 
 
 The comprehensive import of this Hebrew 
 term, has already been shown. Manifestly it is 
 more extensive than the other term, 1S123 ; it 
 certainly embraces relation by affinity, as well 
 as relation by consanguinity. Its addition, 
 therefore, must extend, not limit, the import of 
 the latter word. Indeed the two words seem to 
 have been designedly selected by the Lawgiver, 
 that the general rule in the sixth verse might ac- 
 cord with the subsequent prohibitions, and em- 
 brace both kinds of relations, as they clearly do. 
 
 The view we have taken of the meaning of the 
 Hebrew term " near of kin," is confirmed b) 
 the Targums of Onlelos and of Jonathan The 
 Targum of OnJcelos, which, according to Dr. 
 Clarke, was written " some time before the 
 
192 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 Christian era/'* translates Levit. 18 : 6, thus : 
 " Vir vir ad omnem proximam carnis suae (s^p 
 ft^toii) non accedet, ut revelet turpitudinem : 
 Ego Deus." 
 
 The Tar gum of Jonathan, who is placed by 
 Dr. Clarke, A. D. 50, gives this version of the 
 same verse : " Vir juvenis aut senex^ad ullam 
 propinquam carnis suae (fi^b^ PQ* 1 ^) non ac- 
 cedetis ad contemnendum turpitudinem ejus con- 
 cubitu, aut nudatione turpitudinis : ego Domi- 
 nus." 
 
 The word proximus used by the former, and 
 the word propinquus by the latter, (and the 
 original terms,) signify a relation by affinity, as 
 well as by consanguinity . So that both these 
 celebrated Jewish Rabbies differ from Omicron 
 in the interpretation they give of the Hebrew 
 terms rendered in our English version " near of 
 kin." 
 
 It is manifest, then, that " PMJology" does 
 not confine the prohibition in the sixth verse to 
 Wood-kindred. 
 
 Omicron, presuming that his philology is s«8- 
 
 * Secession of Chris. Literature, p. 48. 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 193 
 
 tained by the prohibitions, adds : " But how is 
 this borne out by the subsequent verses ? I 
 agree with Dr. Hodge, that all that follows is only 
 the amplification and application of this general 
 rule, showing what degrees of nearness of kin 
 constitute a bar to marriage. Hence, when there 
 could be no possible doubt as to the meaning of 
 • flesh of his flesh,' no specification is given : as in 
 the case of one's own daughter. But in cases 
 where doubt could arise, or where there could be 
 any possible evasion, a specific prohibition is sub- 
 joined ; hence the wife's daughter is expressly 
 prohibited in verse 17 ; because, although no one 
 could doubt that my own daughter is ' flesh of 
 my flesh,' yet it might be a question, whether 
 my step-daughter is to be so regarded." 
 
 The following remarks on this quotation will 
 test the correctness of Omicrori's reasoning. 
 
 1. As his object is to prove, from the verse? 
 subsequent to the sixth, that they restrict the 
 prohibitions to blood-kindred, he must mean, by 
 "flesh of his flesh," and "flesh of my flesh," 
 blood-kindred ; unless he intends, very impro- 
 perly, to shift his ground. 
 
 %. Omicron has been most unfortunate in his 
 17* 
 
194 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 inspection of the prohibitions. Can any one 
 doubt whether a mother is a Woorf-relation? Is 
 evasion here possible ? Let the reader open his 
 Bible, and look at the first prohibition, (v. 7.) 
 What is it? "The nakedness of thy mother 
 shalt thou not uncover : she is thy mother ; thou 
 shalt not uncover her nakedness." Observe, too. 
 the prohibition is repeated. 
 
 3. Omicron in fact yields the point in dispute ; 
 for he shows that a step-daughter is expressly 
 prohibited, in verse 17. What is a step-daugh- 
 ter ? Not a ^food-relation, as he represents her 
 to be, but manifestly a relation by affinity, or 
 marriage. 
 
