Affinity No Bar to Marriage/Part 2

That an amateur should venture upon Biblical exegesis, with resort to the Hebrew text, may be met with the argument of sneers, from the narrower members of that honored profession, which commonly attends to such work. But only studious attention, and average ability, are needed in this case; and as laws form the subject of inquiry, their investigation may be pursued by lawyers, quite as aptly as by the clergy.

Nor need an amateur fear to compete with old-time exegetes, when he considers their clumsy and disastrous performances, of which it may well be that their "Levitical degrees" are another example. He needs only to recall their turning a general description of the creation into a Compendium of Physical Sciences; their torturing the poetic idea of the sun's resting at eve on Gibeon, and the moon's lingering in the valley of Ajalon, into a treatise on astronomy that excluded the Copernican system^[1]; that they changed fact into fable, allegory into fact, and tropes into dogmas, and thence constructed hideous theologies, that changed a Heavenly Father into their own hateful likeness; and left such a legacy of errors, that a notable work of modern Biblical scholars, has been to restore the Bible into harmony with physical facts and moral intuitions.

​

For a true understanding of the laws under consideration, as also for estimating different translations of the Hebrew text, we need true Principles (or Rules) of construction; and amongst those which Reason has established, a few pertinent ones will now be set forth.

Rule I. The law and extrinsic facts indicate the evil, but only the law the remedy.

Rule II. The law reveals its own intent; one cannot be presumed.

Rule III. Words must be construed with regard to their subject-matter.

Rule IV. Words demand their usual and natural sense.

Rule V. Penal laws must be contrued strictly.

Rule VI. All parts, including those in pari materia, must be construed together and harmoniously—so that, if practicable, no part be left void or inoperative. They should form a homogeneous whole.

Rule VII. Expressio unius est exclusio alterius—the expression of one thing implies the exclusion of another.

To these, we may add:

Rule VIII. Error, or oversight, is not predicable of God.

Before interpreting the laws, we need to know what they are; and must first determine between disputed translations of Hebrew texts.

Verse 6. We agree with our opponents, that our Bible translation of the Hebrew shě-ár, bě-sä-ro into "that is near of kin unto him" is erroneous.

These words are variously translated flesh of his flesh (Dr. Pusey et al.), remainder of his flesh (marginal), kin of his flesh. Of these translations, the first wholly fails to express a necessary difference between shě-ár and bä-sär, and is therefore technically inaccurate. But as all agree that be-sä-ro means "of his flesh," it becomes quite immaterial to the subject under general consideration, which one be here adopted; and therefore, as avoiding an immaterial issue, we will accept that of our opponents—flesh of his flesh.

Thus taking shě-ár as meaning flesh, consistency and accuracy demand, that the translation "near kin" in vv. 12, 13, 17, of the same word, be changed to flesh.

Verse 18. This, as given in our Bible, forbids taking "a wife to her sister, to vex her ∗ besides the other, in her lifetime."

A woman to her sister, is the literal translation of the Hebrew text; and take determines woman as meaning wife, or concubine. But a woman to her sister, is also used collectively as a phrase, or idiom, for expressing a sisterly relation—just as "brother" and "sister" in English, have like secondary, and figurative uses—and when thus used, it is translated one to another. Thus a question arises, whether such text should here be translated literally, or descriptively. On that question we say, viz.

1. Rule IV (§ 21), demands the primary and natural translation, of the Hebrew i-sha into wife, and a-cho-thah ​into sister, which are so translated throughout the chapter, vv. 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20.
2. Rule v (Ib.) demands such translation. The prohibited act was a punishable defilement within vv. 24–29; and a penal law cannot be enlarged by giving it a figurative breadth.
3. Such text i-sha el a-cho-thah never has the idiomatic sense of one to another, unless it follows a plural antecedent, and expresses reciprocal action. (The Speaker's Commentary, V. i, p. 601.)
   Ex. gr. Four like curtains coupled one to another (Exod. xxvi: 2–3); fifty loops taking hold one of another (Ib., v. 5)—in each, the text being a woman to (or of) her sister, and translated as used idiomatically.
   The same idea may be stated thus.
4. Such text is appropriate as a phrase for one to another, only when used of subjects otherwise mentioned, and to express a sisterly relation.
   "Curtains coupled a woman to her sister" cannot mean that the curtains are actual sisters, but "a woman to her sister" is used concerning curtains, and to define coupled—the curtains are coupled like sisters—one to another.
   The observation of Rev. Charles Forster, quoted as so conclusive by Bishop Doane (p. 17)—that such phrase, or its parallel of "a man to his brother," is never used of actual brothers or sisters—seems senseless. For what nonsense it would be to say,—take a woman to her sister, like a woman to her sister,—or so to use the parallel as to brothers.
   So the argument likewise quoted—that the descriptive use of such expression 42 times^[2] in the Old Testament proves that it was here used so (Ib.)—that a prevalence of its descriptive use, excludes its literal use,—is unsound. The literal prevails, unless the context over-rules it. ​
5. A substitution of the descriptive use, for the literal and primary one, cannot avail our opponents; and must stultify either v. 18 and its Author, or their exegetical labor. The verse would then only forbid taking one to another. Take what, in that way? Clearly, subjects are lacking (ante, 4)—a plural antecedent (ante, 3); and that lack excludes the idiomatic theory, as making the law idiotic. Of course, our opponents are ready to interpolate wives, and thus make a law to suit them—a law against taking wives one to another, paraphrased one wife to another: but this is not reading Scripture, but torturing it to Ecclesiastical uses.

