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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Marriage with a deceased wife's sister, by
+Mayow Wynell Mayow
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: Marriage with a deceased wife's sister
+       Leviticus xviii. 18, considered in connection with the Law of the Levirate
+
+
+Author: Mayow Wynell Mayow
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 7, 2015  [eBook #48892]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S
+SISTER***
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1869 James Parker and Co. edition by David Price,
+email ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+
+
+
+
+                 Marriage with a Deceased Wife’s Sister.
+
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                           LEVITICUS XVIII. 18,
+                  CONSIDERED IN CONNECTION WITH THE LAW
+                             OF THE LEVIRATE.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                 A LETTER
+                                    TO
+                    THE RIGHT HON. THE LORD HATHERLEY,
+                     LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND,
+                               &c„ &c, &c.
+
+                                    BY
+
+                            M. W. MAYOW, M.A.,
+
+          RECTOR OF SOUTH HEIGHTON CUM TARRING NEVILLE, SUSSEX,
+                   AND LATE STUDENT OF CH. CH., OXFORD.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                             Second Edition.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                 London and Oxford: JAMES PARKER AND CO.
+                          Brighton: G. WAKELING.
+                                  1869.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                BRIGHTON:
+                          G. WAKELING, PRINTER,
+                              NORTH STREET.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+Marriage with a Deceased Wife’s Sister.
+
+
+                                 A LETTER
+                  TO THE RIGHT HON. THE LORD HATHERLEY,
+                    _Lord High Chancellor of England_,
+                           _&c._, _&c._, _&c._
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+MY LORD,
+
+The deep interest which for a long period you have taken in preserving
+intact our Table of Degrees as to prohibited marriages, will, I hope,
+sufficiently account for my wish to address the following remarks to your
+Lordship, and your unvarying kindness will no less account for the ready
+permission which you have given me to do so.  I will not take up any time
+in preface further than just to observe that of course you are not in any
+way responsible for the views or the argument of the ensuing pages,
+though I am, I hope, justified in believing that, whatever be their
+imperfections, the object at which they aim will meet with your sympathy
+and approval.  My earnest and anxious wish is to do what I may, God
+helping me, to aid in averting what I feel would be a grievous sin if our
+marriage law were altered in the sense desired by the promoters of the
+Wife’s Sister’s Marriage Bill.  I do not purpose to go over the whole
+ground which has been so often contested, (to do which would be almost an
+impertinence in remarks addressed to your Lordship), but rather to
+confine my observations to the Scriptural argument, or, perhaps I should
+say, to a portion of the Scriptural argument against the change proposed,
+viz.—to the due sense and application of the 18th verse of the xviii.
+chapter of Leviticus.
+
+There is, I suppose, no room for reasonable doubt that the case of the
+advocates of a change in our law which may sanction the marriage of a man
+with his deceased wife’s sister, rests mainly, so far as the Scriptural
+argument is concerned, upon the 18th verse of the xviii. chapter of
+Leviticus.  “Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to
+uncover her nakedness, beside the other, in her life time,” where, the
+translation being assumed to be correct, the interpretation put upon it
+is that if such a union is forbidden in the life time of the first wife,
+there is a tacit sanction of the same after her decease.  If it were not
+for this one verse thus translated and thus interpreted, there would, I
+think, hardly be a question raised or a doubt felt by one in a thousand
+that such unions are prohibited, denounced as incestuous, and forbidden
+under God’s general law, just as we find them set down in Archbishop
+Parker’s table of prohibited degrees.
+
+The importance, then, of this verse being admitted as to the right
+understanding of God’s will in this matter, I propose briefly to call
+attention to some points connected with it which I think have not
+received the consideration to which they are entitled.  My aim will be to
+show, even conceding the whole demand as to the correctness of the
+translation found in the Text of our authorized version, and not
+disputing the inference that there is a certain tacit sanction of such a
+Union with the second sister after the death of the first, yet that upon
+a careful consideration, it may most reasonably be maintained that the
+sanction does not extend to any general permission of the same, but that
+the enactment or permission is made and given for one special object
+only, and is limited to one particular condition of things, incident only
+to the Jewish economy, to meet which it is definitely designed and
+restricted; that therefore it involves, rightly understood, no
+contradiction at all to the law laid down generally that none shall
+approach to any near of kin to him (v. 6), nor to the cases which follow
+illustrating the meaning of that law (v. 7–17), nor, therefore to the
+prohibitions generally, nor to that one among them particularly, that a
+woman shall not marry two brothers—extended by direct analogy to the
+converse case, that a man shall not marry two sisters; in other words,
+that though the translation, and the inference to a certain extent, be
+both conceded, yet there is an ample and true sense for the passage, and
+full scope for its intention and enactment, without its for a moment
+clashing with the prohibitions of the general law.
+
+But first I would say a word to clear the position that but for this 18th
+verse of the xviii. chapter of Leviticus, no one would doubt, as to the
+prohibition in question.
+
+How does the case stand?  The xviii. chapter of Leviticus deals first (as
+the heading states), with “unlawful marriages.”  After declaring
+emphatically, in the first five verses, the importance of keeping God’s
+law, and warning the people against falling into the sins of the
+Egyptians and the Canaanites, the matter itself is opened in the 6th
+verse—“None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him to
+uncover their nakedness: I am the Lord.”  “This,” as you, my lord,
+observed at the meeting at Willis’s Rooms, (February 1st, 1860,) “is the
+key-note to all that follows.  The law then shows who are near of kin to
+us, and proceeds to mention more cases of affinity than of relationship
+by blood.” {5}  I am aware that it has been contended on philological
+grounds that the terms “near of kin” are necessarily confined in their
+sense to kindred by blood relationship, and cannot embrace relationship
+by marriage; but I do not feel that there is any material weight in the
+critical examination of such a passage, as to the general use of a phrase
+or word, because it seems to me we have here the comment of the Holy
+Ghost Himself in what follows as to the sense in which the words “near of
+kin” are, in the connection in which they there stand, to be understood;
+that is to say, that which follows gives, by the details of the
+enactments ensuing, God’s own comment as to what is intended by “near of
+kin,” and if these details be found to embrace affinity as well as, and
+as much as, blood relationship, it appears to me that the consideration
+of what in other cases is the usage of the term, must be beside the
+question we have before us.  Nay, is it not, indeed, very probable that
+terms, which in their ordinary usage would refer simply to blood
+relationship, are here chosen by Divine inspiration to include also
+relationship by affinity, for the very purpose of showing that a man and
+his wife being one flesh, the nearness of kin here contemplated, and
+illustrated by the instances which follow, was to embrace both
+relationships alike?  I do not know how better to shew that, in the whole
+connection of this passage, the enactment is of the kind which I have
+mentioned, than by a quotation from the pamphlet of Mr. Keble, published
+in 1849.  Though, my lord, you and others have said the same things, you
+will, I am sure, bear with me whilst I recall the passage as it stands in
+the words of that revered writer.  After shewing the scope of the law to
+extend not merely to the Jews by the curse which it entails having been
+brought upon the very heathen who gave way to such iniquities, he says:—
+
+    “Now, what are the customs which were so abominable in the old
+    inhabitants of God’s Holy Land, and caused the land itself to vomit
+    them out? (the customs, I mean, in respect of marriage: for of the
+    other horrors mentioned in this chapter we are not now compelled to
+    speak.)  They are all forbidden in one general principle: ‘None of
+    you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover
+    their nakedness: I am the Lord.’  This being laid down in the 6th
+    verse, the following verses allege so many instances, whereby God’s
+    people might understand what ‘near of kin’ means.  And it is
+    remarkable, that in this enunciation the law makes no distinction
+    between those who are akin by marriage and those who are akin by
+    blood, but mentions them indiscriminately, as if the one sort were
+    precluded from marrying under the same penalties as the other.
+
+    “For these are the degrees expressly forbidden, in their order.
+    First, a natural mother, in v. 7.  Next, a father’s wife, or
+    step-mother, in v. 8: which is the case mentioned in 1 Cor. v. 1.
+    Next, a sister, v. 9.  Next, a grand-daughter, v. 10.  Next, a
+    half-sister, v. 11.  Next, an aunt by the father’s side, v. 12.
+    Next, an aunt by the mother’s side, v. 13.  Next, an aunt by marriage
+    with an uncle, v. 14.  Next, a son’s wife, v. 15.  Next, a brother’s
+    wife, v. 16.  Next, a wife’s daughter, mother, or grand-daughter, v.
+    17.
+
+    “Here are thirteen cases in all: six of kindred by blood, and seven
+    of kindred by marriage: and neither by the order in which they follow
+    one another, nor by any difference of expression regarding them, is
+    any hint given, that the one sort of profanation is less heinous in
+    God’s sight than the other.  The world may have come to think there
+    is a difference, because the world will not believe that man and wife
+    are really one flesh.  But the written law of God apparently deals
+    with both alike.” {7}
+
+He then adds:—
+
+    “The next remark I have to make on this, which is God’s own table of
+    prohibited marriages, is one which it seems to me that no fair mind
+    can deny.  Indeed, one is half ashamed to enounce it, it is so
+    obvious: yet the reasoning on the other side appears to be mainly
+    based on the denial of it.  It is simply this: that nearness of kin
+    not being affected by sex, what is forbidden to a man is forbidden to
+    a woman in the same degree of kindred or affinity, though it be not
+    set down in words.  For instance, in v. 7, a man is forbidden to
+    marry his mother: then, by the same rule, a woman is forbidden to
+    marry her father, though the prohibition is not expressed.  Surely it
+    would be fearful paltering with God’s law, not to accept and obey
+    such a plain rule as this.  And it is to be observed, that these
+    Canons are all addressed to men only: the woman’s duty and the
+    woman’s sin are left to be inferred in each case: but what should we
+    think of the woman who should therefore account herself left at
+    liberty, so far as the Levitical laws are concerned?
+
+    “Now look at v. 16; which, being expressed in such English as we now
+    commonly talk, would run, I suppose, as follows: ‘Thou shalt not
+    marry thy brother’s widow: she is one flesh with thy brother, and is
+    therefore thine own sister.’  Can any other interpretation be put
+    upon it? and if this be the right interpretation, are not marriages
+    with a brother’s widow plainly forbidden among the Canaanitish
+    abominations?” {8}
+
+All this appears to me not only a fair and right explanation, with no
+unwarrantable deductions or inferences, but one absolutely irrefutable,
+unless God Himself have marked in some other place a dispensation or
+exception to be made to it.  I know such dispensation or exception is
+just what is claimed.  To deal with such allegation is the very object of
+my addressing you, and I shall shortly come to that part of my subject.
+But it may not be amiss here just to call attention to the fact that Dr.
+M’Caul himself (whom I think I may designate as the most learned and able
+of the advocates for the change of the law in question) seems to admit
+that, were there no other Scripture to override the law as thus
+proclaimed, he should acknowledge the force of this part of the xviii.
+chapter of Leviticus as conclusive on the unlawfulness of marriage with
+the deceased wife’s sister; for he says expressly, in his first letter on
+the subject, addressed to the Rev. W. H. Lyall, “On some points, I think,
+we agree; as, for instance, that the final appeal in questions relating
+to marriage must be to the Word of God. . . . I also am convinced that
+the laws in Leviticus xviii., being a part of the moral law, stand on a
+totally different footing from circumcision, or the Jewish Sabbaths, or
+abstinence from meats.  Indeed, I believe that this marriage law was
+given to the Gentile Churches in the famous decree of the Council of
+Jerusalem.  On this ground, I believe that the prohibitions of Leviticus
+xviii. are binding on all Christians.”  That is, he believes, that the
+general law then given, as being of a moral nature, and intended for all
+men, was distinctly re-enacted, and re-decreed for the sake of greater
+perspicuity, by the Christian Church in the Council at Jerusalem.  And he
+goes on—“I agree, further, with those who interpret ‘woman’ or ‘wife’ in
+these prohibitions as comprehending widowhood, so that these females are
+prohibited, not only during the lives of their husbands, but absolutely
+and forever.”  And he adds—“And, lastly, I admit that from the prohibited
+marriages enumerated, compared with other parts of the Divine
+legislation, others not enumerated may be pronounced unlawful.” {9}
+Where we may see that, although with a certain reserve, yet the principle
+of arguing from analogy, and from a case to its converse, in regard to
+sex, appears to be admitted.  And I think I do not misrepresent the whole
+tone and sense of the two letters of Dr. M’Caul, when I say that I am
+convinced, but for the 18th verse of the xviii. chapter, he would himself
+readily have allowed the full weight of Mr. Keble’s statement, and
+considered these unions to be absolutely prohibited.
+
+But next as to the exception claimed.  It is true that there is an
+exception to the working of the law laid down in verse 16, concerning the
+brother’s wife, by a positive enactment in Deuteronomy (chap. xxv. v.