 Thus, by his own showing, the general rule 
 in the sixth verse includes relations by affinity, 
 as well as by consanguinity. If there were no 
 other cases of the kind, this single prohibition 
 would be decisive of the question. But there 
 are more; not less than eight, as already shown, 
 (page 177,) viz., step-mother, father's brother's 
 wife, daughter-in-law, brother's wife, wife's 
 daughter or step-daughter, wife's son's daugh- 
 ter, and her daughter's daughter, and wife's sis- 
 ter. So that the number of q^Em'ty-relations is 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 195 
 
 equal to the number of blood-relations found 
 in the prohibitions. 
 
 ButOmicron has contrived, by inventing a new- 
 relative, to reduce the number to three only : 
 the wife's " mother, daughter, and grand-daugh- 
 ter," (p. 28.) This new relative is denominated 
 by him affinity through blood. He distributes 
 relations into three kinds. The relation of a 
 step-mother he calls " affinity through blood; 51 
 that of a wife's step-mother, "affinity through 
 marriage ;" that of a sister, " blood," (p. 28. 
 near the top.) Affinity through blood we regard 
 as a mere abuse of terms. A step-mother sus- 
 tains no such relation. Her relation is by affini- 
 ty or marriage. Equally erroneous is it in Omi- 
 cron to denominate "paternal uncle's wife," 
 "son's wife," and "brother's wife," "affinity 
 through blood." 
 
 There are but two kinds of relatives; one by 
 blood, and the other by marriage. Consangui- 
 nity is applied to the former, and affinity to the 
 latter. Webster defines affinity, "The relation 
 contracted by marriage, between a husband and 
 his wife's kindred, and between a wife and her 
 husband's kindred ; in contradistinction from 
 
196 UNLAWGUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 consanguinity, or relation by blood." Johnsons 
 definition is the same. There is no such rela- 
 tion as affinity of or through blood. It is a mere 
 invention of Omicron's imagination. By this 
 contrivance he strikes four relations from the 
 affinity class ; " father's wife, paternal uncle's 
 wife, brother's wife, son's wife," (p. 28,) and 
 by speaking of the "blood-kin" of a wife; he 
 presents " the rule of prohibition on the ground 
 of blood, under three aspects," (p. 28.) But let 
 O micron return to the use of proper terms, and 
 lay aside his imaginary relation, and what will 
 follow ? He will then present the rule of pro- 
 hibition on two grounds, that of blood and that 
 of affinity ; and will, of course, exhibit it under 
 two aspects. His rule will read thus : " I may 
 not cohabit, 
 
 " 1. With my own blood-k'm, in the six nearest 
 degrees. 
 
 " 2. With my affinity relations, in the eight 
 nearest degrees." 
 
 If O micron feels particularly attached to his 
 rule of "three aspects of blood," we think we 
 shall not object to it, provided he will strike 
 out of the preceding paragraph his paren- 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 197 
 
 thesis, "(omitting verse 18 for the present,)" 
 and add to the wife's kindred her sister, who is 
 certainly a blood-kin of her body. Then his 
 third aspect will read thus, " With the four near- 
 est blood-kin of her body with whom I have co- 
 habited." 
 
 " If affinity," inquires Omicron (p. 28, last 
 par. but one,) " be the same with blood in the 
 eye of the divine law, where is the limit to be 
 drawn?" This question we answer by another. 
 If blood be the only reason of the law, where is 
 the limit to be drawn? We answer both by 
 saying, The law prescribes the limit. He adds, 
 " If my wife's sister be to me in this respect as 
 my own sister by blood, then why does she not 
 stand in just the same relation to my own brother ! 
 A singular question ! With the same propriety 
 might Omicron ask, If, by marriage, I and my 
 wife are so intimately related as to be one flesh, 
 why does she not stand in just the same relation 
 to my own brother ? Because she is not mar- 
 ried to him. 
 
 The relation which a man bears to his bro- 
 ther's wife has generally been admitted to be the 
 same as the relation he bears to his wife's sister. 
 