   Note.—"To vex her" does not limit the law, but characterizes the second woman (concubine or wife) as an "adversary" (I Sam. i: 6); and the law forbids thus making adversaries of sisters.

6. Such change of v. 18 into a law against polygamy, violates Rule VI; and charges God with violating his own law.
   Deut. xxr: 15–17, which "the Lord spake unto Moses" regulated polygamy, and thus recognized it as a lawful institution.
   God gave to David his master's wives (II Sam. xxii: 7, 8), and so violated his supposed law.
   The polygamist Joash (the 10th king), "did right in the sight of the Lord;" and was helped to two wives by the godly highpriest Jehoiada (II Chron. xxiv: 1–3).
7. Authority is decisive against the change.
   Jewish authority and practice for 1500 years, down to the christian era (and since) are against it.^[3] Christian authority is equally so; for this law, as given in our Bible, stood unchallenged until about 1575 A. D.—a period of over 3000 years (ante, § 5, subd. 1. The Speaker's Com., V. 1, p. 601); and the Vincentian-​rule demands that our opponents abandon their partisan and absurd translation.

Note.—Our Bible—translation of v. 18 thus being correct, that law clearly sanctioned marriage with deceased wife's sister.

As the result of § 22 we shall substitute flesh of his flesh for "that is near of kin unto him" in v. 6, and correspondingly change "near kins-woman" to fleshwoman in vv. 12, 13, 17; but retain v. 18 as in our Bible. Doing this, vv. 3–30 will now be set forth, with such immaterial omissions, and appropriate abbreviations, as decency dictates, and thoroughness permits.

V. 3. ∗ After the doings of the land of Canaan whither I bring you, shall ye not do.

V. 4. Ye shall do my judgments. ∗ I am the Lord.

V. 6. None of you shall approach to any flesh of his flesh to uncover || their || nakedness ∗.

​V. 7. The nakedness of thy father, || or || even of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover; she is thy mother. ∗.

V. 8. [Nor that] of thy father's wife (step-mother); it is thy father's nakedness (a shame, disgrace, or offence to him).

V. 9. [Nor that] of thy sister, the daughter of thy father ∗ or mother ∗ (covering half-blood).

V. 10. [Nor that] of thy son's daughter or ∗ daughter's daughter; ∗ for theirs is thine own nakedness (shame).

V. 11. [Nor that] of thy father's wife's (step-mother's) daughter, begotten of thy father (though out of marriage or concubinage); she is thy sister.

V. 12. [Nor that] of thy father's sister; she is thy father's flesh-woman.

V. 13. [Nor that] of thy mother's sister; she is thy mother's flesh-woman.

V. 14. [Nor that] of thy father's brother; thou shalt not approach to his wife; she is thine aunt.

V. 15. [Nor that] of thy daughter-in-law; she is thy son's wife.

V. 16. [Nor that] of thy brother's wife; it is thy brother's nakedness (disgrace).

V. 17. [Nor that] of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou (also) take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter, to uncover her (the mother's) nakedness (offend her); for they are her flesh-women; ​it is wickedness, (applying to double commerce with a woman and her daughter or grand-daughter.)

V. 18. Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, ∗ besides the other, in her life-time.

V. 19. (Is immaterial.)

V. 20. Moreover, thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbor's wife.

V. 21. (Seems to apply only to women of other nations, and probably, only until denationalized, as per Deut. xxi: 10, 11.)

V. 22. [Prohibits sodomy] ; it is abomination.

V. 23. [Prohibits bestiality]; it is confusion.

V. 24. Defile not yourselves in any of these things; for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you.

V. 25. And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.

V. 26. Ye ∗ shall ∗ not commit any of these abominations ∗.

V. 27. (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled.)

V. 28. That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you.

V. 30. 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.

The following are in pari materia:

Lev. xx: 21. And if a man shall take (away) his brother's wife, it is an unclean thing; he hath uncovered his brother's nakedness (disgraced him), they shall be childless.

Deut. xxv: 5. If brethren dwell together, and one of ​them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger, her husband's brother shall take her to him to wife (though already married).

Of Lev. xviii, only verses 6–16 and 20 need to be construed For v. 17 relates only to polygamous, or concubinous double-commerce;^[4] v. 18 to polygamy with two sisters; and vv. 19, 21, 22, 23 are not per se material. Therefore these six verses may be disregarded, save as yielding instruction for construing the others.

Having now get the material—the terms of the laws—from which the enemy construct their artillery, before we mature our defence, let us inspect these, and their methods of construction. And this we will do as fairly as we can, only using an occasional blow to test the metal.

1st. They regard the laws as moral marriage-laws in current force.

2d. They torture v. 18 into a general law against polygamy, and thus deny its implication in favor of deceased wife's sister.

3d. They construe v. 6 as a general law against marriage with any flesh-relative.

4th. They assume without warrant, and against Rule II, that subsequent prohibitions are specifications under it.

5th. Finding that such specifications do not include daughter, and her case clearly involving natural-incest, they thence conclude, that such specifications are not defining ones, but only illustrative; and thus, that such general law embraces not only the specified cases, but their humanly arranged parallels, and any worse cases (ex. gr. daughter).