+5–10), where provision is made for a man “raising up seed unto his
+brother,” by taking to him his widow to wife, if the brother have died
+childless, that “the first-born which she beareth” may “succeed in the
+name of his brother, which is dead, that his name be not put out of
+Israel” (v. 6.)  But I feel justified in saying that this alone would
+have been no difficulty to Dr. M’Caul (nor to any man of his reasoning
+powers), as to the prevalence of the general law in all cases but the
+special one excepted, and that but for the 18th verse of the xviii.
+chapter of Leviticus, our 99th Canon and the table of prohibited degrees
+would have been almost or quite universally accepted as the true
+enunciation of the will and law of God in this matter of unlawful
+marriages.
+
+It is, then, to that particular passage of Holy Scripture that it is
+necessary to draw attention.  And here, my lord, I must take up a word,
+which I find in your speech before referred to, which seems to me to be
+emphatically a word “of truth and soberness.”  You say, “To over-ride a
+command, which is distinct and precise, you must have a very clear verse
+and a very clear interpretation.” {10}  Dr. M’Caul quotes these words,
+with a distinct approval of their statement, though with exactly the
+converse of their application.  “You believe,” he says, “that a very
+clear verse and a very clear interpretation might over-ride a command,
+even though it be distinct and precise, and you are right.”  He goes on,
+“Lev. xviii. 16, the verse on which you chiefly rest your Scriptural
+arguments, is, so far as relates to marriage with a brother’s wife,
+distinct and precise, and enunciates a command absolutely and without any
+limitation; and yet it is over-ridden by Deut. xxv. 5.”  He means, of
+course, over-ridden as to the particular case of “a man’s raising up seed
+unto his brother;” but not so as to sanction the brother taking the
+brother’s wife in any other contingency.  And this we, as well as he,
+allow and admit, for who shall limit the Almighty’s right, and power to
+grant or make any special exceptions to His general laws, which He may
+think fit?  But we should have deemed it strange indeed if the whole law
+enacted in one place were definitely repealed in another, whilst that law
+was in force among those for whom it was given and designed.  But so far
+we can well go with Dr. M’Caul.  He proceeds, where, as I hope presently
+to shew, we have no need to follow him, and where, indeed, if his view
+were correct, there _would be_ the total repeal of what is stated as the
+law in one verse, in the second verse after it.  However, to go on,—Dr.
+M’Caul adds, “And therefore, _a fortiori_, your inferential prohibition
+with regard to a wife’s sister may be over-ridden also by a clear verse
+and a clear interpretation.  If weight of authority is to decide, Lev.
+xviii. 18, is just such a verse, and its interpretation has the required
+condition.  Here, then, the controversy narrows itself into that which is
+the common and popular view of the matter: whether the inferential
+prohibition from verse 16 is to over-ride the expressed command of verse
+18, or the plain letter of this latter verse to over-ride the inference
+from the former.” {11}  Now, I shall have something further to say
+presently as to “the expressed command,” and the “plain letter of this
+latter verse;” but at present let me merely remark, that we have, at any
+rate, Dr. M’Caul’s admission that between these two verses there _is a
+conflict and an over-riding_.  In his view even, there is discrepancy.
+What is, in the one, he tells us, at least inferentially prohibited, is,
+in the other, expressly commanded; and this, not in a case or manner
+parallel to the variation between the 16th verse, _prohibiting_ as the
+general law, and the passage in Deut. xxv. 5, _enjoining_ in the
+exceptional contingency named, but, on the contrary, in a case of a
+universal negative met and confronted, two verses afterwards, by a case
+of a, not exceptional, contradictory affirmative.  And the only
+palliation of such a startling discrepancy in Holy Scripture is, we are
+to understand, that it is inadmissible to draw the inference from the
+woman being forbidden to marry two brothers, that the man is forbidden to
+marry two sisters.  Although throughout the restrictions this principle
+is necessary to prevent the most revolting permissions under the law, and
+although, but for the 18th verse, no one, we believe, would have dreamed
+of questioning it in the particular of the man and two sisters, yet here
+it must be at once ignored, or you have an absolute contradiction of
+commands, in the same enunciation of law, within two verses. {12}  I
+notice this point expressly, because I think we cannot too strongly
+entertain the conviction of the _unlikelihood_ of such a thing occurring
+thus in the word and law of God; and therefore, as a reason for the most
+careful examination, whether we may not have overlooked the real scope
+and object of this 18th verse, even if we admit the correctness of the
+translation and of the sense.  Observe, there is a great distinction
+between the sense and the application.  Admitting the sense, I must deny
+the application, as I shall presently shew.  But here let me repeat, if
+there be but a fairly reasonable account to be given of the existence and
+application of the 18th verse, without its running us into the difficulty
+of this over-riding, and collision with itself of God’s law, and if we
+hereby avoid the gross unlikelihood which I have mentioned, then surely
+such account and such application ought to commend itself to every candid
+mind, as at least worthy of the most serious consideration.
+
+My Lord, I venture to think such account and application of the 18th
+verse there is; and though it has been touched upon by others, and Dr.
+M’Caul himself came very near it, yet it appears to have been too little
+dwelt upon by any, and strangely overlooked by him. {13a}
+
+Let me here bring the matter once more to the point of divergence.  We
+have first the general law, “None of you shall approach to any that is
+near of kin to him” (v. 6).  We have then the general catalogue of
+prohibitions which come under this head, and form the divine comment on
+the terms “near of kin:” and these dealing, with cases of affinity, in a
+majority of the prohibitions expressed, as compared with those of blood
+relationship (v. 7–17.)  All these, moreover, be it observed, put in the
+statement as commands upon the _man_, leaving the obligation upon the
+_woman_ to be inferred.  Upon this statement we have Archbishop Parker’s
+table of degrees, and of the forbidden unions, extending exactly to the
+parallel cases of all those named;—with the like witness also of the 99th
+Canon, declaring all such alliances to be incestuous;—and this table
+required by our law, both of Church and State, to be set up in all Parish
+Churches. {13b}  But we have then the 18th verse making, as is alleged,
+not merely an exception, but a contradiction to the parallel case of what
+is forbidden in verse 16 as to the brother’s wife, and permitting the
+union with a wife’s sister, so that it be not in the lifetime of the
+former.  We thus come to what Dr. M’Caul himself considers to be a case
+of _over-riding_, where we must determine whether (to use again his own
+words) “the inferential prohibition from verse 16 is to over-ride the
+expressed command of verse 18, or the plain letter of this latter verse
+to over-ride the inference from the former.” {14}
+
+Now, what I am anxious to see is, whether there is any need to force upon
+us this _over-riding_ at all.  I think not.
+
+To show what I mean, I ask this—Take the prohibition of the brother’s
+wife first in its plain literal terms, verse 16, and then is there,
+independently of the 18th verse, any direct exception to it?  Certainly
+there is.  When we come to the further explication of the Jewish polity,
+and God’s designs in reference to it, we find a special provision in the
+law of the Levirate, (that is, the law of raising up seed to the deceased
+brother), which will clash with that prohibition; for the brother is
+required to take his brother’s wife and raise up seed to a house in
+danger of becoming extinct in Israel.  “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 go in unto her, and
+take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother
+unto her.  And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall
+succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not
+put out of Israel.  And if the man like not to take his brother’s wife,
+then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say,
+My husband’s brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in
+Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother.  Then the
+elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to
+it, and say, I like not to take her; then shall his brother’s wife come
+unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his
+foot, and spit in his face, and say, So shall it be done unto that man
+that will not build up his brother’s house.  And his name shall be called
+in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.”  Deut. xxv.,
+5–10.
+
+In this passage there is, not what I should call a contradiction to the
+general law, but an exception in a particular case, and for a particular
+case only.  It is no general permission over-riding and making of none
+effect the general prohibition, but a particular injunction for a special
+purpose in one defined contingency.  If a man’s brother die childless,
+his brother shall take his wife and raise up seed unto his brother.  As
+it was exactly quoted in the gospel: “Master, Moses said, If a man die,
+having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed
+unto his brother.” {15}
+
+We have already observed that the authority of Him who gave the
+prohibitory law is sufficient to give also the permissive, or more than
+permissive, exception, so that we come into no difficulty as to the one,
+in such measure, _over-riding_ (to use again the term) the other.
+
+But of course the opponent’s rejoinder is: Are you not in the very same
+case as to the other over-riding?  Is not the authority which gave the
+prohibition of the 16th verse equal to give the permission of the 18th?
+
+Granting that it is so, yet I must again call attention to this; how
+wholly unlikely it is that, without making any special exception, for any
+suggested or defined cause, there should be within two verses of each
+other two general laws exactly contradictory, for so they are, if the
+argument from parallelism is allowed.  And therefore I must again urge
+how probable this makes it, if there be any other reasonable sense or
+application of the second passage not involving this contradiction, that
+such sense and application should be the true one, and there should be
+thus no over-riding at all between those two verses.
+
+Is there then any such reasonable sense and application of the
+prohibition of the 18th verse?  I think there is.  To see what it is, go
+back to the exception under the law of the Levirate, {16} and ask whether
+the application of that law might not involve a man’s marrying two
+sisters.  Undoubtedly it might.  Suppose two brothers to have married two
+sisters, and the one brother to die, leaving no child, if, by the
+Leviratical law the brother, as he would do under that law simply, took
+his brother’s widow to raise up seed unto his brother, he would also be
+taking to wife his own wife’s sister, and this, it would seem under the
+injunction in Deuteronomy, he would not only be permitted but enjoined to
+do.  But was this to be without exception?  I answer, No!  If his own
+wife, the sister of the other were still alive, the Almighty did not
+intend this rule to be carried out in such case.  He, the surviving
+brother, in that contingency, should _not_ “take a wife to her sister to
+vex her, . . . beside the other in her life-time.”  The prohibition of
+the 18th verse of the xviii. chapter of Leviticus comes in.  It comes, in
+the translation of the authorized version.  It comes, in the sense
+contended for, as prohibitory if both sisters are alive together.  It
+comes, as tacitly sanctioning the union if they are not; but it comes as
+limited in its application to this one case and one contemplated
+contingency, as God’s own exception touching the two sisters “in their
+life-time:”—His exception, as to both sisters alive together; the
+exception to the exception contained in the law of the Levirate, but as
+having nothing at all to do with the general law: as therefore in no way
+interfering with or over-riding the general law of the 16th verse; in no
+way making its general provision of none effect, as it would do if taken
+in the sense and application of these reformers of our marriage law.  And
+the above-mentioned sense and application which everyone must allow the
+18th verse will bear, nay, which Dr. M’Caul tells us all Jewish
+authorities claim and sanction, as at least included in its legislation,
+is, I must contend, ample and sufficient to explain the standing of the
+18th verse, and its full meaning, without supposing any other application
+whatsoever.
+
+And let it be observed that this statement of such application to the
+case of two brothers having married two sisters, and the consequent duty,
+in the case of one brother dying childless, of the other brother to take
+his widow under the law of Deuteronomy, modified by the exception of the
+18th verse of Lev. xviii, that such union is not to take place, if his
+own wife be still alive, is not mine, but Dr. M’Caul’s, in a full
+examination of certain passages in the Mishna upon this subject.  Indeed
+it was Dr. M’Caul’s own statement, in his Letter addressed, my Lord, to
+yourself in 1860, which brought to my mind the main line of argument
+which I am endeavouring to unfold.  I asked myself;—If all this in the
+Mishna and in Dr. M’Caul’s explication of the matter, be true, why is it
+not the sufficient truth and the whole explanation needed?  Why go on to
+make a conflict between the two verses in Leviticus when the 18th verse
+is acknowledged to be the enunciation of an exception to the law of the
+Levirate, and when this is a full and sufficient account of it?
+
+It will, I think, be no waste of time to extract the passage to which I
+refer from Dr. M’Caul’s letter, as this will serve both to make what I
+have here said the more distinct, and shew also, how entirely both the
+Mishna and Dr. M’Caul maintain all which I have advanced as to the
+application of the verse in Leviticus to the case of the two brothers
+having married two sisters, though they refuse (at least the latter) to
+stop at this point.
+
+I ought to say thus much as introduction to the Extract.  In his first
+letter Dr. M’Caul had mentioned the Mishna as confirming his view.  “The
+Mishna compiled in the second century testifies that it (this permission
+of the marriage) was the common and received sense of the Hebraizing
+Jews.” {18}  This drew some remarks from the writer of one of the Tracts
+published by the Marriage Law Defence Association, (Tract 8, p. 4, and
+Appendix, quoted also by yourself in the Appendix to your speech,) upon
+the statements of the Mishna, which again caused Dr. M’Caul in rejoinder
+to examine those statements and to comment upon them afresh in his letter
+to yourself.  I need not go back to the first two pamphlets.  Dr.
+M’Caul’s explanations in his second letter will shew all which I want to
+exhibit.  Complaining of inaccurate quotation on the part of the writer
+of Tract 8, he says,
+
+    “I will give the passages as they stand in the Mishna, and you, Sir,
+    may judge of the faithfulness of this writer in making quotations.