19S UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 Omicron denies this; and, styling a " Brother's 
 wife affinity through blood," he says, " Parallel, 
 not the wife's sister, as is often assumed, but the 
 wife's brother's wife :" (p. 28:) that is, the rela- 
 tion of a wife's brother's wife, which results from 
 two intervening marriages, is the same as the re- 
 lation of a brother's wife, which results from a 
 single marriage. A singular parallel ! My bro- 
 ther's wife might say, " The relation I sustain 
 to my husband is the nearest of all human rela- 
 tions; we are * one fesJi;' I therefore bear a 
 near relation to his brother." In like manner, I 
 may say, " The relation I sustain to my wife is 
 the nearest of all human relations ; we are ' one 
 flesh :' I, therefore, bear a near relation to her sis- 
 ter." Are not these two relations parallel? 
 
 Omicron is not correct in saying that marriage 
 with a wife's mother is expressly forbidden in 
 verse 17. That verse does not expressly prohi- 
 bit such a marriage. Its unlawfulness is deter- 
 mined by inference; and the terrible penalty 
 denounced against it, in chap 20 : 14, shows 
 the inference to be correct. See above, chap, vii : 
 p. 124. 
 
 Further, let it be observed, that, by one of his 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 199 
 
 own rules, on p. 28, No. 2, the marriage of a 
 man with his deceased wife's sister, can be 
 proved to be unlawful. The rule laid down by 
 us for interpreting this law of marriage, in Levit. 
 18, (p. 181,) that the Lawgiver speaks in it to 
 women, as well as to men, we deem perfectly just, 
 and not to be disproved. Now, as a man can, ac- 
 cording to Omicrm's direction, say, ''I may not 
 cohabit with that with which my own blood-kin 
 of the four nearest degrees has cohabited ;" 
 among which degrees is a brother ; or, in other 
 words, I may not marry his wife : so a woman 
 can say, " I may not cohabit with that with 
 which my blood-kin of the four nearest degrees 
 has cohabited ;" among which degrees is a sis- 
 ter : or, in other words, I may not marry her 
 husband. 
 
 If, then, it be unlawful for a woman to cohabit 
 with, or marry her sister's husband, it must be 
 unlawful for that man to marry his deceased 
 wife's sister. 
 
 One remark more, and we have done with his 
 objections. Speaking of a man who has married 
 a second time, Omicron says, (p. 28,) " The for- 
 mer prohibitions as to blood and blood-affinity," 
 
^00 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 (blood-affinity ! an abuse of terms !) " all remain : 
 but his marriage has brought him into a new af- 
 finity with the female relations of his late wife." 
 New relations ! what new relations to the female 
 relations of his late wife? They remain un- 
 changed. He goes on to inquire, " Do the same 
 prohibitions pass over now upon, and include all 
 these new relations?" When Omicron has 
 proved that affinity to a wife's kindred is de- 
 stroyed or changed by her death, he may ask 
 this question. This he has not done, nor is he 
 likely to do so. The prohibitions passed upon 
 and included the kindred of the first wife, as 
 soon as she was married ; and after her decease 
 they remain upon them, and abide on them, dur- 
 ing their lives, and the life of her husband. 
 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 201 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Conclusion. — Leviticus 18: 18. — Meaning. — Objections. — Implica 
 tion often rejected. — Penalties of the Hebrew civil law 
 
 In the last chapter it was shown, by just rules 
 of interpretation, that it is unlawful for a man to 
 marry his deceased wife's sister, for the following 
 reasons : 
 
 1 . He sustains to her precisely the same rela- 
 tion which he sustains to his brother's wife, 
 whom he is expressly forbidden (v. 16) to marry. 
 
 2. As the law addresses women as well as men, 
 when itsaysto a man, Thou shalt not cohabit with 
 thy brother's wife, it virtually says to a woman, 
 Thou shalt not cohabit with thy sister's husband, 
 
 3. A man's sister-in-law is near of kin to him ; 
 and so comes under the general rule of prohibi- 
 tion in the 6th verse. 
 