​6th. Though such law reaches only flesh of his flesh, and leaves prohibitions as to wives of kin, and neighbors' wives, as apparently further prohibitions, they next assume that the four affinity-cases vv. 8, 14, 15, 16 (but not that of neighbor's wife) are also specifications under it, and then fit the law to their assumption, by giving it corresponding breadth.

7th. This they effect, by taking as literal "one flesh" used in Gen. ii: 24 to express the cleaving quality of marriage-union (ante); and thus creating a marriage-flesh, they read such general law as including sharers of actual ancestral flesh, and sharers of figurative marriage-flesh,—as embracing both blood-kin and marriage-relatives.

8th. Then, finding omissions of supposed parallels to the specified affinity-cases, and having already made the law broad enough to cover these, they assume that the specified affinity-cases are also only examples, and that their law extends to these, and their supposed parallels.

9th. Having thus extended v. 6 to cover both classes equally, they assert a parity of consanguinity and affinity, as a principle of the specifications.

10th. They regard Archbishop Parker as having been commissioned to supply God's supposed omissions, by supposed parallelism and parity; and so, to enlarge 7 Levitical degrees into 60 English ones.

And our Bishops make it their office, to perpetuate these "abominable customs" of Priesteraft, for which and their like, one and another Land of Promise is by an ever acting Divine-command, "spueing" out Ecclesiasticism before the onward march of Christian-progress.

Thus, Restrictionists would maintain their case

1st. By taking laws of Lev. xviii as moral laws.

​2nd. By construing v. 6 as a general marriage law.

3rd. By an asserted omission of daughter-case.

4th. By a marriage-flesh, as inoculating collateral kin of husband and wife respectively, in ascending and descending lines; and thus as uniting marriage-relatives by a link of flesh, and effecting a parity of kinship and affinity:

5th. And not being able to see why God prohibited one case and not another, which they regard as parallel, they would exalt their Blindness above God's Vision, and substitute their Human Analogy for Divine Distinction; and thus would supplement God's 7 degrees by 53 church ones. And if either position is untenable, their case is lost.

Forbearing present criticism upon these positions, let us pass on.

It becomes us first to view the laws under special consideration, as part of one voluminous Code, which as such, has become obsolete; and to see whether they abide as moral and universal, or were only national and temporary.

Ob. 1. The Mosaic-code embraced

(1st.) Moral-laws addressed to the Conscience, and thus distinguished from specific prohibitions enforced by specific penalties.

(2nd.) Civil (or Municipal) laws enforced by various civil penalties.

(3rd.) Ecclesiastical (or Levitical) laws, relating to priests, worship, etc., also variously enforced by penalties.

These corresponded respectively to the Gospel, State-laws, and Church-laws, of our period. Then as now, Moral laws addressed the Conscience, Civil laws the Citizen, and Ecclesiastical laws the Church-member.

Ob. 2. These laws were alike Theocratic; and though ​the Civil and Ecclesiastical variously involved moral-principles, each class was primarily based on National-Polity (Civil or Ecclesiastical), as the fundamental reason of each law.

Ob. 3. All Civil and Ecclesiastical laws were essentially National; and however interpenetrated with moral-principles, their reach and duration were only co-extensive with Israel's nationality, to which they belonged, and on which their enforcement depended. They could not outgo, or outlast, that power and life.

Ob. 4. The laws essentially Moral abide, but only as they embody Truth, and because that is ubiquitous and eternal. But the Civil and Ecclesiastical, being only national, fell with the power (Civil or Ecclesiastical) to enforce them; and the Civil fell first, as that power was lost first.

Ob. 5. All the laws being Theocratic, and Jewish power central and absolute, a division between Moral, Civil, and Ecclesiastical laws, was needless; and hence, a reliable one becomes impracticable.

Though the ten commandments, and the yet wider commands—"Love and serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul" (Deut. x: 12) and "love thy neighbor as thyself" (Lev. xix: 18), embodied in the New Testament—would be classed as Moral, there are many others equally general, and unaccompanied by specific penalties, that are not esteemed such, but would need to be ranked so, unless Moral-Judgment were placed above Pentateuchal-Command.

Ex. gr. "Take thou no usury or increase" from brother or sojourner (Lev. xxv: 36); "Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds; lest the fruit ∗ be defiled" (Deut. xxii: 9); "Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together," nor "wear a garment of woolen and linen" (Ib., vv. 10, 11). "Ye shall not eat any thing ​with the blood" (Lev. xix: 26); nor "mar the corners of thy beard" (Ib., v. 27); On finding a bird's nest with dam sitting on young "thou shalt ∗ let the dam go and take the young ∗ that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days" (Deut. xxii: 6, 7), etc.

Civil and ecclesiastical laws are much mixed.

Ex. gr. Commerce with unbetrothed maid was punished by fine of 50 shekels of silver (Deut. xxii: 28, 29), with betrothed maid, or a wife, by death (Ib., 22–24); bastards and their descendants to the tenth generation were excluded from entering the "congregation of the Lord" (Ib., xxiii: 2); the pay of priests was first fruits and ten per cent of lay incomes, etc. (Numb. xviii: 8-24); physical imperfection disqualified from offering God's bread (Lev. xxi: 17–21); priests were prohibited from marrying a put away wife, though innocent (Ib., xxi: 7) and high priests from marrying a widow (Ib., v. 14); and remarriage with divorced wife intermediately married, was forbidden as an "abomination" (Deut. xxiv: 1–4), like sodomy, punishable with death (Lev. xviii: 22; Ib., xx: 13).