+    The words of the Mishna are:—
+
+    “‘Suppose three brothers, two of them married to two sisters, and one
+    of them married to a stranger—one of the sister’s husbands dies, and
+    he who is married to the stranger takes his widow—then the wife of
+    the second dies, and after that he that is married to the stranger
+    dies, behold this _widow_, (_i.e._, the surviving sister) is
+    prohibited to him for ever, because she was prohibited to him for
+    _one hour_.’
+
+    “Now, Sir, you will perceive several differences between this
+    statement of the Mishna and that of the Appendix.  1st, The Appendix
+    says,—‘It is declared, that if that _brother’s wife is his own wife’s
+    sister_, _he may not marry her_.’  The Mishna makes no such general
+    statement, but confines itself to a particular case.  2dly, The
+    reason the Mishna gives for the prohibition of the surviving sister
+    is that ‘she had been prohibited to him _for one hour_,’ which the
+    Appendix omits altogether.  3rdly, The Appendix says, ‘And the reason
+    assigned is, that _the man and his wife’s sister_ are related _within
+    the degrees forbidden by the holy law_ to intermarry,’ not one word
+    of which is in the text of the Mishna, as you see.  The Mishna gives
+    the reason correctly, _she had been prohibited to the second brother
+    for one hour_, _i.e._, her widowhood commenced whilst her sister was
+    still alive and the wife of the other brother, in which case the
+    _Rabbis_ rule that she is prohibited for ever.
+
+    “To make this plain, I will put letters as in the Appendix:—
+
+    “Two brothers | A/B | marry | M/N | Two sisters.
+
+    “A third brother, C, marries S, a stranger, _i.e._, no relation.
+
+    “A dies; M is left a widow.
+
+    “C marries M, A’s Widow, to fulfil a brother-in-law’s duty, which B
+    could not do, because to marry two sisters simultaneously is
+    forbidden by Lev. xviii. 18.  This is the ‘one hour’ during which M
+    is prohibited to B.
+
+    “N then dies, and B is left a widower; but he is not allowed to marry
+    M, left a second time a widow, because on the death of A, whilst N,
+    his wife, was alive, M was prohibited.  Out of this particular case,
+    by putting in words not in the Mishna, and by leaving out the words
+    ‘one hour,’ which are in the Mishna, the writer has made a new
+    Rabbinic law, unknown to the Mishna and its commentators, and from a
+    particular case has drawn a general conclusion, opposed to Jewish law
+    and practice.  For, take the deaths in a different order, so as to
+    avoid the ‘one hour,’ and then B might marry M.  Thus:—
+
+    “Two brothers | A/B | marry | M/N | Two sisters.
+
+    “A third brother, C, marries S, a stranger.
+
+    “Suppose that N dies first, and after she is dead A dies without
+    children, then B may marry M, because she had not been ‘prohibited to
+    him for _one hour_,’ _i.e._, she had not been a widow whilst his own
+    wife was alive.  The second case alluded to is exactly similar:—
+
+    “Mishna III. 9.—‘Suppose two brothers [A and B] married two sisters
+    [M and N].  If one of the brothers [A] die, and afterwards the wife
+    of the second [N] die, then the widow [M] is prohibited to the
+    surviving brother [B] because she had been prohibited to him _one
+    hour_.’
+
+    “But suppose that N had died first, and then A died without children,
+    then it would have been lawful for B to marry M, as may be seen in
+    Maimonides, Yad Hachazakah, Hilchoth Yibbum, ch. vii., § 3, 4, where
+    there is an analogous case.  The prohibition in the one case, and the
+    permission in the other, depends, not upon the words of the law, but
+    upon a general rule _laid down by the Rabbis_; that the lawfulness or
+    unlawfulness, as well as the obligation to perform the duty of a
+    brother-in-law, is regulated by the state of things existing at the
+    moment when the brother died.” {20}
+
+I have extracted the above at full length, because at the same time that
+it shews all I want and even more than I want for my purpose, it yet also
+shews no contradiction to what I want, whilst it shews also that I
+suppress no part of Dr. M’Caul’s statement or argument.  I say that it
+shews something more than I want, though nothing contradictory to it;
+because I have no need to consider either the third case of a brother
+marrying a stranger, or the case of the _one hour_ commented upon by the
+Mishna, or at least this case no further than as it brings out into the
+plainest prominence Dr. M’Caul’s own witness to the sense of Lev. xviii.
+18, that it forbids “B to marry A’s widow, because _to marry two sisters
+simultaneously is forbidden by Lev. xviii._ 18.”  That is, by the law of
+the Levirate simply, this would have been required, but by the exception
+of the above verse it is forbidden. {21}
+
+And this is what I mean by saying the passage shews all I want.  It
+proves incontestably that according to the Mishna, according to the
+Jewish Rabbis, according to Dr. M’Caul, the enactment of the 18th verse
+of the xviii. of Leviticus was inserted, for the very purpose which I
+have all along supposed:—that it was the declaration of God’s will, that
+when the operation of the law of the Levirate _per se_ would bring about
+the brother taking his own wife’s sister to wife to raise up seed unto
+his brother, _then_ the exception to the exception came in and forbade
+him to do so, if her sister, his own wife, were alive.  And this is what
+made me say (p. 13) that Dr. M’Caul came very near to the application of
+that text which I have been unfolding, though I was obliged to add, he
+overlooked its importance in interpreting the law as contained in
+Leviticus, for he allows that the 18th verse of Leviticus xviii. reaches
+to, is intended to reach to, and to forbid, this especial union, which
+otherwise would have been enjoined by the law in Deut. xxv., but it
+appears never to have occurred to him that this is the ample and
+sufficient explanation of the existence of that 18th verse.  He never
+seems to have conceived it possible that it should be restricted to being
+the exception to the Leviratical Law, and not be a general Law itself.
+
+I would, my Lord, for many reasons, had it so pleased God, that Dr.
+M’Caul were alive.  His ability and learning, his strong sense and true
+piety, and not least his willing readiness to join with those who might
+differ from him in many points in the defence of our common Church and
+common faith against the assaults of infidelity and rationalism, make his
+death a no ordinary loss to us in days like these.  But beyond this, I
+own, had it so been possible, I should have liked to point out to him how
+his own statements, his own authorities, and his own reasoning had been
+the very means to lead me to the conclusion, that we find a very complete
+and sufficient explanation of the existence and meaning of the 18th verse
+of Lev. xviii., without any occasion to resort to so violent an
+over-riding one statement of Scripture by another, as he has advocated.
+And this too without having to question the ordinary translation of the
+verse, or to find any difficulty in the sense of the words, “in her
+lifetime.”  All this, at any rate for the sake of argument, I seem able
+to concede to Dr. M’Caul, to take his own account of _an_ application of
+the passage, and only add, that it seems to me to be _the_ application,
+and the only application needed.  I cannot forbear adding, that if there
+be but a chance of this being so, it makes it a most serious thing for
+anyone to speak lightly of the restrictions in question—not merely of
+this one of the brother’s wife, but of all those laid down in this
+chapter of Leviticus, or to _think_ even of relaxing that code; for who
+shall say that we shall not thus “haply be found to fight against God,”
+and be bringing ourselves and our country under the curse of His Word,
+denounced against all who defile themselves in these things: “Ye shall
+therefore keep My statutes and My judgments; and shall not commit any of
+these abominations, neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that
+sojourneth among 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 not you out also, 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 ordinance, 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.” {23}  In these days, my lord, we have many
+things to make us anxious—many things, I do not go too far in saying, to
+make us tremble; but I hardly know anything which should fill us more
+with anxiety, fear and trembling, than the thought that our legislature
+should bring us under this terrible curse of God, by sanctioning, as the
+act of a people among whom “Christianity is” still “the law of the land,”
+any one of those abominations, for which even the nations of Canaan were
+cut off and spued out.  And as to individuals, I must say, there are to
+me few things more calculated to raise mixed feelings of pity, contempt
+and horror, than the levity and recklessness of some of those who are
+advocating the change—pity for the ignorance of many who have been misled
+by mere bold assertion, contempt for the reasoning powers of others who
+seem never to dream of looking at any side of the question except that on
+which their own passions, prejudices, or wishes are enlisted, and horror
+at the fearful temerity of those who dare approach and argue upon such a
+subject, without at least a sense of its importance, of the reverence
+with which all discussion relative to it should be conducted, and an awe,
+at any rate, as to the possibility, after all, of God’s law and will
+being in accordance with the Church’s interpretation of it for so long a
+time, and wholly against the “new thing” which the spirit of modern
+lawlessness seems anxious to introduce!
+
+My Lord, I have not designed or attempted to go through the whole
+argument on the question of the alteration of the Marriage law as now
+proposed, but have sought to confine myself to these points:
+
+I.  That the whole strength of the case of the promoters of the change,
+so far as Holy Scripture is concerned, rests upon the text, Lev. xviii.
+18, this text being taken to override the prohibition of Lev. xviii. 16.
+
+II.  That the contradiction of two general laws in God’s Word, the one to
+the other, in the course of three verses is highly unlikely and
+improbable; so improbable that we are justified in expecting to find some
+other solution of the difficulty.
+
+III.  That in the case in hand, there is another solution falling very
+naturally into its place by careful comparison of Scripture with
+Scripture.
+
+To sum up the general argument, even at the risk of some repetition, we
+may state it thus:—
+
+(i.)  We have the general rule laid down: “None of you shall approach to
+any that is near of kin to him” (verse 6).
+
+(ii.)  We have the instances and exemplifications of what this “nearness
+of kin” means, all of these given directly with reference to the _man_,
+leaving the corresponding _woman’s_ duty to be inferred (verses 7–17).
+
+(iii.)  We have the particular case of the brother’s wife (verse 16);
+whereupon, by parity of reasoning, is inferred the prohibition of the
+wife’s sister, it being here to be observed, that unless the cases of the
+different sex, by parity of reason, be taken as contemplated by the Holy
+Ghost in giving this Scripture, we have no written law against several
+most frightful kinds of incest. {24}
+
+(iv.)  We have an exception to the very letter of the law as to the
+brother’s wife, by the injunction of the law of the Levirate, in the
+provision for preventing the extinction of a house in Israel, by the
+brother’s taking his deceased brother’s wife (if he have died childless),
+and raising up seed unto his brother: this, not in the nature of a
+prohibition, but of an exceptional injunction or command. (Deut. xxv.
+5–10.)
+
+(v.)  We have an exception to the above exception, forbidding its being
+extended to the taking the wife’s sister in the case of the above
+injunction working (as in one special case it might work), to the result
+of a brother, in taking his deceased brother’s widow, taking also, by the
+same act, his own wife’s sister, and thus, if his own wife were still
+alive, having the two sisters together as wives.  For this would be the
+case, were there no exceptional prohibition, when two brothers had
+married two sisters, and when, though one of the brothers had died
+childless, yet both sisters were alive.  Then there comes in the
+exception: “Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her . . .
+beside the other in her lifetime” (verse 18); as if it were said, In no
+case—no, not when the law of the Levirate would otherwise require it—no,
+not when the saving of a house in Israel from extinction would otherwise
+demand it—shall a man take his wife’s sister, his own wife, her sister,
+being yet alive: where, too, we may observe, that the parallelism in the
+cases of the two brothers and the two sisters is strictly and exactly
+maintained; for the woman in no case _could_ take a second brother, the
+other being alive; for her husband, the first brother, _must be dead_
+before the law of the Levirate could operate at all; therefore the wife’s
+sister _could not_ (even when two brothers had married two sisters) take
+her husband’s brother beside the other in his lifetime, and thus the
+wife’s sister is exactly equally restrained from taking the sister’s
+husband, when the circumstances would lead to it by a man taking “a wife
+to her sister . . . beside the other in her lifetime.”
+
+Thus, too, it is clear that the law of this 18th verse is a law of
+prohibition, not of relaxation, and therefore naturally and properly
+comes in its place with the other prohibitions of this 18th chapter of
+Leviticus.
+
+And I venture to submit, that this is the whole meaning and application
+of this much controverted verse: viz., that it is not in the nature of a
+general law at all, but is merely the declaration of an exception to an
+exception—an exception to preclude two living sisters being
+simultaneously the wives of one man, even when the law of the Levirate,
+but for this prohibition, would lead to such result.  I must add, that to
+me it seems to be a full, natural and sufficient explanation of the
+passage without any further application at all, that is, without
+supposing it to have anything to do with the general law, or to be any
+relaxation of the prohibition of the 16th verse as to the brother’s wife,
+or the converse case to it, by analogy, as to the wife’s sister.
+
+Possibly the exact bearing of the foregoing argument may be made plainer
+by a paraphrase of the Scriptural statements, putting them something into
+the form of statute law, by which means the different provisions of the
+several passages may be combined and their connection be seen, as various
+provisions in the clauses or sections of an Act of Parliament are read
+together.  I dare say I shall expose myself to not unjust criticism for
+technical blunders, in attempting to adopt Act-of-Parliament phraseology;
+but I shall be content to bear this, if I may attain my main object,
+viz., to shew how the different parts of the law combine and should be
+read in connection with each other, and especially what is the force and
+due application of what will be, so to speak, the last clause or section
+in the Act.