 4. She is blood-k'm to her sister, with whom 
 her brother-in-law has cohabited. 
 
 18 
 
202 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 To all these reasons we subjoin another, that 
 a man is expressly prohibited to marry his wife's 
 aister. (Ver. 18.) 
 
 The prohibition is so plain that our brethren 
 do not deny that it was unlawful to marry a wife's 
 sister, while she was living. But they contend, 
 that the prohibition was binding only during the 
 life-time of the first sister to whom the man was 
 married. 
 
 In replying to this objection, we shall not avail 
 ourselves of the position taken by our friends, who 
 contend that this part of the law relates to Poly' 
 gamy. Allowing the construction put upon the 
 text by our opponents to be correct, we shall 
 meet them on their own chosen ground. 
 
 Two remarks will aid us in coming to a right 
 conclusion. 
 
 1. The question under debate, is not whether 
 it was lawful for a Jew, but whether it is lawful 
 for a Christian, to marry his deceased wife's sis- 
 ter 1 These questions are materially different; 
 because the circumstances of the two individuals 
 are widely different. The Jew lived under a Theo- 
 cracy, a civil government in which God was the 
 king ; and the light which he enjoyed was com- 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 203 
 
 paratively obscure. In consideration of the dis- 
 pensation under which he lived, his conduct 
 was, in some things, winked at. He might have 
 more than one wife, and he might divorce his 
 wives, and not be punished by the civil magistrate 
 for his offence against the moral law. But to a 
 Christian, who lives under the new and better 
 dispensation, and enjoys the clear light of the 
 gospel, polygamy is utterly unlawful ; nor is he 
 permitted to divorce his wife, except for fornica- 
 tion. What might, in the eye of the civil mag- 
 istrate, be regarded as not unlawful to a Jew, is 
 now known to be entirely unlawful to a Christian. 
 It is important to keep this distinction in view. 
 Neither Omicron nor the Puritan gave it due 
 weight in the argument. 
 
 2. The question is to be settled by availing 
 ourselves of the light of the gospel, and not by 
 returning to the obscurity of the old dispensa- 
 tion. This seems perfectly obvious ; and yet we 
 have seen how both the Puritan and Omicron 
 wish to try the question at the bar of Judaism, 
 and in a Jewish court. 
 
 Our brethren plead, as an objection to our doc- 
 trine, that the lawfulness of the marriage under 
 
204 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 discussion, may be inferred from the clause in 
 the 18th verse; "in her life-time" They con- 
 tend, that, although the law forbids a man to 
 have for wives two sisters at the same time, yet 
 it does not forbid a man to marry two sisters in 
 succession, the second after the death of the first. 
 
 We reply, The law, as we have before shown 
 by a fair construction, has, in preceding sections, 
 pronounced its prohibition of such a marriage ; 
 and this prohibition is not to be set aside by a 
 mere inference from a single clause in a single 
 verse. 
 
 With more plausibility may an inference in 
 favor of polygamy be drawn from this text; 
 for, while it prohibits a man to take his wife's 
 sister in marriage, it does not prohibit him \o 
 marry another woman, during the life-time of 
 the first wife. Is such an inference admissible ? 
 Is polygamy now lawful, or was it ever really 
 lawful 1 Neither the Puritan nor Omicron 
 pleads for this. " We grant," says the first, (p. 
 20,) " that polygamy was forbidden in the moral 
 law ; though in terms so obscure, that the best 
 of men seem not to have been aware of the pro- 
 hibition, in the early days of the Hebrew com- 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE, 205 
 
 mon wealth. It was one oUkose sins which, being 
 deeply imbedded in the customs of the people 
 and institutions of society, was only checked and 
 restrained, and not absolutely forbidden by civil 
 legislation. "The latter says, (p. 29,) " But fur- 
 ther, the Mosaic laws, if they did not sanction 
 polygamy, did at least in some instances regulate 
 it, as being a former custom ; just as in other 
 cases of old customs, which the Lawgiver did not 
 see fit expressly to prohibit." 
 