Ob. 6. These laws were not Moral-laws; and though, in common with accompanying civil and ecclesiastical ones, they accorded with moral-principles of that period, they did not purport to be moral-laws, enunciative of eternal moral truth; but are characterized by their form, scope and penalties, as Civil and National, and depended upon Jewish power for enforcement.

Ob. 7. These laws being only Civil, an omission therein does not imply a moral-permission, but only a Civil one—only that such omitted act was not a violation of a protected Civil right.

​Ob. 8. These laws being thus civil and national, their mission ended with Jewish Civil-power. And as this, if correct, ends the case against our Levitical Bishops, some observations will be offered against a supposed survival of any of such laws, or of inwrought moral-principles.

Ob. 9. There is no sound principle, upon which the Ecclesiastical laws in general, can be regarded as only temporary, and these Civil laws retained as abiding.

Ecclesiastics who deny this, assert the superior morality of Civil laws over Ecclesiastical. Characterizing certain laws as Ecclesiastical, they would disregard them as therefore devoid of any moral element.

Ob. 10. A selection of certain laws from the mass, upon supposed moral distinctions, is inadmissible.

It must disclaim the Mosaic code as a body of imperative laws; start with a moral standard for testing them; and rejecting the rest, adopt only those found to fit such standard.

Ob. 11. Any such selection can have value, only as an illogical defence of an asserted moral law, that lacks intrinsic moral force, and needs such fictitious support.

The method of such use, is to make a selection, assume it to be moral, proclaim it as a divine law, and then verify such assumption thereby—a petitio principii method.

Ob. 12. The New Testament Gospel superseded Judaism and forms a complete Moral-system, that embraces all needed moral elements of the abrogated Mosaic-code.

Ob. 13. In any resort to the Mosaic-code for moral-principles, involved in its Civil or Ecclesiastical laws, the question how far any such laws were founded in Civil or Ecclesiastical-polity, and how far in general Morals, is ​not there revealed, but is one which each enquirer can answer only for himself.

Ex. gr. A lawyer would see that the law against commerce with an unbetrothed maid, with its penalty of 50 shekels silver, payable to the father, and those against commerce with wives, with their penalty of death, were primarily based on Civil-rights,—the former on the father's Civil right to his child's services (as is our parallel Civil-law), and the latter on a Civil recognition and jealous care of marital rights. But High Church Bishops would draw no such conclusion, and would naturally insist that these laws were exclusively moral; and that the one concerning wives was based on a "Sacramental verity," that husband and wife are one flesh, and therefore required a much severer penalty than that for violating a maid.

Likewise, a lawyer would see, that as the principle of the prohibitions of Lev. xviii concerning wives, was the protection of marital rights, a brother's wife and a wife's maiden sister were not parallels; and though they were, that a penal law cannot be extended to parallels, but rather that expressio unius est exclusio alterius. (Rule VII.) But Narrow High Churchmen, would be utterly unable, to "see the principle upon which one case has been mentioned, another not" (Dr. Pusey's book, Ans. 431); or since uncovering the nakedness of a brother's wife is forbidden, would "know not on what ground" marriage with a deceased wife's sister is otherwise than "repulsive to nature" (a specimen argument (?). Ibid. Ans. 434, p. 9); and therefore would insist upon extending God's unsatisfactory degrees ad libitum.

Again; some would understand God's law excluding bastards, and their children to the tenth generation, from the congregation of the Lord (Deut. xxiii: 2), as a judicial imputation of the sins of the guilty parents upon the innocent descendants; and would conclude, that as ​a Law of God based on Righteousness, it demands a corresponding Church-canon; and some might even be so unjust, as to issue pamphlets on God's Law of Bastardy, and impute "sin" and "licentiousness" to innocent bastards and their descendants.^[5]

So, as to the Laws, which "the Lord spake unto Moses" excluding a flat-nosed, or blemished priest, from "offering the bread of his God" (Lev. xxi: 17–20) and forbidding a high-priest "consecrated to put on the garments," to "uncover his head" or "go in to any dead body," or marry a widow (Ib., 10–14) it might well be insisted that these laws, being from God, were founded in Wisdom and Righteousness; that it is for mankind to accept them and their principles accordingly; that they do not appear to have rested in any national or temporary reasons; and that Human inability to perceive their Divine rationale, affords no reason or excuse for discarding them as only temporary, and their principles as not essentially moral.

But contra, our Bishops probably regard all such laws as only Church-laws, and therefore, though from God, as empty of moral significance.

Thus we see, that such Mosaic-laws afford no definite solution of their different Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Moral ingredients.

Ob. 14. Any Moral-principles involved in such laws, being thus undefined, are discoverable only as such principles are otherwise acquired, and such laws viewed by the light thereof. Thus the laws can add nothing to moral truth—each eclectic worker accepting or rejecting any feature as moral or not, according to his independent judgment, and ending his labors with only the principles he set out with.