+
+Suppose, then, God’s law as to these marriages to stand in the
+statute-book of a Jewish Parliament, imagining for the moment such to
+have existed.  Might not the principal enactments stand something in this
+way?  It will be understood that a permission or tacit sanction of
+polygamy must be assumed, as part of the common law of the community.
+Say, then, that the enactments in question stood thus:—
+
+                              [None to intermarry with those near of kin.]
+
+§ 1.  Be it enacted, that none shall inter-marry with any related to
+them, whether by blood relationship or by affinity, within the following
+degrees, as set forth in the annexed schedule:—
+
+                                         [Schedule of Prohibited Degrees.]
+
+(Then suppose Archbishop Parker’s Table of Prohibited Degrees here
+annexed as the schedule.)
+
+The Act would then continue:—
+
+        [Brother to marry deceased Brother’s Wife, to raise up seed to his
+                                                                 Brother.]
+
+§ 2.  Provided always, that, in reference to the above prohibition of the
+brother taking his brother’s widow, it shall yet be lawful, authorized
+and required (under penalty of a stigma of disgrace, to be attached to
+him who fails in compliance), that in the case of a man’s brother dying
+childless, in order to prevent the extinction of a house in Israel, his
+brother shall take the deceased brother’s wife, and raise up seed unto
+his brother; and, therefore, that the first-born child of such union
+shall succeed in the name of the brother who is dead, and be accounted
+and taken by the law of this land as not of the family of the second
+brother, but of the first, and shall be the heir, both in name and
+possessions, of that deceased brother, whose widow’s child he is.
+
+           [But none to take a wife to her sister, beside the other in her
+                                                               life-time.]
+
+§ 3.  But, inasmuch as in the case of two brothers having married two
+sisters, the enactment of the preceding section might, and, in the event
+of one brother dying childless, would, authorize and require a man to
+take to wife two sisters, his brother’s widow being in such case his own
+wife’s sister, and whereas, if his own wife should at such time be alive,
+this might lead to rivalry and vexation, be it further enacted, that
+nothing herein enacted, in the previous section or in any part of this
+Act, shall authorize, permit or require any brother, even for the purpose
+of saving a house and family from extinction, to take to wife the sister
+of his own wife, his said wife her sister being yet alive; and be it
+therefore enacted, that in such case, where such would be the result of
+the enactment of the previous section of this Act the provision of the
+said previous section shall become inoperative and of none effect, rather
+than a man take a wife to her sister to vex her, beside the other, in her
+lifetime.
+
+Upon this illustration I will only ask—Would not such an Act of
+Parliament be perfectly distinct and clear?  Could any one possibly
+misunderstand it?  Would not every clause and section have its own plain
+and intelligible sense?  Especially would not the last clause or section
+have a full and sufficient both sense and application without any man’s
+dreaming for a single moment of there being contained in it a repeal of
+any portion of the table or schedule of degrees?  I say contained _in
+it_, because no doubt the second section would contain something of this
+kind, and yet, be it observed, not a repeal, but a partial exception;
+that is, in one particular case, and for one particular specified
+purpose, the second section would modify one entry in the table, that of
+the brother’s wife or sister’s husband (as it is confessed on all hands,
+the law of the Levirate, Deut. xxv., does modify the law of the 16th
+verse of Lev. xviii.), but even so, I must insist upon it, not
+_repealing_ it; for the exception would operate _only_ when the brother
+had died childless, leaving the entry in the schedule in fulness of
+prohibition in all other cases.  And it is beyond all question that that
+modification would be due to the second and not to the third section of
+the Act.  The third or last section would have nothing to do with any
+relaxation of the law, but would be merely a restrictive provision in
+relation to the working of the previous section, being, as I have all
+along been shewing, a narrowing, not an enlarging the liberty given under
+the exception in the previous clause and having no further
+bearing:—therefore having nothing to do with any entry in the schedule;
+nothing to do with the permission to take the brother’s wife or the
+sister’s husband, and, if so, nothing at all to do with the object for
+which that clause, so to speak, is used by the promoters of the change in
+our law, as proposed in the Wife’s Sister’s Marriage Bill.
+
+Moreover, does not this account make it perfectly intelligible why the
+first section should remain in the integrity of its enactment, and all
+the entries find their place in the schedule, because no single entry is
+repealed even by the modification caused by section 2?  But surely it
+would have been absurd to enact, or to retain in the table, the entry as
+to a brother’s wife or sister’s husband, if an almost immediately
+subsequent contradictory enactment were wholly to repeal it, as contended
+by the promoters of the Bill in question.
+
+I do not know that I have more to add unless it be to meet briefly a
+possible objection from the law of the Levirate not being found in the
+same place with the other two passages, nor indeed in the same book of
+Leviticus, but in another book of Holy Scripture.  It may, perhaps, be
+asked—Is it not strange and unnatural to find the exception to an
+exception entered where the first exception itself is not recorded, and
+perhaps even before that exception was made at all?
+
+I would reply, first—
+
+If this be an objection, it is one to which the Mishna, and the Jewish
+Rabbis, and Dr. M’Caul are open just as much as I am.  For they all
+acknowledge and maintain that upon that 18th verse of xviii. Leviticus is
+founded the prohibition which they all claim as to the brother in the
+case of two brothers having married two sisters; of the one not being
+permitted to obey the injunction of the law of the Levirate, as to taking
+the other’s wife in the particular case of the one brother leaving a
+widow whilst the other brother’s wife is yet living.
+
+I would reply, secondly—
+
+That the objection, from the exception in Deut. xxv. not possibly having
+been then made, is as nothing when the lawgiver is not man but God, who
+knows from the beginning all which He intends. {30}
+
+I would reply, thirdly—
+
+That a fair and reasonable account of the statements in Leviticus xviii.
+not alluding directly to the law of Deut. xxv., and not in any way
+indicating the exception there made or to be made to the prohibition of
+verse 16, is to be found in this: that all the statements in that chapter
+of Leviticus are _prohibitions_, whilst the record in Deuteronomy is a
+_permission_ or indeed a _command_; that, therefore, it is perfectly
+reasonable and natural that we should not find prohibitions and
+relaxations of the law mixed up together.  Thus Leviticus keeps to its
+prohibitions, verse after verse, with the warnings and denunciation of
+penalties proper to its subject; and Deuteronomy deals with its
+exceptional relaxation, and the duties and consequences therewith
+connected.  And it may be just worth while to add that although the 18th
+verse of Leviticus xviii. is an exception, it is still in the sense and
+application which I have been enforcing, a prohibitory not a permissive
+exception; a consideration which not only shows it is in its due place
+among the other prohibitions, but also strengthens the view taken in this
+letter of its being no more than a prohibition.  It _prohibits_ the
+taking two sisters simultaneously, even under circumstances which, but
+for its existence, would have required such union, and it does not permit
+anything as against the laws of the 6th and 16th verses.  Were Dr.
+M’Caul’s view, and the view of the promoters of the alteration of our law
+of marriage correct, we should at least have the anomaly of a permissive
+precept foisted in, if I may so say, among the prohibitory sentences of
+this chapter, dealing in all else with prohibitions only.  For, it is
+plain, to read the verse as meaning a man may marry two sisters, if it be
+not simultaneously, is a permission upon the previous restriction; whilst
+to say a man may _not_ marry two sisters simultaneously, even when the
+law of the Levirate would seem to demand it, is a prohibition.  The law
+of Deuteronomy, therefore, (the law of the Levirate,) being a permission
+or command, not a prohibition, makes it no marvel that that injunction is
+not found among the prohibitions, whilst that the prohibitional
+exceptional decree of the 18th verse of Lev. xviii., should be found
+where it is, among the prohibitions, is no marvel either.
+
+I would reply, fourthly—
+
+That to find the law of the Levirate in this place in the Book of
+Leviticus would have been to find a provision solely and simply of the
+Jewish economy and polity, most unnaturally intermixed with the
+provisions of God’s general moral law:—that is, what is applicable solely
+to Moses and the people under him, confused with the law intended for all
+nations and people, as witnessed by the denunciations of that chapter of
+the book of Leviticus with which we have been concerned.  How is it
+possible to suppose the Leviratical injunction of Deuteronomy could have
+found a place among the things prohibited and condemned as the
+abominations of the Canaanites and Egyptians?
+
+I would reply, fifthly—
+
+That if any further answer to the above objection be needed, there is, at
+least, the general and most sufficient reply, that we are no judges of
+the right collocation of different points in God’s revelation to man.
+When we see the fitness of anything, even as we can judge, we may glorify
+Him and be thankful; when we cannot, we may and should “put our mouth in
+the dust” and be humble.  If things are not made more plain to us than
+they are, or even are less plain than they might have been, let us
+remember our state of trial, and acknowledge that all such may be, for
+ought we know, exactly so revealed as they are, and so placed as they
+are, for our trial.  There is no reason why we should not be tried just
+as much as to difficulties put before our intellect, as by temptations
+appealing to our passions; and, as Bishop Butler has remarked, there are
+some men who, but for the former, might be found to have hardly any trial
+at all.  (Analogy, Part ii., chapter 6.)  If the particular objection
+here advanced be analyzed, it will be found to be but this:—Why should
+there have been _an omission_ of this law of the Levirate in Leviticus,
+when, in the same place, there is the record of a prohibitory exception
+to it?  But who shall pretend to account for the omissions of Holy
+Scripture?  Take but that one record in St. Luke’s Gospel of the two
+disciples who, on the morning of the Resurrection, walked to Emmaus, and
+were met by Jesus on the way, as they talked of those things which had
+come to pass, and were sad.  What can be more wonderful to our conception
+than what we find, and what we do not find!  After their converse
+concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a Prophet mighty in word and deed
+before God and all the people, we find that He himself, “beginning at
+Moses and all the Prophets, expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the
+things concerning Himself.” {32}  But we _do not find_ a single syllable
+of all this discourse recorded in the Gospel.  If we judged by what
+seemed to us likely, how sure should we feel that it would have been set
+down!  Oh! how many difficulties might have been met! how many objections
+have been answered! how many heresies have been avoided! how great a
+flood of light have been thrown upon various points of history, prophecy,
+and doctrine! and how great a guide have been given for all in life and
+conduct! had it seemed good to the Holy Ghost to let the Evangelist
+record that discourse.  If we judged by our sense of likelihood, should
+we not say, “What could be so full of interest and of edification!  How
+important! how needful for us to know what our Lord said, when beginning
+at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded unto them in all the
+Scriptures the things concerning Himself!”  But not one word of it is set
+down, and, perchance, for the very cause that it would have too much
+abridged our trial had we possessed such an exposition, and that we may
+learn in all things not to judge amiss as to the hard things or the
+secret things in God’s Word nor to think “His ways are as our ways.”  Had
+that discourse been placed before us, perchance there had never been an
+Arian or a Socinian in the world.  (How good we might think it!)  Had the
+whole marriage law of God, if we may so say, been systematically set down
+in His holy Word, it may be there would have been none now to tamper with
+it.  (How happy, too, we should think it!)  But we might as well say,
+“How happy if Adam had had no trial put upon him, and so had never
+fallen!”
+
+But our duty is, as it is, and as God has thought fit to set it before
+us.  He has revealed to us His law and will in such manner and degree as
+seemed to Him good.  It is our’s to receive it and to seek to understand
+it as most humbly and reverently we may, and, asking His grace and help,
+to do our best to keep it: to keep it individually in our own lives, and
+so far as He permits us, to keep it from all defilement or breach in the
+laws of our country.  We call ourselves, and rightly, a Christian
+country, for we are, as baptized into the body of Christ, His members.
+Let us remember, if even carelessly, much more if wilfully, we go against
+His commands, and set human law in its permission against the divine law
+in its prohibition, we are rebellious against Him who is our God and our
+King; we are going back from our Christian state and profession; we are
+placing ourselves on the level of the nations—the Egyptians and the
+Canaanites—who committed all those abominations, against which His curse
+is denounced who is “the same yesterday and today, and for ever.”
+
+                         I have the honour to be,
+                                 My Lord,
+            Your Lordship’s very faithful and humble servant,
+
+                                                              M. W. MAYOW.
+
+_Buckingham Road_, _Brighton_, _July_ 14_th_, 1869.
+
+P.S.—Whilst these sheets are passing through the press, I am reminded of
+an objection taken to the whole line of the argument of my letter upon
+the very strength of the law of the Levirate.  I am told (and I think the
+view was touched upon in the report of the Commission) that there are
+some who deem the law of the Levirate to be the total repeal of the
+prohibition as to the brother’s wife (which most certainly it is not),
+and who would then go on to say, And, upon your own shewing, after the
+wife’s death this very law of the Levirate will bring you to the
+conclusion of marrying the wife’s sister.
+
+I should, perhaps, hardly deem it necessary to notice seriously such an
+objection, but that I hear of it as actually made or revived at the
+present time.  I will then say a few words upon it.  I reply; Consider
+what must be assumed, and what must be denied, to bring this argument in
+any way to bear upon the question before the Legislature.