 Polygamy then was, by the admission of 
 both our opponents, always sinful: "which 
 God/' says the Puritan, (p. 20,) " as moral go- 
 vernor, uttering the higher laws of the universe, 
 condemned." The inference, therefore, in favor 
 of this sinful custom, derived from this verse, 
 with more force and plausibility than the infer- 
 ence in favor of the marriage under debate, 
 must be rejected as unsound and inadmissible. 
 The Jew, accustomed to regard polygamy as 
 lawful, did not see this truth: but Christians, 
 who have been taught to regard that Oriental 
 custom as sinful, inconsistent with the original 
 design of the marriage institution, and in oppo- 
 sition to the plainly expressed will of our su- 
 18* 
 
206 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 prerae Lawgiver, see it clearly, and, therefore, 
 reject the inference. 
 
 In fact, this verse, if it does not contain a 
 general prohibition of polygamy in plain terms, 
 certainly does contain a prohibition of polygamy 
 in respect to two sisters. It also assigns the 
 reason of this prohibition, the vexation and un- 
 happiness that would result from it to the first 
 wife ; and does not the same reason apply to this 
 sinful practice, whether the two wives be sisters, 
 or be taken from unrelated families 1 See the 
 case of Elkanah and his wives. (I Sam. 1 : 1-8.) 
 Had not the Hebrews been misled by the pre- 
 valence of this vicious custom, they might have 
 derived salutary instruction from this prohibition, 
 which was designed to impose a restraint on 
 polygamy. > 
 
 The inference in favor of polygamy is urged 
 by none ; it is abandoned by all as unsound and 
 inadmissible : and why should not the inference 
 in favor of the marriage in question be relin- 
 quished as untenable? Will it be said, If this 
 marriage were sinful, the prohibition would 
 have been delivered in plainer terms ?^ The as- 
 sumption is unfounded, and does not accord 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 207 
 
 with facts. Polygamy was always sinful, and 
 yet the terms in which the law prohibited it 
 were not so plain as to convince the ancient 
 Hebrews of its unlawful nature. The supreme 
 Lawgiver always legislates with infinite wisdom, 
 but not always as human wisdom would dic- 
 tate. 
 
 To rest the decision of an important question 
 in morals, on so slight and seeming an implica- 
 tion of a single phrase in a single text, would be 
 hazardous indeed. 
 
 Various passages might be here adduced 
 from sacred Scripture, the implication of which 
 must be rejected. Take a few examples : " The 
 Lord said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives, 
 and circumcise again the children of Israel the 
 second time." (Jos. 5: 2.) From this some 
 might be led to think, that circumcision was to 
 be repeated on those who had already received 
 in their flesh the sign of the covenant. Such 
 an inference, however, could not be admitted, 
 though seeming to accord with the terms of the 
 command. Nothing more was meant by it, than 
 that the children on whom this sign had not been 
 impressed, should now receive it — " Therefore 
 
208 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 Michal, Saul's daughter, had no child unto 
 the day of her death/' (2 Sam. 6 : 23,) does 
 not imply that she had a child at her death, or 
 after that event, as an unreflecting person might 
 imagine. — Paul says, " Then we which are alive 
 and remain, shall be caught up together with 
 them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." 
 (1 Thes. 4: 17.) Some might feel inclined to 
 suppose Paul believed that he and some of the 
 Thessalonians would be alive at the second ad- 
 vent of our Redeemer ; but though the words of 
 the apostle seem to imply it, we know he did 
 not so believe. — In answer to Peter's question 
 about John, " Jesus saith unto him, If I will 
 that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? 
 Follow thou me." What inference was drawn 
 from these words of our Lord ? The sacred 
 historian has told us : " Then went this saying 
 abroad among the brethren, that that disciple 
 should not die." Was this inference correct ? 
 It was not ; for John, we know, did die ; and he 
 himself adds, as a corrective of their mistake, 
 " Yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die, 
 but if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that 
 othee?" (John 21 : 20-23.) 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 209 
 
 We have, it is true, sufficient reason for re- 
 jecting the implication of these texts ; and have 
 we not abundant reason for rejecting the impli- 
 cation of the particular text under review ? 
 