​Ex. gr. On reading a Law of God (v. 16) against illicit intercourse with a brother's wife; and another one (Deut. xxv: 5) requiring marriage with her, if the brethren dwelt together, and the married brother should die and leave her a childless widow, an impartial enquirer, of average intelligence, would see (1st) the perfect harmony of such laws; (2d) that such a marriage, instead of being "repulsive" to God, was specially favored by him, as evidenced by his exceptionally designating the brother's widow to be taken as wife; (3d) that family intimacy, instead of being a God-imposed bar to marriage with an affinity-relative, is a God-approved reason for it; and (4th) that the God of Israel was one with the God of Nature, who has limited to near blood-kin the natural restraints against marriage, and given heart promptings toward others.

But our ruling Bishops, starting with a theological fiction of a one-flesh-corporeal-marriage-link, and deducing thence, by transcendental mystery, their super-Divine principle, that a wife's kin are the Ecclesiastical corporeal kin of the husband; and thence, that it is "intrinsically repulsive" to their Ecclesiastical nature, for a man to cherish, and love, and marry his brother's widow, would cling with reckless Conservatism, to the traditions of their elders, quite unshaken by the fact that God is directly against them, as thus revealed alike in the natural-instincts of mankind, and in the brother's widow law, which he "spake unto Moses." They would however tone down their opposition to God, for thus directing a marriage so abhorrent to their superior moral natures, by suggesting that His levirate-law was not at all moral, whilst their contrary law seems to them very moral indeed.^[6] But their zeal will not allow them to see, or at any rate to admit (1st) that God would not have issued a law that violated a Moral one, as our Bishops would ​issue a Canon; (2d) that their tendered reconciliation of the two laws, left them at war whilst they were mutually operative; (3d) that they "transgress the commandments of God by their traditions" and are "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."

Thus, each enquirer into the moral principles of the obsolete Mosaic-code, interprets it by his own preconceived judgments. It reflects to him only his own conception of God—it may be as a Moral-Governor, whose Love employs his Power for ends of Good, and who patiently waits the development of mankind, from the perpetuated tuitions of life, and the interaction of moral forces whose law is Progress; or as an Arch-fiend who creates hateful natures, and dominating them to evil ends, glories in the miseries he effects, in the helpless subjects of his mechanical sovereignty; or as the Head of a Church Oligarchy, to whose priests he commits the rule of mankind, and the issues of endless life.

Ob. 15. Lev. xviii should be viewed in connection with the current beliefs and social state of the Jews; and be read as fairly to have been understood by them, from their point of view.

Ob. 16. Jewish life, though advanced beyond that of Canaan, was yet in a very low stage, as contrasted with Christian civilization.

Polygamy and concubinage prevailed (§ 8); wives ​were bought at a price, held as slaves, and retained only during pleasure (References 2d paragraph, § 6).

Ob. 17. The marriage bond was not a life one and strong, but feeble and temporary; and also lacked mutuality.

Ob. 18. To Jewish thought, marriage ceased absolutely with death; for immortality was not then a Jewish belief.

Therefore any idea, that marriage with his widow was an offence to a dead Jew, is inadmissible.

Ob. 19. Jewish domestic life, guided by higher laws of natural-instinct and affection, of love and morality, was advanced beyond Jewish civil-laws.

Thus, when these civil-laws of Lev. xviii were given, the Jews were already, and without any such laws, exempt from natural-incest, polygamy with two sisters, and the defiling practices of Canaan enumerated in that Chapter (see v. 24–30).

Ob. 20. These verses reveal a group of laws (v. 6–23) heralded by v. 3 and closed by vv. 24–30, whose subjectmatter was Animalism.

Ob. 21. Their Occasion was that the Jews were about to enter Canaan, for the iniquity of whose inhabitants the Lord was to expel them from that land (v. 25).

Ob. 22. Verse 3 fixes "doings of the land of Canaan" as the Evils under consideration; but leaves undefined those "doings"—those Evils.

Ob. 23. Verses 3 and 24–30 show that the doings of Canaan were so defiling and abominable, that God was to visit their iniquity upon it, and the land itself to "spue" and "vomit" out her inhabitants.

Ob. 24. They also define those doings as those "things" (v. 24) those "abominations" (vv. 26, 28) specified in ​the intermediate verses 6–23; and thus fix the doings so specified as the Evils against which the laws (vv. 6-23) were directed—they define those evils as the Scope of the laws.

Ob. 25. They also show both directly (vv. 27–30) and by necessary implication (vv. 24–30) that the Jews, who were thus to supplant the defiling Canaanites, were exempt from those Evils.

"Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things" (v. 24) "that the land spue not you out also" (v. 28). "Commit not any of these abominable customs, which were committed before you" (v. 30), etc.

Ob. 26. Thus the Object of these laws was not progress but a preservation of the status quo.

Ob. 27. Therefore, the laws had for their scope only grosser forms of Animalism than Jewish polygamy and concubinage—"abominations" for which Canaan was to vomit out its inhabitants in favor of the Jews, as free from them, and comparatively virtuous.

Ob. 28. These laws being thus definitely limited to the specified defiling doings of Canaan, it follows that every unspecified act was without the scope of these laws, and left unprohibited by them.

Whether such act was not a doing of Canaan, and so, not contemplated, or was such a doing, but not thus treated as a defiling one, and so, was pro hac vice tolerated, in either case, these laws did not relate thereto.

Ob. 29. If commerce with daughter was not specified, and was against current natural law, it is inferable, that defiled as were the Canaanites, they were yet exempt from that practice.