+
+First—It must be assumed that the law of the Levirate is a law binding
+upon Christians; that it is a law, not simply intended for the Jewish
+economy, but that a Christian man is intended to take his brother’s
+widow, if he have died childless, and raise up seed unto his brother.
+
+Secondly—It must be assumed that this object is to be attained, not by
+the taking the brother’s widow, but by taking the wife’s sister, which is
+the object of the Bill, but was not the object at all of the Jewish
+legislation, and which, moreover, is absolutely absurd as to the end of
+raising up seed unto a brother.
+
+Thirdly—It must be denied that polygamy is forbidden to Christians; for
+if the brother in the case supposed have a wife previously to his
+brother’s death, (this wife being still alive, but not the sister of his
+deceased brother’s wife,) then, according to the law of the Levirate
+hereby assumed to be in force, he must still take his brother’s widow to
+wife to raise up seed unto his brother.
+
+Or, Fourthly, if the argument be not carried quite so far, and it be
+maintained that the brother should say, “I cannot take her, lest I mar my
+own inheritance;” or, “I cannot take her, as I have already a wife;” or,
+“I like not to take her for I am engaged to another;” or, if he should
+for any cause refuse, then, at least, if the law of the Levirate be
+binding upon us (which is the argument; for if not, it does not help the
+promoters of the Bill at all), the refuser should undergo the penalty
+provided in the case, and we should have to witness the scene of the
+widow, or the wife’s sister, calling together the elders of her city, and
+loosing the shoe of her husband’s brother, or sister’s husband, and
+spitting in his face and saying, “So shall it be clone unto that man that
+will not to build up his brother’s house;” and we should have to revive
+the name of “the house of him that hath his shoe loosed.”
+
+No!  Who does not see that the whole scope and intention of the law of
+the Levirate was Judaical, and limited to and exhausted by that economy.
+And, therefore, if the connection between the law of the Levirate and the
+18th verse of Lev. xviii. be established, as I have endeavoured to shew
+it is, it will follow that the exception to that law _must_ belong
+exclusively to it and expire with it; and, therefore, that the supposed
+permission to take the sister, “beside the other,” if it be not “in her
+life-time,” has, as I have all along been arguing, nothing to do with us
+as Christians at all, but is tied to and restrained by the law of the
+Levirate, and of the Jewish dispensation.  Under it, it was lawful, it
+was enjoined, when a brother died childless, for the brother to take his
+wife and raise up seed unto his brother; and this would be lawful and
+enjoined in that particular case even when his brother’s widow was his
+own wife’s sister, if his own wife, the sister of the other were dead.
+But among Christians I cannot believe that any one seriously believes for
+a moment that the law of the Levirate remains, and so no one can suppose,
+if the 18th verse of Lev. xviii. be merely the exception to that law,
+that it has any bearing upon, or gives any permission to, Christians in
+their marriages at all. {36}
+
+                                                                  M. W. M.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX A.
+
+
+The only two passages which I have met with taking the same line of
+argument with that of the foregoing letter are the following.  In an
+appendix to the Speech of Vice-Chancellor Sir W. Page Wood, Feb. 1st,
+1860, I find this comment upon the statements in the Mishna:—
+
+    “The passages from the _Mishna_ afford singular support to the view
+    which the Bishop of Oxford, at the late meeting, stated to be held by
+    some divines in America, viz., that the difficult 18th verse of the
+    18th chapter of Leviticus was, in fact, a special prohibition against
+    a wife’s sister being married to her brother-in-law, even when the
+    exceptional _Levirical_ law (or law by which the brother-in-law was
+    to raise up seed to his deceased brother) might otherwise have
+    appeared to supersede the general code of the 18th chapter.”
+
+In an article recently reprinted from the Church Review, of February,
+1861, understood to be from the pen of the Rev. T. W. Perry, I find also
+this:—
+
+    “May it not be, then, that the prohibition simply related to the
+    (apparently) Patriarchal requirement (see Gen. xxxviii. 8), enforced
+    in Deut. xxv. 5–10 (that is, _after_ the Levitical prohibitions were
+    given), which commanded the _next kinsman_ to marry the widow of one
+    who died without issue, in order to preserve the inheritance?  For if
+    the next kinsman was a brother of the deceased, the duty of raising
+    up seed to his brother first devolved upon him.  But he might refuse
+    to perform it.  In that instance he underwent a kind of punishment.
+    The widow loosed his shoe and spat in his face before the elders of
+    his city (Deut. xxv. 8 and 9), and he became stigmatized as ‘the
+    house of him that hath his shoe loosed’ (v. 10).  This liberty to
+    refuse (see also Ruth iii. 12 and iv. 6) may have been a Divine
+    relaxation of the Patriarchal rule, designed, perhaps, to render more
+    effectual the prohibition in Lev. xviii. 18.  But it may not
+    improbably be, that the penalty attached was meant to secure the
+    custom from contempt, by deterring the kinsman from excusing himself
+    on grounds which the law of the Levirate (_i.e._, the law of raising
+    up seed to the deceased brother) did not mean to recognize.”
+
+Then, after some remarks upon the jealousy or vexation likely to arise,
+the writer continues:—
+
+    “May it not, therefore, have been that God designed, in Lev. xviii.
+    18, to provide against this evil, which was very likely to attend
+    upon the performance of the existing rule, and of his own command
+    (then to be given) touching the marriage of the deceased brother’s
+    wife?
+
+    “Yet, how does this explanation meet the difficulty arising from the
+    alleged permission contained in the words (v. 18) ‘in her life-time?’
+    Thus—If the next kinsman’s wife were already dead, or if she died
+    before the kinsman’s part had been done to the widow, or after that
+    part had been done by another kinsman, who had died leaving the widow
+    still childless then, as she _could not be vexed_, the widow’s
+    brother-in-law was free to marry her, for the purpose specified in
+    the Levirate law.”
+
+And again:—
+
+    “Since this first suggested itself to us, we have learnt (see Tract
+    x. p. 21, of the Marriage Law Association) that the _Mishna_,
+    treating of the civil law of the Jews as to marrying the deceased
+    brother’s wife, says that he may not marry her _if she is his own
+    wife’s sister_, and, moreover, that the prohibition holds good
+    _after_ the wife’s death.  It is possible that this latter part of
+    the tradition may be akin to what our Lord called (S. Mark vii. 9)
+    ‘your own tradition,’ and so may have tended to ‘frustrate the
+    commandment of God,’ in Lev. xviii. 18, by perplexing the
+    interpretation of the words, ‘in her life-time.”
+
+I may add, however, as shewing my argument to be an independent witness
+to the same sense and application of Leviticus xviii. 18, that I had no
+knowledge of either of these statements when I sketched out the argument
+of the preceding letter.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX B.
+
+
+I have said that I have no need to enter into the question of the “one
+hour” mentioned in the Mishna.  And this is certainly true, because the
+question which I have been considering is not whether, if a wife’s sister
+be forbidden at all she is forbidden for ever by both being alive
+together at a certain time but simply whether the whole matter involved
+in the words “in her life-time” be not explained and accounted for by its
+being a prohibition, narrowing the requirements of the law of the
+Levirate, and nothing more.  But it may be added that the statement of
+the Mishna as to the “one hour” is certainly rather confirmatory than not
+of the second sister being wholly forbidden, except under that law’s
+provision in the case of the death of the one previous to the widowhood
+of the other, because if the being forbidden for one hour forbids for
+ever, the second sister, whether herself a virgin or the widow of a
+stranger, being (like the brother’s widow left a widow in her sister’s
+life-time) marriageable to any other man than her brother-in-law, during
+all the time of her sister’s married life, (she, I say,) would be all
+that time forbidden to him.  This would answer certainly to the one hour,
+and if so, under the Rule of the Mishna, she would be forbidden to him
+for ever, which brings us to the general prohibition under the general
+law.
+
+Whether the above inference of the Mishna be a legitimate one from the
+words “in her life-time,” that is, that the forbidding should depend for
+ever upon the state of things at the time of the brother’s death (as Dr.
+M’Caul expresses it), I need not determine.  Mr. Perry, in one of the
+extracts above, seems to think it might rather be one of the additions by
+which the Jews frustrated “the Word of God by their tradition,” and
+possibly it was so.  But at least we may say that there appears to be a
+weighty moral consideration to support the view of the prohibition
+extending from one hour to the future life.  Because thus, in the case of
+a man finding his brother’s wife a widow, being his own wife’s sister,
+and perchance preferring her to his own wife, he might otherwise be
+tempted to get rid of his own wife, by divorce (so easily obtainable as
+divorce became among the Jews) or otherwise, if such after-release set
+him at liberty to marry his brother’s wife, being a widow: a temptation
+be it observed not occurring as to any other woman left a widow by his
+brother’s death, because the tacit sanction given to polygamy under the
+Jewish dispensation would in that case render it unnecessary to obtain
+release from his own wife at all in order to take her.  If the brother
+had died childless, he would be enjoined to take her, irrespectively of
+his own wife being alive.  If not childless, he could never take her at
+all.  And this moral reason is not perhaps wholly unworthy of
+consideration as applying to the general question of marriage with a
+wife’s sister in a state of things in which polygamy is forbidden.  If
+the greater intimacy arising between a man and his wife’s sister might,
+if unrestrained by the knowledge that she can never under any
+circumstances become his wife, tend to produce attachment, who shall say
+it is not a merciful and a wholesome restraint, that she should be
+forbidden to him for ever?  And this restraint, be it remarked, would be
+wholly lost under the change in our law now sought.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX C.
+
+
+The drift of the objection considered in the Postscript may receive an
+illustration from that great moral drama, in the plot and conduct of
+which horror at the incestuous connection of the king with his brother’s
+widow bears so prominent a part.  The case of the objector who would make
+the law of the Levirate a dispensation for Christians, is just as if
+Claudius king of Denmark had pleaded that law, though his brother had not
+died childless (for no modern legislation proposes to regard this
+limitation), as a reason for taking to wife his brother’s widow;—or, as
+if, yet further, had Queen Gertrude died, leaving a sister, he should
+plead again that same law (for all modern legislation proposes to go to
+this extent), to sanction his afterward taking her also to wife.  Surely
+all this, as the king says of another matter, is “absurd to reason.”
+
+
+
+
+NOTE TO PAGE 12.
+
+
+It is of much importance to mark clearly how absolute, upon Dr. M’Caul’s
+reading of Leviticus xviii. 18, is the contradiction involved.  I add,
+therefore:—Let it be well observed that a time beyond that expressed by
+the words “_in her life-time_” must be understood to be of the essence of
+all the prohibitions.  That is to say (and the awful importance of the
+matter requires it to be stated plainly), that it is incest and not
+adultery which is the subject of the prohibitions throughout.  A man is
+prohibited from marrying his Mother not merely during his Father’s life
+time, but always—his Sister, not merely, if she be married, and, if so,
+during her husband’s life-time, but always.  So of the Brother’s Wife,
+and the rest.  Therefore according to the interpretation insisted upon,
+the collision is, as stated in the text, a complete contradiction; a
+universal negative on the one side met by a particular affirmative on the
+other, just as if one should say, negatively, “No horses are black,” and
+then immediately add, affirmatively, “Some horses are black.”  For, the
+statements drawn out in full, including the case by parity of reasoning
+from verse 16, would stand thus:—
+
+Thou shalt not take thy Brother’s Wife, whether in thy Brother’s
+life-time or not.
+
+Thou shalt not take thy Wife’s Sister, whether in her Sister’s life-time
+or not.
+
+Thou mayest take thy Wife’s Sister, if it be not in her Sister’s
+life-time.
+
+Such is the over-riding demanded by Dr. M’Caul’s position, and necessary
+to the argument if this 18th verse is to be made in any way available for
+the purpose of the promoters of the change in our marriage law.  The
+improbability of such a contradiction within two verses, including an
+assumed change in the subject matter, from incest to adultery, in a
+continuous catalogue of the enormities denounced, can, as it appears to
+me, hardly be exaggerated.
+
+There is one consideration further to which it may be well to call
+attention, viz., that the _translation_ of Lev. xviii. 18, is not to be
+confused with its _interpretation_.  Dr. M’Caul naturally insists much
+upon the translation, and in addition to his own critical judgment,
+allowed to be of great weight from his known eminence as an Hebrew
+Scholar, he gives many authorities in favour of the rendering as it
+stands in the text of our authorized version.  Still it is to be remarked
+that the authorities whom he cites for the translation are by no means at
+one with him as to the interpretation.  This point will be found very
+fully treated of in the second letter of the present Lord Chancellor to
+the Dean of Westminster, printed in 1861, {40} and, if I remember
+rightly, it was also examined and the result put very forcibly by the
+Bishop of Exeter in the postscript to his letter to the late Bishop of
+Lichfield, published, I believe, in 1860, where it is observantly noted
+that of all our Reformers cited by Dr. M’Caul as having accepted the
+authorized version as to the rendering of Lev. xviii. 18, there is not
+one who has gone with him in the application of it which he advocates,
+inasmuch as they have all either explicitly or implicitly received our
+table of prohibited degrees: a proof that even from Dr. M’Caul’s premise,
+as to the translation, they have not come to his conclusion as to the
+interpretation.  And it is plainly in the interpretation, not in the mere
+translation, that the above-mentioned contradiction is involved.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes.