 Let the truths that have been established in 
 this discussion be again recalled. We have, it 
 is believed, proved, that the Levitical law is an 
 ecclesiastical law, (not civil or judicial,) design- 
 ed for the Church in every age ; which, having 
 never been repealed, is perpetually binding on 
 Christians. It has been proved, that this law 
 prohibits not only single incestuous acts of un- 
 cleanness between near relations, but their mar- 
 riage, and prescribes the limits of lawful mar- 
 riage. It has been proved, that this ecclesiasti- 
 cal law is a moral law, designed to regulate the 
 conduct of men in a matter of high interest, in 
 which domestic purity and sound morals in the 
 community are deeply concerned ; and a natural 
 law, resting on the natural relations which the 
 Creator has constituted. It has been proved, 
 that this ecclesiastical, moral, and natural law 
 prohibits, in various ways, and in different sec- 
 tions, the marriage in question. 
 
 1. It comes within the compass of the general 
 
210 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 prohibition or rule laid down in the sixth verse : 
 for the sister of a married woman is near of kin 
 to her husband ; because she sustains a near 
 affinity relation to him, and a near blood relation 
 to her with whom he has cohabited. 
 
 2. A man sustains to his sister-in-law the same 
 relation which he sustains to his brother's wife, 
 whom he is expressly forbidden to marry, (v. 16;) 
 and, therefore, by parity of reason, he is forbidden 
 to marry his wife's sister. 
 
 3. As the law addresses women as well as men, 
 when it expressly prohibits a man to marry his 
 brother's wife, it virtually prohibits a woman to 
 marry her sister's husband; and, therefore, if it 
 is unlawful for this woman to marry this man, 
 it must be unlawful for him to marry her. 
 
 4. A man is forbidden to marry his mother's 
 sister ; and the reason assigned for the prohibi- 
 tion is this : " She is thy mother's near kinsioo- 
 man." ( Ver. 13. ) Observe, the law does not say 
 she is thy, but thy mother's, near kinswoman. 
 
 A wife's sister is to her precisely the same, her 
 near kinswoman : and, therefore, by parity of rea- 
 son, her husband may not marry his sister-in-law ; 
 because he is expressly forbidden to marry his 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 211 
 
 mother's sister, who sustains the same relation 
 to his mother which his sister-in-law sustains to 
 his wife. 
 
 Again, the husband bears to his wife's sister 
 a nearer relation than he bears to his mother's 
 sister ; because he is more nearly related to 
 his wife, than to his mother : and, therefore, 
 we infer a fortiori that it is unlawful for 
 him to marry his deceased wife's sister ; be- 
 cause he is expressly forbidden to marry a wo- 
 man to whom he is not so nearly related : just 
 as we infer it to be unlawful for a brother and 
 sister born of the same parents to marry; (al- 
 though such a marriage is not specified in the 
 law ;) because the marriage of a half-brother and 
 sister, one born of the father, and the other of 
 the mother, is expressly prohibited. 
 
 5. Finally, the marriage of a man with his 
 sister-in-law, is in express words forbidden. 
 (Verse 18.) 
 
 Now, in opposition to this accumulated evi- 
 dence, ought not the seeming implication of the 
 concluding clause of the 18th verse, " in her life- 
 time" to be regarded as futile ? Is it reasona- 
 ble to suppose, that this clause was introduced 
 
212 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 by the Lawgiver to turn away the bearing of his 
 law upon the marriage in question ; which, by 
 a fair construction, manifestly, and in various 
 aspects of it, prohibits this marriage? We are 
 compelled to believe that it was not introduced 
 for such a purpose. It was, we conceive, de- 
 signed, not to mark the time during which it 
 was unlawful to marry a sister-in-law ; for the 
 unlawfulness of such a marriage had been pre- 
 viously settled in the law; but to set forth before 
 the Jews, who were accustomed to regard poly- 
 gamy as lawful, the injustice and cruelty of mar- 
 rying two sisters; because the marriage of the 
 second would be a source of vexation and un- 
 happiness to the first wife as long as she lived. 
 