Ob. 30. As polygamy and concubinage were practiced by the Jews, and tolerated by their other laws (Ob. 16) ​and were practiced in worse ways in Canaan (vv. 17, 18.) and presumtively in Jewish ways also, only the specified worse ways were defiling and prohibited doings, and the Jewish practices were tolerated.

Ob. 31. As marriage with brother's widow was an authorized Jewish practice (Deut. xxv: 5) if, as is probable, it was also more or less a Canaanitish one, then unless inconsistently specified as a defiling one, it remained a favored marriage.

Ob. 32. The laws, being limited to the specified defilements, cannot be extended to unspecified acts.

Unspecified acts do not appear as Canaanitish doings; and if supposed such, then they stand as undefiling ones.

Including only the specified defilements, these laws prohibit our Bishops, from exchanging God's table of Canaanitish defilements, for Parker's marriage-table.

Ob. 33. The general subject-matter of Animalism, extending through vv. 6–23, embraces various divisions, viz.:

VV. 6–16. Commerce with certain relatives.

V. 17. Concubinage with mother and daughter or grand-daughter.

V. 18. Polygamy with two sisters.

V. 19. (Immaterial).

V. 20. Commerce with neighbor's wife.

V. 21. Sodomy.

V. 22. Bestiality.

Ob. 34. The subject-matter of these laws (vv. 6–16) was not Marriage but commerce.

This is unquestionable. And though they are commonly referred to as prohibiting marriage, it cannot be ​that they are regarded as primarily relating to that; but because marriage, as involving commerce, is within their consequent reach, their primary subject, Commerce is exchanged for that of Marriage.

To "uncover the nakedness" of a woman implied shameful, illicit commerce, and excluded the idea of marriage. But it is not needful to urge this view, for it suffices that the subject-matter was Commerce.

Ob. 35. The true meaning of these laws is seen, only as their subject-matter, Commerce, is kept in view. (Rule III.)

Language, written and spoken, has significance according to its subject; and is perverted, if its subject—its application—be changed.

True, marriage involves commerce, and so a law primarily against commerce, so long as it remains in force, acts secondarily as one against marriage. But commerce by no means implies marriage—Commerce and marriage are not equivalents.

Ob. 36. A pertinent example will illustrate the last observation.

Verse 16 prohibited Commerce with "brother's wife"; and was in pari materia with Deut. xxv: 5, requiring marriage with neighboring brother's childless widow. If read with regard to its subject, "wife" is an apt word in that connection, and demands its natural meaning; (Rule IV.)—and Jewish life, which retained her as wife only during the husband's pleasure (Obs. 16, 17) enforces this: And so

(1st.) Commerce with brother's wife was

(a.) A doing of Canaan.

(b.) A prohibited doing (Ob. 24).

(2d.) This law indirectly prohibited marriage with such wife, directly prohibited by Lev. xx: 21.

(3d.) But it did not prohibit marriage with brother's ​widow; for, on his death, she ceased to be his wife, and therefore, to be a subject of such law.

(4th.) The law was congruous with Deut. xxv: 5.

But if, violating Rule 3, Marriage be substituted as the subject-matter of this law (v. 16), these results would follow:

(1st.) An unrevealed intent to reach the case of widow must be assumed, and thus Rule II be violated.

(2d.) "Wife" would then be made an inapt word, and need to be changed to widow.

(3d.) Thus changed, such Marriage would stand as

(a.) A defiling doing of Canaan.

(b.). A prohibited doing;

and Commerce with brother's wife, would stand as

(c.) Not a defiling Canaanitish doing.

(d.) Not a prohibited doing.

(4th.) Thus, the specified Fact of Canaanitish commerce with brother's wife would be falsified; the law of. God against such commerce abrogated; and a Human law against an unprohibited act substituted.

(5th.) Such change stultifies the assigned reason—that the prohibited act would uncover the brother's nakedness.

The idea of shaming the clod of a dead brother, would have been absurd to Mosaic Jews.

(6th.) Thus changed, the law would conflict with Deut. xxv: 5, and so Rule VI be violated; and in such case, one or other must have yielded as inoperative.

(7th.) Deut. xxv: 5 impeaches the change, from commerce with wife to marriage with widow, as blasphemous; for God would thus be charged with ordering a defiling act; and if verse 16 were a Moral law, with ordering an immoral act.

(8th.) Likewise, if verse 16 were thus read, verse 20 should equally be read as prohibiting marriage with neighbor's widow.

​In each case, the prohibited act was defined in substantially the same terms.

Thus is illustrated the imperative need, for understanding and observing God's presumptively well-written and congruous laws, of regarding their subject-matter. Else, God's laws are practically abrogated, and incongruous ones substituted, that are the human product of an inconsiderate or perverse exegesis.

Ob. 37. Verse 6 specifically prohibited commerce with a daughter.

"Flesh of his flesh" related immediately to children (its primary meaning being the father's children); and the subject, Commerce, limited it to daughters.

This is equally true of "remainder of his flesh" and "kin of his flesh"; for the common term "of his flesh" limits "remainder" and "kin" to the father's issue.

Sisters or brothers are not of one another's flesh, but only of the flesh of common parents, and thus flesh-kin.

Verse 6 being thus a specific law, the laws that followed it, were additional prohibitions.