+
+
+{5}  Speech of Vice-Chancellor Sir W. P. Wood. p. 5.
+
+{7}  Against profane dealing with Holy Matrimony, by the Rev. John Keble,
+pp. 12, 13.  J. H. Parker. 1849.
+
+{8}  Ibid. pp. 13, 14.
+
+{9}  Letter to Rev. W. H. Lyall, by Rev. A. M’Caul, D.D., pp. 1–4.
+Wertheim, Mackintosh, and Hunt. 1859.
+
+{10}  Speech of Sir W. P. Wood, pp. 5, 6.
+
+{11}  Dr. M’Caul’s Letter to Sir W. P. Wood, 1860, p. 55.
+
+{12}  See Note at the end of Appendix.
+
+{13a}  Appendix A.
+
+{13b}  Canon 99.—“None to marry within the degrees prohibited.”  “And all
+such marriages so made shall be judged incestuous and unlawful.”
+
+A Table of kindred and affinity, wherein whosoever are related are
+forbidden in Scripture and our laws to marry together.—_Book of Common
+Prayer_.
+
+{14}  Letter, p. 55.
+
+{15}  St. Matt. xxii. 24.
+
+{16}  It may be useful just to state that the law termed the law of the
+Levirate is that law laid down in Deut. xxv. 5–10, that in case a Jew
+dying childless, his brother should take his wife and raise up seed unto
+his brother.
+
+{18}  Letter to Rev. W. H. Lyall, p. 14.
+
+{20}  Letter to Vice-Chancellor Sir W. Page Wood, p. 29–31.
+
+{21}  Appendix B.
+
+{23}  Lev. xviii., 20–30.
+
+{24}  See Dr. Pusey’s Evidence before the Royal Commission, First Report,
+p. 37, questions 431–3.
+
+{30}  It is, moreover, evident that something of the kind of the law of
+the Levirate was a usage of the Patriarchal times, from the history
+recorded as to the sons of Judah in the book of Genesis.
+
+{32}  St. Luke xxiv. 27.
+
+{36}  Appendix C.
+
+{40}  Second Letter of Vice-Chancellor Sir W. Page Wood, pp. 47–63.
+
+
+
+
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+<title>Marriage with a deceased wife's sister, by Mayow Wynell Mayow</title>
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+
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Marriage with a deceased wife's sister, by
+Mayow Wynell Mayow
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: Marriage with a deceased wife's sister
+       Leviticus xviii. 18, considered in connection with the Law of the Levirate
+
+
+Author: Mayow Wynell Mayow
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 7, 2015  [eBook #48892]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S
+SISTER***
+</pre>
+<p>Transcribed from the 1869 James Parker and Co. edition by
+David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
+<h1>Marriage with a Deceased Wife&rsquo;s Sister.</h1>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center">LEVITICUS XVIII. 18,<br />
+CONSIDERED IN CONNECTION WITH THE LAW<br />
+OF THE LEVIRATE.</p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center">A LETTER<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">TO</span><br />
+THE RIGHT HON. THE LORD HATHERLEY,<br />
+<span class="GutSmall">LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND,</span><br
+/>
+<span class="GutSmall">&amp;c&bdquo; &amp;c, &amp;c.</span></p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span
+class="GutSmall">BY</span></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">M. W. MAYOW, M.A.,</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">RECTOR OF
+SOUTH HEIGHTON CUM TARRING NEVILLE, SUSSEX,</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">AND LATE STUDENT OF CH. CH.,
+OXFORD.</span></p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center">Second Edition.</p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center">London and Oxford: JAMES PARKER AND
+CO.<br />
+Brighton: G. WAKELING.<br />
+1869.</p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page2"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 2</span><span
+class="GutSmall">BRIGHTON:</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">G. WAKELING, PRINTER,</span><br />
+<span class="GutSmall">NORTH STREET.</span></p>
+
+<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<h2><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>Marriage
+with a Deceased Wife&rsquo;s Sister.</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center">A LETTER<br />
+TO THE RIGHT HON. THE LORD HATHERLEY,<br />
+<i>Lord High Chancellor of England</i>,<br />
+<i>&amp;c.</i>, <i>&amp;c.</i>, <i>&amp;c.</i></p>
+
+<div class="gapshortline">&nbsp;</div>
+<p><span class="smcap">My Lord</span>,</p>
+<p>The deep interest which for a long period you have taken in
+preserving intact our Table of Degrees as to prohibited
+marriages, will, I hope, sufficiently account for my wish to
+address the following remarks to your Lordship, and your
+unvarying kindness will no less account for the ready permission
+which you have given me to do so.&nbsp; I will not take up any
+time in preface further than just to observe that of course you
+are not in any way responsible for the views or the argument of
+the ensuing pages, though I am, I hope, justified in believing
+that, whatever be their imperfections, the object at which they
+aim will meet with your sympathy and approval.&nbsp; My earnest
+and anxious wish is to do what I may, God helping me, to aid in
+averting what I feel would be a grievous sin if our marriage law
+were altered in the sense desired by the promoters of the
+Wife&rsquo;s Sister&rsquo;s Marriage Bill.&nbsp; I do not purpose
+to go over the whole ground which has been so often contested,
+(to do which would be almost an impertinence in remarks addressed
+to your Lordship), but rather to confine my observations to the
+Scriptural <a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+4</span>argument, or, perhaps I should say, to a portion of the
+Scriptural argument against the change proposed, viz.&mdash;to
+the due sense and application of the 18th verse of the xviii.
+chapter of Leviticus.</p>
+<p>There is, I suppose, no room for reasonable doubt that the
+case of the advocates of a change in our law which may sanction
+the marriage of a man with his deceased wife&rsquo;s sister,
+rests mainly, so far as the Scriptural argument is concerned,
+upon the 18th verse of the xviii. chapter of Leviticus.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her,
+to uncover her nakedness, beside the other, in her life
+time,&rdquo; where, the translation being assumed to be correct,
+the interpretation put upon it is that if such a union is
+forbidden in the life time of the first wife, there is a tacit
+sanction of the same after her decease.&nbsp; If it were not for
+this one verse thus translated and thus interpreted, there would,
+I think, hardly be a question raised or a doubt felt by one in a
+thousand that such unions are prohibited, denounced as
+incestuous, and forbidden under God&rsquo;s general law, just as
+we find them set down in Archbishop Parker&rsquo;s table of
+prohibited degrees.</p>
+<p>The importance, then, of this verse being admitted as to the
+right understanding of God&rsquo;s will in this matter, I propose
+briefly to call attention to some points connected with it which
+I think have not received the consideration to which they are
+entitled.&nbsp; My aim will be to show, even conceding the whole
+demand as to the correctness of the translation found in the Text
+of our authorized version, and not disputing the inference that
+there is a certain tacit sanction of such a Union with the second
+sister after the death of the first, yet that upon a careful
+consideration, it may most reasonably be maintained that the
+sanction does not extend to any general permission of the same,
+but that the enactment or permission is made <a
+name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>and given for
+one special object only, and is limited to one particular
+condition of things, incident only to the Jewish economy, to meet
+which it is definitely designed and restricted; that therefore it
+involves, rightly understood, no contradiction at all to the law
+laid down generally that none shall approach to any near of kin
+to him (v. 6), nor to the cases which follow illustrating the
+meaning of that law (v. 7&ndash;17), nor, therefore to the
+prohibitions generally, nor to that one among them particularly,
+that a woman shall not marry two brothers&mdash;extended by
+direct analogy to the converse case, that a man shall not marry
+two sisters; in other words, that though the translation, and the
+inference to a certain extent, be both conceded, yet there is an
+ample and true sense for the passage, and full scope for its
+intention and enactment, without its for a moment clashing with
+the prohibitions of the general law.</p>
+<p>But first I would say a word to clear the position that but
+for this 18th verse of the xviii. chapter of Leviticus, no one
+would doubt, as to the prohibition in question.</p>
+<p>How does the case stand?&nbsp; The xviii. chapter of Leviticus
+deals first (as the heading states), with &ldquo;unlawful
+marriages.&rdquo;&nbsp; After declaring emphatically, in the
+first five verses, the importance of keeping God&rsquo;s law, and
+warning the people against falling into the sins of the Egyptians
+and the Canaanites, the matter itself is opened in the 6th
+verse&mdash;&ldquo;None of you shall approach to any that is near
+of kin to him to uncover their nakedness: I am the
+Lord.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;This,&rdquo; as you, my lord, observed
+at the meeting at Willis&rsquo;s Rooms, (February 1st, 1860,)
+&ldquo;is the key-note to all that follows.&nbsp; The law then
+shows who are near of kin to us, and proceeds to mention more
+cases of affinity than of relationship by blood.&rdquo; <a
+name="citation5"></a><a href="#footnote5"
+class="citation">[5]</a>&nbsp; I am aware that it has been
+contended on philological grounds that the terms &ldquo;near of
+kin&rdquo; are <a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+6</span>necessarily confined in their sense to kindred by blood
+relationship, and cannot embrace relationship by marriage; but I
+do not feel that there is any material weight in the critical
+examination of such a passage, as to the general use of a phrase
+or word, because it seems to me we have here the comment of the
+Holy Ghost Himself in what follows as to the sense in which the
+words &ldquo;near of kin&rdquo; are, in the connection in which
+they there stand, to be understood; that is to say, that which
+follows gives, by the details of the enactments ensuing,
+God&rsquo;s own comment as to what is intended by &ldquo;near of
+kin,&rdquo; and if these details be found to embrace affinity as
+well as, and as much as, blood relationship, it appears to me
+that the consideration of what in other cases is the usage of the
+term, must be beside the question we have before us.&nbsp; Nay,
+is it not, indeed, very probable that terms, which in their
+ordinary usage would refer simply to blood relationship, are here
+chosen by Divine inspiration to include also relationship by
+affinity, for the very purpose of showing that a man and his wife
+being one flesh, the nearness of kin here contemplated, and
+illustrated by the instances which follow, was to embrace both
+relationships alike?&nbsp; I do not know how better to shew that,
+in the whole connection of this passage, the enactment is of the
+kind which I have mentioned, than by a quotation from the
+pamphlet of Mr. Keble, published in 1849.&nbsp; Though, my lord,
+you and others have said the same things, you will, I am sure,
+bear with me whilst I recall the passage as it stands in the
+words of that revered writer.&nbsp; After shewing the scope of
+the law to extend not merely to the Jews by the curse which it
+entails having been brought upon the very heathen who gave way to
+such iniquities, he says:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Now, what are the customs which were so
+abominable in the old inhabitants of God&rsquo;s Holy Land, and
+caused the <a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+7</span>land itself to vomit them out? (the customs, I mean, in
+respect of marriage: for of the other horrors mentioned in this
+chapter we are not now compelled to speak.)&nbsp; They are all
+forbidden in one general principle: &lsquo;None of you shall
+approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their
+nakedness: I am the Lord.&rsquo;&nbsp; This being laid down in
+the 6th verse, the following verses allege so many instances,
+whereby God&rsquo;s people might understand what &lsquo;near of
+kin&rsquo; means.&nbsp; And it is remarkable, that in this
+enunciation the law makes no distinction between those who are
+akin by marriage and those who are akin by blood, but mentions
+them indiscriminately, as if the one sort were precluded from
+marrying under the same penalties as the other.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;For these are the degrees expressly forbidden, in their
+order.&nbsp; First, a natural mother, in v. 7.&nbsp; Next, a
+father&rsquo;s wife, or step-mother, in v. 8: which is the case
+mentioned in 1 Cor. v. 1.&nbsp; Next, a sister, v. 9.&nbsp; Next,
+a grand-daughter, v. 10.&nbsp; Next, a half-sister, v. 11.&nbsp;
+Next, an aunt by the father&rsquo;s side, v. 12.&nbsp; Next, an
+aunt by the mother&rsquo;s side, v. 13.&nbsp; Next, an aunt by
+marriage with an uncle, v. 14.&nbsp; Next, a son&rsquo;s wife, v.
