and, in the given passage, one woman to another, or one wife to another.

7. The position assumed in the interpretation-that it will not vex a wife, to have her husband take another wife, who is not her sister, has been shown to be not only ridiculously foolish, but certainly and palpably false.

Hence, until we are prepared to admit a construction of a public statute of the Divine Law, which repeals the Great Original Law of Marriage, given by God to the whole Human Race, on purpose, as he himself tells us, to promote morality and religion among men; which, in opposition to the whole tenor of Scripture, permits Polygamy, though God himself declares it to be immoral in its tendency; which assigns for this repeal and this permission, a reason at once foolish and false; which declares a given degree of propinquity to be less than another degree, to which it is mathematically equal, and to be less than several other degrees, which with mathematical certainty are greater than it : in other words, that equals are not equal, and that the less is greater than the greater; which makes it lawful under the Levitical Code for a man to marry his own daughter and his own grandmother; and which requires us to reject a meaning of a Hebrew idiom, supported by thirty-four clear examples, and to adopt one, which has not a solitary example to support it; we must reject the proposed construction, and conclude that Lev. xviii. 18, is a simple prohibition of Polygamy ; that it does not remotely affect the Law of incest; and that the prohibitions of that Law are just as we have stated them, in our examination of its several provisions. We are thus brought to the Second General. Question,

II. IS THE LAW OF INCEST NOW IN FORCE?

It is singular, as well as mortifying, that in a Christian country, it should be necessary to discuss the question-Whether it is right for a man to marry his mother or his daughter ?-Yet principles, involving a negative answer to this question, have been, in the progress of this controversy, frequently advanced, and maintained.

If any of the prohibitions of the law of incest are now in force, they are all in force. No Statute, repealing a part of the Law and confirming the rest, has ever been published. There is nothing, plainly, either in the Old Testament, or the New, which designates individual prohibitions, as applicable exclusively to the Israelites, or which intimates that the Gentiles were to be bound by some of them, and not by others. There is nothing too, in the nature of the case, which enables us to adopt a part, and reject a part. The Bible, to those, who receive it as the word of God, is the only rule of faith and practice. If the Bible pronounces Incest a sin, as practised by us; to us it is a sin. If it does not pronounce it a sin, as practised by us; to us it is not a sin. The Bible teaches us "all things necessary for life and godliness;" and we are not left to the light of nature, to determine what is, and what is not, a sin. The light of nature, also, teaches nothing definite on the subject. Those nations, which have not possessed the Bible, have not usually regarded Incest as a sin; and those which have, have never agreed with each other as to its extent. It was obviously no sin, in the immediate sons of Adam and Eve, to marry their sisters; and, if God had not prohibited incestuous marriages, it would have been always equally lawful. Impressions and prejudices growing out of education, or

traditions or national customs, are here wholly destitute of authority. Our own desires and passions are no criterion of right and wrong. The fact, that I feel no wish to marry my mother, or my sister, does not prove it to be wrong; and the fact, that I feel a wish to marry my wife's sister, or my wife's niece, does not prove it to be right. The decisions of no individuals, as well as of no bodies of men, whether legislatures, courts, or councils, can have the least authority, in constituting any marriage a sin, which is not pronounced a sin by the Law of God. If they could; the same act would be a sin in one age, in one country and one church, and a righteous act in another. If, then, the prohibitions of the Law of Incest are not all of them now obligatory, it is perfectly right for a man to marry his sister, his daughter, or his mother. To the great body of the community, this single consideration will render the remainder of the discussion unnecessary.

In attempting to prove that the Law of incest is now binding, we are met in the threshold with various difficulties arising from the fact that it was a part of the Levitical Law. These need to be disposed of, before we offer any direct proof that it is now obligatory. We are constrained therefore, in establishing this point, to commence with negative evidence; and afterwards to present that which is direct and positive.

I. THE FACT THAT THE LAW OF INCEST IS A PART OE THE LEVITICAL LAW, IS NO OBJECTION TO

ITS BINDING FORCE.

The Levitical Law consisted of two great divisions : the Ceremonial or Ecclesiastical Law, and the Civil or Municipal Law.

Those, who urge this objection, have alleged, either-That the Law of incest was a part of the

Ceremonial Law; or- That it was a part of the Civil Law of Israel; or--That, if the Law itself is binding, so is its Penalty.

I. The objection, that the Law of Incest is a part of the Ceremonial Law, furnishes no evidence that it is not now obligatory.

The CEREMONIAL LAW was THE CONSTITUTION OF THE ISRAELITISH CHURCH: establishing its Priesthood and Ritual, its Ceremonies and Observances. It had nothing in it of a moral nature, was never binding except on the Israelites, and was expressly abrogated as to its binding force on them, by its Divine Author at the commencement of the Christian Dispensation.

That the Law of incest is a part of the Ceremonial Law, is argued on the following grounds.

1. That the nameless crime forbidden in Lev. xviii. 19, and xx. 18, is clearly a mere ceremonial offence; and that, as the crime of Incest is found in the same connection, and in the same chapters with it, it must there. fore be a ceremonial offence.

Were we to admit the crime in question to be a ceremonial offence; the fact, that it is mentioned in the same connection, and in the same chapters, with Incest, would not prove that Incest is a ceremonial offence. In Lev. xviii. and xx. are mentioned in precisely the same connection, the seven crimes of adultery, polygamy, Incest, the crime in question, sodomy, bestiality, and sacrificing one's own children to Moloch; and, in the 20th chapter, the two additional crimes of idolatry, and cursing a paThese are all prohibited, under the penalty of death. The crime of bestiality, also is mentioned no where else, but in these two chapters and in Exodus xxii. 19; whereas Incest is prohibited in two other chapters of the Pentateuch. But the fact, that the crime in ques、

rent.

tion is found in the same connection with the crime last mentioned, and with adultery, idolatry, sodomy, the cursing of a parent, and the sacrificing of one's children, does not prove that they were ceremonial offences; and, of course, it does not prove that incest was such an offence.

In Lev. xix., prohibitions of idolatry, stealing, cheating, lying, perjury, profanity, fraud, robbery, slander, adultery, and profanation of the Sabbath, are found intermixed with clauses, prohibiting the gendering of diverse cattle, the mingling of diverse seed, the wearing of linsey-woolsey, the rounding of the corners of the head, the marring of the corners of the beard, the cutting of the flesh, and the marking of it for the dead:-the latter all indisputably ceremonial offences:-yet this fact does not prove, that the former were offences of that character; and of course, were this true of Incest, it would furnish no evidence, that it was a ceremonial offence.

But the position, continually taken for granted, that the crime in question was a mere ceremonial offence, is wholly denied; and would those, who thus take it for granted, attempt to prove it, they would find it no easy task. That it was not such an offence, is evident from various considerations. 1. It had no connection, near or remote, with any part of the regulations of the ceremonial law. 2. The punishment, death, proves that it was not a ceremonial offence. Severe punishments were indeed threatened in various cases, to those, who, being ceremonially unclean, should venture to appear in that condition in the tabernacle, and engage in the worship of God; but death is never we believe threatened for Ceremonial uncleanness merely, nor for any offence merely ceremonial. 3. The nature of the case proves it to have been an offence of a very different char¬~ acter. Were any individual to ask himself the question;