Ob. 38. This verse (v. 6) did not clearly cover granddaughter, she being only one-fourth "of his flesh"; and therefore, a specific prohibition was added (v. 10) just as verse 9 specifically named half-sister; and in each case such specification was presumptively necessary.

Ob. 39. It is by destroying the specific law of v. 6 (as to daughter) and substituting a vague one, that Restrictionists, by thus effecting an omission of the daughter-case, would get a wedge into these specific and exact laws of God, for opening them ad libitum, and extending His 7 degrees to 60 Church ones.

Ob. 40. If verse 6 had related generally to commerce with blood-kin and marriage-relatives, it would not have been a general-law, of which subsequent prohibitions were examples, but would rank with verse 3, as a sort of preamble to the laws that follow.

Verse 3 was such a Preamble, prohibiting Canaanitish "doings" in general, but pointing to what followed as defining such doings, and thus as limiting its sweeping terms, and reducing it to a Preamble. Even Dr. Pusey admits this (Ans. 427–8).

But what is thus true of verse 3, is equally true of verse 6, if read as a general-law. It would then stand, as a sweeping prohibition of commerce with all blood-kin and marriage-relatives, without limiting such commerce by any degree of remoteness. And as all mankind are by Scriptural account, kin of the one flesh of Adam, such kin would embrace all mankind, and marriage-relatives those whom any may please to add. But as Canaanitish commerce cannot well be viewed as so extensive, or the prohibition be deemed so broad as to have precluded generation; and as having thus enforced the extinction of the human race, or even of the Israelitish, we must look beyond the supposed law, to find what kinds of Canaanitish commerce those were, which such undefining law referred to. Thus looking, we find those specified in vv. 7–20; and by vv. 24–30 that those were the defiling customs of Canaan, which formed the subject of such verse 6. But it further appears, that such customs are specified only in and by specific prohibitions thereof; and thus, those prohibitions render verse 6 superfluous as a Law, and leave it to rank with verse 3, as only a Preamble; and as substantially saying—Thou shalt not practice any commerce hereinafter specified.

Ob. 41. Classifying these laws (vv. 6–16), their prohibitions, and the assigned reasons therefor, were as follows:

Flesh-relatives:

And these prohibitions endured; for the relationship was permanent.

Other cases:

And each endured only whilst the wife was such.

Ob. 42. The laws concerning flesh-kin were apparently based on the close, kinship, and on natural-dictates.

As to mother, daughter, and sister, no reason was assigned; each kinship sufficed.

Half-sisters, were characterized as "sisters" (vv. 9, 11); and that was enough.

​Flesh-ship was not affirmed of father's or mother's sister, but their nearer kinship—of sister to father and mother respectively—was the assigned reason—as if the more distant, but direct kinship, was not enough; and the element of respect to father and mother, and their nearer kinship, were needful.

Ob. 43. In the laws extending to relatives by affinity, flesh-ship ("kin-"ship in Eng. Bible) was never predicated of such a relative; but another reason was uniformly assigned.

If marriage had created "kin-"ship, or these laws had been given with that idea, that would naturally have been assigned, as the reason for the prohibition in each case. But instead of that, in each case, another reason was assigned, upon which the law was apparently based.

Thus, a prohibition was extended by v. 8 to stepmother, not as being mother or kin, but because hers "is thy father's nakedness"—an offence to him; by v. 14 to father's brother's wife, not as being father's sister, nor as kin, but as "thine aunt"—or uncle's wife; by v. 15 to daughter-in-law, not as being daughter or kin, but as "thy son's wife;" by v. 16 to brother's wife, not as being sister (though half and even illegitimate one was so defined) or kin, but because hers "is thy brother's nakedness"—an offence against him.

Ob. 44. These laws recognized no marriage-tie through females.

They reached wives of kin, but no kin of a wife.

Ob. 45. The prohibitions beyond blood-kin, related only to wives; and placed all those on equal footing, whether of neighbors or of near kin.

Commerce with each was equally prohibited (v. 20) and under the same penalty, of death (Lev. xx: 10).

​Ob. 46. These laws that extended beyond kin of the flesh, thus reveal as their principles

1st. The protection of marital rights.

2d. Parity of all wives.

3d. Disregard of all unmarried females.

Note.—This Mosaic-table, of (incidentally) prohibited monogamous marriages, and the English-table, respectively sum up as follows—(half-sisters being reckoned as sisters)

Ob. 47. The limited reach of all these laws, confirms their Civil character.

Those relating to blood-kin, resemble our State-laws against natural incest; and their accordance with morality, does not lessen their Civil character.

That those extending beyond blood-kin embraced only wives, reveals them as based on Civil-rights, and as Civil-laws.

Ob. 48. The defilements of the Canaanites included commerce with mother, sister, daughter, grand-daughter, father's sister, mother's sister, father's wife, son's wife, brother's wife, father's brother's wife, and neighbor's wife; also sodomy and bestiality: and it is thence fairly inferable, that commerce with brother's widow, and wife's sister, was also practiced in Canaan.

Ob. 49. If such was the fact, then those practices were directly contemplated; and not being specified as defiling practices, they were left by these laws as undefil​ing practices, and beyond their Scope; and thus the Civil character of these laws is further evidenced.

Likewise our Civil-laws, though far advanced beyond the Mosaic in yielding rights to females, and protecting their persons, guard only Virtue, but not consenting lust.