 This case is entirely different from that of a 
 brother marrying the widow of his brother who 
 had died without issue ; for, although the law 
 before us had, in the 16th verse, forbidden a man 
 to marry his brother's wife, yet afterwards, by 
 an express enactment of the Lawgiver, couched 
 in terms not to be misunderstood, this case was 
 excepted ; and it became obligatory on a brother 
 in the circumstances specified, to marry his 
 brother's widow, that he might raise up seed to 
 him. 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 213 
 
 In this case, by the admission of all, a man is, 
 in express terms, forbidden to marry his wife's 
 sister during her life-time ; and no one will af- 
 firm that the text says, in plain words, he may 
 marry such a relation after his wife's decease. 
 It is silent in regard to the time subsequent to 
 her death, because it was not necessary to utter 
 more than had been written ; for the law, in its 
 preceding sections, had spoken in terms suffi- 
 ciently clear to make known to us our Master's 
 will. 
 
 It may be objected, If the unlawfulness of this 
 marriage was settled in the preceding parts of 
 the law, why was the prohibition of it repeated 
 in the 18th verse 1 If the reader will turn to 
 Lev it. 24, he will find, that the penalty annexed 
 to murder in the 17th verse, is repeated in the 
 2fst verse. In the 18th chapter, which contains 
 the law under discussion, the very first particular 
 prohibition (v. 7) is repeated in the same verse ; 
 and the prohibition to marry a sister in the 9th 
 verse, is repeated in the 11th verse. Why these 
 repetitions 1 Are they not emphatic ? Were 
 they not designed particularly to mark the un- 
 lawfulness of these marriages'? And is not the 
 
 19 
 
214 UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 
 
 repetition in the 18th verse emphatic ? Was it 
 not designed, as we have said before, to be a 
 check on polygamy, and to guard against the 
 recurrence of the particular kind of polygamy 
 which consisted in having two sisters for wives, 
 and which, if it had not been expressly prohibit- 
 ed, might have been frequent ? 
 
 To the civil penalties which God, as the Head 
 of the Hebrew commonwealth, was pleased to 
 annex to this ecclesiastical law, and which he 
 required the civil magistrate to inflict on trans- 
 gressors, we are not subject; because we do not 
 belong to that commonwealth : but to the law 
 itself we, and all who come to the knowledge of 
 it, are bound to yield implicit obedience ; and 
 from this obligation neither we nor they can be 
 freed by any civil or ecclesiastical authority. It 
 is Jehovah's published will ; and it must be 
 obeyed. 
 
 Were the public mind deeply impressed with 
 the truth we have labored to establish, it would 
 tend much to preserve the purity of domestic 
 life ; render the intercourse of a wife's sister in 
 her family, at all times and in all circumstances, 
 easy and pleasant, free from suspicion and em- 
 
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE. 215 
 
 barrassment ; and preserve her and her brother- 
 in-law from the temptations to which human 
 nature, in its present fallen condition, is too 
 liable. It would make a sister's house like that 
 of an own brother. 
 
 But let the public mind be impressed with an 
 opposite conviction, and the belief of the law- 
 fulness of the marriage in question become pre- 
 valent, and then a sister's house will assume a 
 different aspect. Its security, its freedom of 
 intercourse, will be impaired. A delicate female, 
 one who regards her own character, and has a 
 due respect to the opinions of others, will (eel 
 that she cannot dwell in her sister's family with 
 that ease and pleasure, which she would enjoy 
 if she knew the marriage of a man with a de- 
 ceased wife's sister to be not only forbidden by 
 the law of God, but condemned by public 
 opinion. The purity of private life will be con- 
 taminated ; public morals deteriorated ; and the 
 commandment of the most High God disobeyed. 
 
 THE END. 
 
* 
 
 
 

 
 
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