+15.&nbsp; Next, a brother&rsquo;s wife, v. 16.&nbsp; Next, a
+wife&rsquo;s daughter, mother, or grand-daughter, v. 17.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Here are thirteen cases in all: six of kindred by
+blood, and seven of kindred by marriage: and neither by the order
+in which they follow one another, nor by any difference of
+expression regarding them, is any hint given, that the one sort
+of profanation is less heinous in God&rsquo;s sight than the
+other.&nbsp; The world may have come to think there is a
+difference, because the world will not believe that man and wife
+are really one flesh.&nbsp; But the written law of God apparently
+deals with both alike.&rdquo; <a name="citation7"></a><a
+href="#footnote7" class="citation">[7]</a></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>He then
+adds:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The next remark I have to make on this,
+which is God&rsquo;s own table of prohibited marriages, is one
+which it seems to me that no fair mind can deny.&nbsp; Indeed,
+one is half ashamed to enounce it, it is so obvious: yet the
+reasoning on the other side appears to be mainly based on the
+denial of it.&nbsp; It is simply this: that nearness of kin not
+being affected by sex, what is forbidden to a man is forbidden to
+a woman in the same degree of kindred or affinity, though it be
+not set down in words.&nbsp; For instance, in v. 7, a man is
+forbidden to marry his mother: then, by the same rule, a woman is
+forbidden to marry her father, though the prohibition is not
+expressed.&nbsp; Surely it would be fearful paltering with
+God&rsquo;s law, not to accept and obey such a plain rule as
+this.&nbsp; And it is to be observed, that these Canons are all
+addressed to men only: the woman&rsquo;s duty and the
+woman&rsquo;s sin are left to be inferred in each case: but what
+should we think of the woman who should therefore account herself
+left at liberty, so far as the Levitical laws are concerned?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now look at v. 16; which, being expressed in such
+English as we now commonly talk, would run, I suppose, as
+follows: &lsquo;Thou shalt not marry thy brother&rsquo;s widow:
+she is one flesh with thy brother, and is therefore thine own
+sister.&rsquo;&nbsp; Can any other interpretation be put upon it?
+and if this be the right interpretation, are not marriages with a
+brother&rsquo;s widow plainly forbidden among the Canaanitish
+abominations?&rdquo; <a name="citation8"></a><a href="#footnote8"
+class="citation">[8]</a></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>All this appears to me not only a fair and right explanation,
+with no unwarrantable deductions or inferences, but one
+absolutely irrefutable, unless God Himself have marked in some
+other place a dispensation or exception to be made to it.&nbsp; I
+know such dispensation or exception is just what is
+claimed.&nbsp; To deal with such allegation is the very object <a
+name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span>of my
+addressing you, and I shall shortly come to that part of my
+subject.&nbsp; But it may not be amiss here just to call
+attention to the fact that Dr. M&rsquo;Caul himself (whom I think
+I may designate as the most learned and able of the advocates for
+the change of the law in question) seems to admit that, were
+there no other Scripture to override the law as thus proclaimed,
+he should acknowledge the force of this part of the xviii.
+chapter of Leviticus as conclusive on the unlawfulness of
+marriage with the deceased wife&rsquo;s sister; for he says
+expressly, in his first letter on the subject, addressed to the
+Rev. W. H. Lyall, &ldquo;On some points, I think, we agree; as,
+for instance, that the final appeal in questions relating to
+marriage must be to the Word of God. . . . I also am convinced
+that the laws in Leviticus xviii., being a part of the moral law,
+stand on a totally different footing from circumcision, or the
+Jewish Sabbaths, or abstinence from meats.&nbsp; Indeed, I
+believe that this marriage law was given to the Gentile Churches
+in the famous decree of the Council of Jerusalem.&nbsp; On this
+ground, I believe that the prohibitions of Leviticus xviii. are
+binding on all Christians.&rdquo;&nbsp; That is, he believes,
+that the general law then given, as being of a moral nature, and
+intended for all men, was distinctly re-enacted, and re-decreed
+for the sake of greater perspicuity, by the Christian Church in
+the Council at Jerusalem.&nbsp; And he goes on&mdash;&ldquo;I
+agree, further, with those who interpret &lsquo;woman&rsquo; or
+&lsquo;wife&rsquo; in these prohibitions as comprehending
+widowhood, so that these females are prohibited, not only during
+the lives of their husbands, but absolutely and
+forever.&rdquo;&nbsp; And he adds&mdash;&ldquo;And, lastly, I
+admit that from the prohibited marriages enumerated, compared
+with other parts of the Divine legislation, others not enumerated
+may be pronounced unlawful.&rdquo; <a name="citation9"></a><a
+href="#footnote9" class="citation">[9]</a>&nbsp; Where we may see
+that, although with a certain <a name="page10"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 10</span>reserve, yet the principle of arguing
+from analogy, and from a case to its converse, in regard to sex,
+appears to be admitted.&nbsp; And I think I do not misrepresent
+the whole tone and sense of the two letters of Dr. M&rsquo;Caul,
+when I say that I am convinced, but for the 18th verse of the
+xviii. chapter, he would himself readily have allowed the full
+weight of Mr. Keble&rsquo;s statement, and considered these
+unions to be absolutely prohibited.</p>
+<p>But next as to the exception claimed.&nbsp; It is true that
+there is an exception to the working of the law laid down in
+verse 16, concerning the brother&rsquo;s wife, by a positive
+enactment in Deuteronomy (chap. xxv. v. 5&ndash;10), where
+provision is made for a man &ldquo;raising up seed unto his
+brother,&rdquo; by taking to him his widow to wife, if the
+brother have died childless, that &ldquo;the first-born which she
+beareth&rdquo; may &ldquo;succeed in the name of his brother,
+which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel&rdquo; (v.
+6.)&nbsp; But I feel justified in saying that this alone would
+have been no difficulty to Dr. M&rsquo;Caul (nor to any man of
+his reasoning powers), as to the prevalence of the general law in
+all cases but the special one excepted, and that but for the 18th
+verse of the xviii. chapter of Leviticus, our 99th Canon and the
+table of prohibited degrees would have been almost or quite
+universally accepted as the true enunciation of the will and law
+of God in this matter of unlawful marriages.</p>
+<p>It is, then, to that particular passage of Holy Scripture that
+it is necessary to draw attention.&nbsp; And here, my lord, I
+must take up a word, which I find in your speech before referred
+to, which seems to me to be emphatically a word &ldquo;of truth
+and soberness.&rdquo;&nbsp; You say, &ldquo;To over-ride a
+command, which is distinct and precise, you must have a very
+clear verse and a very clear interpretation.&rdquo; <a
+name="citation10"></a><a href="#footnote10"
+class="citation">[10]</a>&nbsp; Dr. M&rsquo;Caul quotes these
+words, with a distinct approval of their <a
+name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>statement,
+though with exactly the converse of their application.&nbsp;
+&ldquo;You believe,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;that a very clear
+verse and a very clear interpretation might over-ride a command,
+even though it be distinct and precise, and you are
+right.&rdquo;&nbsp; He goes on, &ldquo;Lev. xviii. 16, the verse
+on which you chiefly rest your Scriptural arguments, is, so far
+as relates to marriage with a brother&rsquo;s wife, distinct and
+precise, and enunciates a command absolutely and without any
+limitation; and yet it is over-ridden by Deut. xxv.
+5.&rdquo;&nbsp; He means, of course, over-ridden as to the
+particular case of &ldquo;a man&rsquo;s raising up seed unto his
+brother;&rdquo; but not so as to sanction the brother taking the
+brother&rsquo;s wife in any other contingency.&nbsp; And this we,
+as well as he, allow and admit, for who shall limit the
+Almighty&rsquo;s right, and power to grant or make any special
+exceptions to His general laws, which He may think fit?&nbsp; But
+we should have deemed it strange indeed if the whole law enacted
+in one place were definitely repealed in another, whilst that law
+was in force among those for whom it was given and
+designed.&nbsp; But so far we can well go with Dr.
+M&rsquo;Caul.&nbsp; He proceeds, where, as I hope presently to
+shew, we have no need to follow him, and where, indeed, if his
+view were correct, there <i>would be</i> the total repeal of what
+is stated as the law in one verse, in the second verse after
+it.&nbsp; However, to go on,&mdash;Dr. M&rsquo;Caul adds,
+&ldquo;And therefore, <i>a fortiori</i>, your inferential
+prohibition with regard to a wife&rsquo;s sister may be
+over-ridden also by a clear verse and a clear
+interpretation.&nbsp; If weight of authority is to decide, Lev.
+xviii. 18, is just such a verse, and its interpretation has the
+required condition.&nbsp; Here, then, the controversy narrows
+itself into that which is the common and popular view of the
+matter: whether the inferential prohibition from verse 16 is to
+over-ride the expressed command of verse 18, or the plain letter
+of this latter verse to over-ride the inference from the
+former.&rdquo; <a name="citation11"></a><a href="#footnote11"
+class="citation">[11]</a>&nbsp; Now, I shall <a
+name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 12</span>have
+something further to say presently as to &ldquo;the expressed
+command,&rdquo; and the &ldquo;plain letter of this latter
+verse;&rdquo; but at present let me merely remark, that we have,
+at any rate, Dr. M&rsquo;Caul&rsquo;s admission that between
+these two verses there <i>is a conflict and an
+over-riding</i>.&nbsp; In his view even, there is
+discrepancy.&nbsp; What is, in the one, he tells us, at least
+inferentially prohibited, is, in the other, expressly commanded;
+and this, not in a case or manner parallel to the variation
+between the 16th verse, <i>prohibiting</i> as the general law,
+and the passage in Deut. xxv. 5, <i>enjoining</i> in the
+exceptional contingency named, but, on the contrary, in a case of
+a universal negative met and confronted, two verses afterwards,
+by a case of a, not exceptional, contradictory affirmative.&nbsp;
+And the only palliation of such a startling discrepancy in Holy
+Scripture is, we are to understand, that it is inadmissible to
+draw the inference from the woman being forbidden to marry two
+brothers, that the man is forbidden to marry two sisters.&nbsp;
+Although throughout the restrictions this principle is necessary
+to prevent the most revolting permissions under the law, and
+although, but for the 18th verse, no one, we believe, would have
+dreamed of questioning it in the particular of the man and two
+sisters, yet here it must be at once ignored, or you have an
+absolute contradiction of commands, in the same enunciation of
+law, within two verses. <a name="citation12"></a><a
+href="#footnote12" class="citation">[12]</a>&nbsp; I notice this
+point expressly, because I think we cannot too strongly entertain
+the conviction of the <i>unlikelihood</i> of such a thing
+occurring thus in the word and law of God; and therefore, as a
+reason for the most careful examination, whether we may not have
+overlooked the real scope and object of this 18th verse, even if
+we admit the correctness of the translation and of the
+sense.&nbsp; Observe, there is a great distinction between the
+sense and the application.&nbsp; Admitting the sense, I must deny
+the application, as I shall presently shew.&nbsp; But here <a
+name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>let me
+repeat, if there be but a fairly reasonable account to be given
+of the existence and application of the 18th verse, without its
+running us into the difficulty of this over-riding, and collision
+with itself of God&rsquo;s law, and if we hereby avoid the gross
+unlikelihood which I have mentioned, then surely such account and
+such application ought to commend itself to every candid mind, as
+at least worthy of the most serious consideration.</p>
+<p>My Lord, I venture to think such account and application of
+the 18th verse there is; and though it has been touched upon by
+others, and Dr. M&rsquo;Caul himself came very near it, yet it
+appears to have been too little dwelt upon by any, and strangely
+overlooked by him. <a name="citation13a"></a><a
+href="#footnote13a" class="citation">[13a]</a></p>
+<p>Let me here bring the matter once more to the point of
+divergence.&nbsp; We have first the general law, &ldquo;None of
+you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him&rdquo; (v.
+6).&nbsp; We have then the general catalogue of prohibitions
+which come under this head, and form the divine comment on the
+terms &ldquo;near of kin:&rdquo; and these dealing, with cases of
+affinity, in a majority of the prohibitions expressed, as
+compared with those of blood relationship (v. 7&ndash;17.)&nbsp;
+All these, moreover, be it observed, put in the statement as
+commands upon the <i>man</i>, leaving the obligation upon the
+<i>woman</i> to be inferred.&nbsp; Upon this statement we have
+Archbishop Parker&rsquo;s table of degrees, and of the forbidden
+unions, extending exactly to the parallel cases of all those
+named;&mdash;with the like witness also of the 99th Canon,
+declaring all such alliances to be incestuous;&mdash;and this
+table required by our law, both of Church and State, to be set up
+in all Parish Churches. <a name="citation13b"></a><a
+href="#footnote13b" class="citation">[13b]</a>&nbsp; But we have
+then the 18th verse making, as is alleged, not merely an
+exception, but a contradiction to the parallel case of what is
+forbidden in verse 16 as to the brother&rsquo;s <a
+name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>wife, and
+permitting the union with a wife&rsquo;s sister, so that it be
+not in the lifetime of the former.&nbsp; We thus come to what Dr.
