kin' (which, in the intention of God's word, is a bar to a lawful marriage) extends to every case within the third degree."

We now come to the particular degree of affinity which is the subject of legislation in Mr. Wortley's Bill-we mean, the affinity between a man and his deceased wife's sister. That this degree is not expressly mentioned in the prohibited degrees in the eighteenth of Leviticus, is conceded, but it must be intended to be included in other parallel prohibitions, or else it may be held that a man may marry his grandmother, or his niece, for those degrees are not expressly mentioned.

As Mr. Bennett argues :—

"I appeal, first, to the general law laid down with so much solemnity in the 6th verse of Leviticus xviii. The prohibition there is direct and peremptory: None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin :' 'I am the Lord.' Is, then, a wife's sister amongst those that are 'near of kin' to a man, or not? If she is, marriage with her is here forbidden, not simply by way of inference, but in express terms.

2

6

"(1.) Now, before I have recourse to that rule of interpretation which I have already laid down for ascertaining what degrees are included in the nearness of kin here spoken of, I am anxious to call attention to the literal force of the scriptural expression. The best Hebrew scholars tell us that it is in the original, literally, None of you shall approach to the flesh of his flesh,' which, they say, is rightly translated in our language, any that is near of kin.' Do we want to know, then, whether this expression applies to a man's wife's relations in the same degree as to his own? Let Holy Scripture interpret for us the meaning of its own words. It is usually allowed to be a good method to compare one passage with another. Let us use this method in the case before us. We find it declared elsewhere, in more places than one, of husband and wife, that they twain shall be one flesh;' and again, that the wife is bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh3.' This is, in fact, the constant language of Scripture, in reference to the union formed between those whom God has joined together by the Divine institution of marriage. Now here we have the very same words used, 'flesh of his flesh,' one flesh.' It seems not possible, therefore, to doubt that the 'nearness of kin' spoken of in this prohibition extends equally to those who are 'near' by the bond of marriage, as to those who are near by the bond of blood. And St. Basil's reasoning again seems irrefragable: This prohibition,' he says, ' includes this kind of 'nearness' also; for what can be nearer' to a man than his own wife; or rather than his own flesh?' 6 So then, through the wife, her sister comes to be 'near of kin' to the husband. For as he is not to take the 'mother' of his wife, nor the daughter' of his wi.e, because neither can he take his own mother, nor his own daughter; so neither may he 2 See Commissioners' Report, Question 436.

6

3 See Gen. ii. 24; Matt. xix. 6; Eph, v. 31.

See Levit. xviii. 17.

take the sister' of his wife, any more than he may take his own 'sister.' It does appear, therefore, sufficiently clear, that this expression, interpreted by its use in similar passages of Scripture, reaches to these degrees of affinity: and that as none would deny that a man's own sister, and daughter, and mother are within the 'nearness of kin' there intended:―as, moreover, the wife's mother and daughter are found amongst the degrees specifically prohibited ;-so the sister also of her who is made one flesh' with him, must be esteemed as falling within the meaning of the same expression.

"(2.) But le us next apply to this instance the rule which has been before shown to be necessary, in order to a right understanding of this chapter. We acknowledge that the sister of a deceased wife is not expressly enumerated amongst those with whom a man is forbidden to marry; but our position is, that there is one instance mentioned so exactly parallel to it, that the nearness of kin' which is prohibited in one, cannot but be held to exist in the other also. In verse 16, a man is forbidden to marry his 'brother's wife;' or, in other words, a woman is there forbidden to marry her husband's brother;' which is so exactly parallel to the case of a man marrying his wife's sister,' that it must be subtle refinement indeed which would establish any distinction between them. We should rather accept Bishop Jewell's judgment: 'When God commands me, I shall not marry my brother's wife, it follows directly by the same, that He forbids me to marry my wife's sister; for between one man and two sisters, and one woman and two brothers, is like analogy.""

a very

The general principle and its mode of application have been very clearly stated in the above passages. We apprehend that the Scriptural argument is sufficiently clear to justify the conduct of the Church of England for the last three centuries in her opposition to Romish laxity. If the prohibited degrees in Leviticus are not acknowledged as our guides,—if the awful denunciations of God against those who transgress them may be set aside, and disregarded by Christians, notwithstanding the practice of the universal Christian Church from the very beginning till shortly before the Reformation, when in the most corrupt ages the popes claimed the right of dispensing with all laws, both Divine and human-if this be so there is nothing to oppose an effectual barrier to the impulses of human passions. The Council of Trent indeed denounces anathemas against us for asserting that the Levitical prohibited degrees cannot be dispensed with by the pope; but as we have for two centuries and a half been borne up by the clear and press language of the Word of God in opposition to so wicked a claim, so we trust and hope that the Church of England is not now to recede from her recorded principles, and to yield to any e ctment which embodies, as Mr. Wortley's Bill does, the principles of Romish error.

VOL. XI.-NO. XXI.-MARCH, 1849.

N

We have no case to establish. We stand on the ground of prescription. We seek no change in the principles or the enactments of the law. We have nothing to prove or to gain. The Church is assailed: its principles are denied: its discipline is sought to be subverted: its clergy and laity are invited to rebel against her established maxims. But the burden of proof rests with our antagonists. It is for them to demonstrate that the Church has been in error for three centuries.

We appeal to members of the Church of England whether the uniform teaching of their Church is not sufficiently authorized by Holy Scripture: if it be so-if it be not plainly and distinctly unscriptural, it is surely our duty to oppose by all means in our power, the infliction of so great a disgrace and so great an injury on that Church.