Ob. 50. As to grand-mothers, it is inferable from their omission, that such commerce was not practiced in Canaan.

Ob. 51. From the known defilements of Canaan, it is further inferable, that commerce in the other cases of the English-table, was also practiced in Canaan; and if so, those also were contemplated, and left beyond the scope of these laws, and unprohibited.

Ob. 52. But because these last cases, (Ob. 51) and those before referred to (Ob. 49) were thus left unprohibited, this by no means implies a Moral toleration, as it would, if these laws had been Moral-laws; but only that they invaded no recognized Civil-right, and were therefore beyond the scope of these Civil-laws.

Ob. 53. These laws related only to wives—father's, son's, brother's, father's brother's, and neighbor's—and not to widows.

Such is their plain reading; and they all stand upon a common footing.

Having concluded our exegetical inquiry, its leading results are now gathered as follows:

1st. The laws of Lev. xviii, as a class, belonged to a polygamous-civilization, and are pro tanto unsuited to monogamy.

​2d. They were Civil-laws, and limited by the Civil power and life of Israel.

3d. Their Moral ingredients were not so separated from their Civil and Ecclesiastical, as to become revealed guides to Christian nations, for legislation by State or Church.

4th. They were superseded by the Gospel, as a complete Moral-system, that needs no help from the doubtful moralities of this Chapter of abrogated Judaism.

5th. They related only to the defilements of Canaan which they specified, and left all unspecified acts beyond their Scope. What God thus excluded, the Church cannot include.

6th. Their Object was not progress, but a preservation of Israel, from grosser forms of animalism than its polygamous and concubinous life witnessed; and their Subject was the yet grosser animalisms of Canaan.

7th. Verse 18 sanctioned marriage with deceased wife's sister.

8th. Verses 6–16 related directly to shameful Commerce, and not to marriage. Read thus, they honor God, as well written and clear; and were congruous with His other kindred laws, and His law of the heart; but misread as relating to Marriage, they abound with defects, confusions, and incongruities, and therefore dishonor Him.

9th. To read v. 16 as a Moral-law against marrying brother's widow, charges God with ordering an immoral act (Deut. xxv: 5); whereas His brother's widow law certifies such marriages as right, and stamps them with Divine favor.

10th. Verse 6 related directly to daughters; and thus Church legislators are deprived of their excuse, for remodeling these laws of God, to fit their Medieval Canons.

​11th. These laws (vv. 6–16) prohibited Canaanitish commerce with the specified blood-kin, but extended beyond those only to wives.

12th. They paralleled brother's wife and neighbor's wife; but distinguished wives from widows and maidens.

13th. These laws left monogamous marriage absolutely free, save only with the specified blood-kin.

14th. They distinguished consanguinity from affinity, and negative the dogma of a marriage-flesh.

The study of Lev. xviii, whose results have now been set forth, was directed to its laws, as if the involved questions were new ones; and not to Ecclesiastical teachings on those subjects. For it was surmised, that such teachings were only those which have passed down by Ecclesiastical heritage, through a line of descent, that links the Succession of this age to the Papacy, and Church-Conservatism to the Errors and corruptions of pre-Reformation periods.

Arriving at results widely opposed to High-Church teachings on the subject, attention was then directed to such publications pro and con as were accessible. On the Ecclesiastical side, it was found that when the Reformation had somewhat asserted the freedom of religious inquiry and thought, and Priestcraft could no longer shut the Bible from public examination, Ecclesiasticism sought better support for the Church's Prohibited-degrees, than the waning Power on which they had been based; and for want of any better Scriptural one, it reposed them on Lev. xviii. Since then, Ecclesiastical defences of the English-table have abounded; and modern tactics have been, to confound the post-Reformation Scriptural defence of them, with the pre-Reformation arbitrary degrees, and thus to give one or other degree ​a false Authoritative support, as having been based during its long continuance, on a corresponding interpretation of Lev. xviii. But on the People's side, little has been found; and to what extent his views may be shared by the thinking public, who are so generally agreed in the special conclusion, that marriage with a deceased wife's sister must be right, the writer is not much informed. Nor has he cared to fortify his positions, otherwise than as they are commended to that Reason, by which every such question is triable, but which irrational Priestcraft and Conservatism are ever decrying, in favor of unreasoning Credence in antiquated Error.

Aware however of his liability to err, the writer has not entrenched the Scriptural Freedom of marriage, behind any single line of defence. But instead, his plan has been to intercept attack upon this natural-freedom, by successive and independent bulwarks; so that if the enemy should gain an out-post, or find a weakness in one defence and storm it, another would meet them; and so whilst one shall remain, that Freedom will be beyond successful attack, and fully secure. Thus, if the laws in question were merely Civil and perished with Jewish Nationality; or were superseded by the Gospel; or were limited to the specified Canaanitish defilements; or related primarily to commerce, and must be read accordingly; or verse 6 related immediately to daughters; or the laws reaching beyond kin to wives, did not command their extension by Ecclesiastical parallelism to maidens and widows; then in either such case, they do not interdict marriage with a deceased wife's sister, or with any affinitous relative.

And finally, this contribution toward the protection of a Natural-right to marriage-Freedom from Ecclesiastical invasion, is presented with confidence, that impartial readers will recognize it as justifying its title and conclusion, that Affinity is no Bar to Marriage.