Various arguments have been got up against the Table of Prohibited Degrees. Nothing else could have been expected. There is not a point in Christian doctrine against which plausible objections may not be raised. The Socinians can make out a plausible case by quoting detached texts against the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Dissenters can make out a plausible case against the temporal establishment of the Church by quoting detached texts. The Presbyterian can quote Scripture, and raise difficulties against Episcopacy. And so, also, can the paid advocates for the subversion of the law of God on marriage make out a case by quoting detached texts. We can only say, that, if difficulties of this kind are to be attended to, and to induce us to doubt or to subvert these principles of the Church which have stood the test of eighteen centuries, we ought, in consistency, to doubt, or to reject, the Athanasian or the Nicene Creed.

The advocates of this Bill argue that God enjoined the marriage of a brother to his deceased brother's wife, when no children had been left; and hence they infer that marriages in such degrees of affinity, may be dispensed with. Certainly they may be--but BY GOD ALONE. The command of God changes the character of actions. His will was sufficient to justify Abraham in the intention to put his own son to death-to justify the children of Israel in slaying the Canaanites; and Samuel in hewing Agag to pieces.

So, again, the argument founded on the case mentioned by the Sadducees of a woman who had married seven brethren, and in which no censure was passed by our Lord on the woman, is of no force, because the dispensation or injunction given by God in this case of course excepted the Jewish woman from all blame.

The Archbishop of Dublin has argued, that if we admit the Levitical prohibitions of marriage, we must also take the above Levitical injunction along with it. But there is a great difference

between the cases. The Levitical prohibitions are accompanied by most dreadful denunciations of God against those who violate them, and they are placed on the same level as idolatry. But marriage with a deceased brother's wife is merely a positive institution of the law it is not fenced in by any of those for midable denunciations which prove the moral character of the prohibitory code. It is grounded on a reason peculiar to the old dispensation, and to the Jews-"that his name be not put out of Israel" (Deut. xxv. 6). The only penalty is, that the person who refuses to do so is to be publicly insulted by his sister-in-law, and that an opprobrious name is to be given by the Israelites to his house. Such a law as this is palpably of no moral character; and to draw a comparison between it and the prohibitions in the Levitical law is simply absurd.

The only remaining argument against the principles of the Church of England on this point, is taken from the passage in Leviticus xviii. 18, in which it is said, "Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister to vex her," &c., "beside the other in her lifetime." And it is contended that here the restriction is limited entirely to the lifetime of the sister, and that therefore it must be lawful to marry afterwards. The reply to this is, that the text in question evidently is intended to forbid specially a kind of polygamy which the Jews had practised after the example of Jacob. It was directed specifically against this evil; and we have no right to draw inferences from it, for the purpose of authorizing what is forbidden elsewhere. Mr. Bennett observes in reply to this objection:

"The answer to this argument is as old as the time of St. Basil: 'If such an interpretation,' he says, 'be admitted, he who wills may take the sister even during the wife's lifetime, for the same sophism will fit this case also. For it is written, he may say, 'Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister to vex her.' So, then, there is no prohibition against taking her, when there is nothing 'vexing' in it. Whereupon he, who is pleading for his passion, will decide that the temper of the sisters is such that there is not any danger of 'vexing.' The reason, then, being done away for which he was prohibited from living with both at once, what is then to prevent his taking both sisters together? This is not written, we allow; but no more is the permission contended for in the other case expressed". The two arguments are exactly parallel, and are about as conclusive as this, 'The raven returned not again to the ark until the waters were dried up from the earth,' therefore it returned after the waters were dried up; or, 'Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death",' therefore she had a child after her death."

5 Epistle to Diodorus.

• 2 Sam. vi. 23.

These are the arguments on which the advocates of the Bill rest their cause. Are they sufficient to induce the members of the Church of England to condemn their own Church by supporting that Bill? The Bill is, we repeat it again and again, A CENSURE ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. It is a Bill to establish the truth of the Roman Catholic view of the question in opposition to that of the Church of England-to that of Cranmer, Jewell, and the Reformers of the Convocations in the reign of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, James I.—of the authors of the Reformatio Legum in the time of Edward VI.-of all theologians and casuists of our Church from the time of Henry VIII. to the present day.

The Report of the Commissioners on the Marriage Laws has been ably dissected by Mr. Beresford Hope, who has shown its excessive partiality and one-sidedness, and has left it without a fragment of authority. The voice of the Church is, we may say, all but unanimous on the subject, as is proved by the number of publications which are appearing, and the petitions which are pouring into Parliament. It is, we conceive, absolutely impossible, that so unjustifiable a measure, one so injurious to public morality in all its tendencies, one so insulting to the Church of England, and one so destructive of the character, the peace, the influence of that Church, can pass through the legislature. We would infinitely sooner have seen Mr. Trelawny's motion for the abolition of the Church-rates carried, than this abominable Bill for legalizing incest, and making the Church of England give her sanction, directly or indirectly, to what she believes, and has repeatedly declared to be, "contrary to the Scriptures," and "prohibited by the law of God."

We say confidently, that the Church of England has not been convicted of error in her belief on this point; and therefore we hold it to be the duty of all her members to take every means in their power for defeating any attempt like that which is now being made. Let every deanery-let every parish, send in their petitions and their remonstrances against so great an outrage to their Church.