+M&rsquo;Caul himself considers to be a case of
+<i>over-riding</i>, where we must determine whether (to use again
+his own words) &ldquo;the inferential prohibition from verse 16
+is to over-ride the expressed command of verse 18, or the plain
+letter of this latter verse to over-ride the inference from the
+former.&rdquo; <a name="citation14"></a><a href="#footnote14"
+class="citation">[14]</a></p>
+<p>Now, what I am anxious to see is, whether there is any need to
+force upon us this <i>over-riding</i> at all.&nbsp; I think
+not.</p>
+<p>To show what I mean, I ask this&mdash;Take the prohibition of
+the brother&rsquo;s wife first in its plain literal terms, verse
+16, and then is there, independently of the 18th verse, any
+direct exception to it?&nbsp; Certainly there is.&nbsp; When we
+come to the further explication of the Jewish polity, and
+God&rsquo;s designs in reference to it, we find a special
+provision in the law of the Levirate, (that is, the law of
+raising up seed to the deceased brother), which will clash with
+that prohibition; for the brother is required to take his
+brother&rsquo;s wife and raise up seed to a house in danger of
+becoming extinct in Israel.&nbsp; &ldquo;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&rsquo;s
+brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and
+perform the duty of an husband&rsquo;s brother unto her.&nbsp;
+And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall
+succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name
+be not put out of Israel.&nbsp; And if the man like not to take
+his brother&rsquo;s wife, then let his brother&rsquo;s wife go up
+to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband&rsquo;s brother
+refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will
+not perform the duty of my husband&rsquo;s brother.&nbsp; Then
+the elders of his city <a name="page15"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 15</span>shall call him, and speak unto him:
+and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her; then
+shall his brother&rsquo;s wife come unto him in the presence of
+the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his
+face, and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not
+build up his brother&rsquo;s house.&nbsp; And his name shall be
+called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe
+loosed.&rdquo;&nbsp; Deut. xxv., 5&ndash;10.</p>
+<p>In this passage there is, not what I should call a
+contradiction to the general law, but an exception in a
+particular case, and for a particular case only.&nbsp; It is no
+general permission over-riding and making of none effect the
+general prohibition, but a particular injunction for a special
+purpose in one defined contingency.&nbsp; If a man&rsquo;s
+brother die childless, his brother shall take his wife and raise
+up seed unto his brother.&nbsp; As it was exactly quoted in the
+gospel: &ldquo;Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no
+children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed
+unto his brother.&rdquo; <a name="citation15"></a><a
+href="#footnote15" class="citation">[15]</a></p>
+<p>We have already observed that the authority of Him who gave
+the prohibitory law is sufficient to give also the permissive, or
+more than permissive, exception, so that we come into no
+difficulty as to the one, in such measure, <i>over-riding</i> (to
+use again the term) the other.</p>
+<p>But of course the opponent&rsquo;s rejoinder is: Are you not
+in the very same case as to the other over-riding?&nbsp; Is not
+the authority which gave the prohibition of the 16th verse equal
+to give the permission of the 18th?</p>
+<p>Granting that it is so, yet I must again call attention to
+this; how wholly unlikely it is that, without making any special
+exception, for any suggested or defined cause, there should be
+within two verses of each other two general laws exactly
+contradictory, for so they are, if the argument from parallelism
+is allowed.&nbsp; And therefore I must again urge how <a
+name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>probable this
+makes it, if there be any other reasonable sense or application
+of the second passage not involving this contradiction, that such
+sense and application should be the true one, and there should be
+thus no over-riding at all between those two verses.</p>
+<p>Is there then any such reasonable sense and application of the
+prohibition of the 18th verse?&nbsp; I think there is.&nbsp; To
+see what it is, go back to the exception under the law of the
+Levirate, <a name="citation16"></a><a href="#footnote16"
+class="citation">[16]</a> and ask whether the application of that
+law might not involve a man&rsquo;s marrying two sisters.&nbsp;
+Undoubtedly it might.&nbsp; Suppose two brothers to have married
+two sisters, and the one brother to die, leaving no child, if, by
+the Leviratical law the brother, as he would do under that law
+simply, took his brother&rsquo;s widow to raise up seed unto his
+brother, he would also be taking to wife his own wife&rsquo;s
+sister, and this, it would seem under the injunction in
+Deuteronomy, he would not only be permitted but enjoined to
+do.&nbsp; But was this to be without exception?&nbsp; I answer,
+No!&nbsp; If his own wife, the sister of the other were still
+alive, the Almighty did not intend this rule to be carried out in
+such case.&nbsp; He, the surviving brother, in that contingency,
+should <i>not</i> &ldquo;take a wife to her sister to vex her, .
+. . beside the other in her life-time.&rdquo;&nbsp; The
+prohibition of the 18th verse of the xviii. chapter of Leviticus
+comes in.&nbsp; It comes, in the translation of the authorized
+version.&nbsp; It comes, in the sense contended for, as
+prohibitory if both sisters are alive together.&nbsp; It comes,
+as tacitly sanctioning the union if they are not; but it comes as
+limited in its application to this one case and one contemplated
+contingency, as God&rsquo;s own exception touching the two
+sisters &ldquo;in their life-time:&rdquo;&mdash;His exception, as
+to both sisters alive together; the exception to the exception
+contained in the <a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+17</span>law of the Levirate, but as having nothing at all to do
+with the general law: as therefore in no way interfering with or
+over-riding the general law of the 16th verse; in no way making
+its general provision of none effect, as it would do if taken in
+the sense and application of these reformers of our marriage
+law.&nbsp; And the above-mentioned sense and application which
+everyone must allow the 18th verse will bear, nay, which Dr.
+M&rsquo;Caul tells us all Jewish authorities claim and sanction,
+as at least included in its legislation, is, I must contend,
+ample and sufficient to explain the standing of the 18th verse,
+and its full meaning, without supposing any other application
+whatsoever.</p>
+<p>And let it be observed that this statement of such application
+to the case of two brothers having married two sisters, and the
+consequent duty, in the case of one brother dying childless, of
+the other brother to take his widow under the law of Deuteronomy,
+modified by the exception of the 18th verse of Lev. xviii, that
+such union is not to take place, if his own wife be still alive,
+is not mine, but Dr. M&rsquo;Caul&rsquo;s, in a full examination
+of certain passages in the Mishna upon this subject.&nbsp; Indeed
+it was Dr. M&rsquo;Caul&rsquo;s own statement, in his Letter
+addressed, my Lord, to yourself in 1860, which brought to my mind
+the main line of argument which I am endeavouring to
+unfold.&nbsp; I asked myself;&mdash;If all this in the Mishna and
+in Dr. M&rsquo;Caul&rsquo;s explication of the matter, be true,
+why is it not the sufficient truth and the whole explanation
+needed?&nbsp; Why go on to make a conflict between the two verses
+in Leviticus when the 18th verse is acknowledged to be the
+enunciation of an exception to the law of the Levirate, and when
+this is a full and sufficient account of it?</p>
+<p>It will, I think, be no waste of time to extract the passage
+to which I refer from Dr. M&rsquo;Caul&rsquo;s letter, as this
+will serve both to make what I have here said the more <a
+name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>distinct, and
+shew also, how entirely both the Mishna and Dr. M&rsquo;Caul
+maintain all which I have advanced as to the application of the
+verse in Leviticus to the case of the two brothers having married
+two sisters, though they refuse (at least the latter) to stop at
+this point.</p>
+<p>I ought to say thus much as introduction to the Extract.&nbsp;
+In his first letter Dr. M&rsquo;Caul had mentioned the Mishna as
+confirming his view.&nbsp; &ldquo;The Mishna compiled in the
+second century testifies that it (this permission of the
+marriage) was the common and received sense of the Hebraizing
+Jews.&rdquo; <a name="citation18"></a><a href="#footnote18"
+class="citation">[18]</a>&nbsp; This drew some remarks from the
+writer of one of the Tracts published by the Marriage Law Defence
+Association, (Tract 8, p. 4, and Appendix, quoted also by
+yourself in the Appendix to your speech,) upon the statements of
+the Mishna, which again caused Dr. M&rsquo;Caul in rejoinder to
+examine those statements and to comment upon them afresh in his
+letter to yourself.&nbsp; I need not go back to the first two
+pamphlets.&nbsp; Dr. M&rsquo;Caul&rsquo;s explanations in his
+second letter will shew all which I want to exhibit.&nbsp;
+Complaining of inaccurate quotation on the part of the writer of
+Tract 8, he says,</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;I will give the passages as they stand in
+the Mishna, and you, Sir, may judge of the faithfulness of this
+writer in making quotations.&nbsp; The words of the Mishna
+are:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Suppose three brothers, two of them married to
+two sisters, and one of them married to a stranger&mdash;one of
+the sister&rsquo;s husbands dies, and he who is married to the
+stranger takes his widow&mdash;then the wife of the second dies,
+and after that he that is married to the stranger dies, behold
+this <i>widow</i>, (<i>i.e.</i>, the surviving sister) is
+prohibited to him for ever, because she was prohibited to him for
+<i>one hour</i>.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Now, Sir, you will perceive several differences between
+this statement of the Mishna and that of the Appendix.&nbsp; 1st,
+The Appendix says,&mdash;&lsquo;It is declared, that if that <a
+name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+19</span><i>brother&rsquo;s wife is his own wife&rsquo;s
+sister</i>, <i>he may not marry her</i>.&rsquo;&nbsp; The Mishna
+makes no such general statement, but confines itself to a
+particular case.&nbsp; 2dly, The reason the Mishna gives for the
+prohibition of the surviving sister is that &lsquo;she had been
+prohibited to him <i>for one hour</i>,&rsquo; which the Appendix
+omits altogether.&nbsp; 3rdly, The Appendix says, &lsquo;And the
+reason assigned is, that <i>the man and his wife&rsquo;s
+sister</i> are related <i>within the degrees forbidden by the
+holy law</i> to intermarry,&rsquo; not one word of which is in
+the text of the Mishna, as you see.&nbsp; The Mishna gives the
+reason correctly, <i>she had been prohibited to the second
+brother for one hour</i>, <i>i.e.</i>, her widowhood commenced
+whilst her sister was still alive and the wife of the other
+brother, in which case the <i>Rabbis</i> rule that she is
+prohibited for ever.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;To make this plain, I will put letters as in the
+Appendix:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Two brothers | A/B | marry | M/N | Two sisters.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A third brother, C, marries S, a stranger, <i>i.e.</i>,
+no relation.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A dies; M is left a widow.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;C marries M, A&rsquo;s Widow, to fulfil a
+brother-in-law&rsquo;s duty, which B could not do, because to
+marry two sisters simultaneously is forbidden by Lev. xviii.
+18.&nbsp; This is the &lsquo;one hour&rsquo; during which M is
+prohibited to B.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;N then dies, and B is left a widower; but he is not
+allowed to marry M, left a second time a widow, because on the
+death of A, whilst N, his wife, was alive, M was
+prohibited.&nbsp; Out of this particular case, by putting in
+words not in the Mishna, and by leaving out the words &lsquo;one
+hour,&rsquo; which are in the Mishna, the writer has made a new
+Rabbinic law, unknown to the Mishna and its commentators, and
+from a particular case has drawn a general conclusion, opposed to
+Jewish law and practice.&nbsp; For, take the <a
+name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>deaths in a
+different order, so as to avoid the &lsquo;one hour,&rsquo; and
+then B might marry M.&nbsp; Thus:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Two brothers | A/B | marry | M/N | Two sisters.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;A third brother, C, marries S, a stranger.</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Suppose that N dies first, and after she is dead A dies
+without children, then B may marry M, because she had not been
+&lsquo;prohibited to him for <i>one hour</i>,&rsquo; <i>i.e.</i>,
+she had not been a widow whilst his own wife was alive.&nbsp; The
+second case alluded to is exactly similar:&mdash;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Mishna III. 9.&mdash;&lsquo;Suppose two brothers [A and
+B] married two sisters [M and N].&nbsp; If one of the brothers
+[A] die, and afterwards the wife of the second [N] die, then the
+widow [M] is prohibited to the surviving brother [B] because she
+had been prohibited to him <i>one hour</i>.&rsquo;</p>
+<p>&ldquo;But suppose that N had died first, and then A died
+without children, then it would have been lawful for B to marry
+M, as may be seen in Maimonides, Yad Hachazakah, Hilchoth Yibbum,
+ch. vii., &sect; 3, 4, where there is an analogous case.&nbsp;
+The prohibition in the one case, and the permission in the other,
+depends, not upon the words of the law, but upon a general rule
+<i>laid down by the Rabbis</i>; that the lawfulness or
+unlawfulness, as well as the obligation to perform the duty of a
+brother-in-law, is regulated by the state of things existing at
+the moment when the brother died.&rdquo; <a
+name="citation20"></a><a href="#footnote20"
+class="citation">[20]</a></p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>I have extracted the above at full length, because at the same
+time that it shews all I want and even more than I want for my
+purpose, it yet also shews no contradiction to what I want,
+whilst it shews also that I suppress no part of Dr.
+M&rsquo;Caul&rsquo;s statement or argument.&nbsp; I say that it
+shews something more than I want, though nothing contradictory to
+it; because I have no need to consider either the third case of a
+brother marrying a stranger, <a name="page21"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 21</span>or the case of the <i>one hour</i>
+commented upon by the Mishna, or at least this case no further
+than as it brings out into the plainest prominence Dr.
+M&rsquo;Caul&rsquo;s own witness to the sense of Lev. xviii. 18,
+that it forbids &ldquo;B to marry A&rsquo;s widow, because <i>to
+marry two sisters simultaneously is forbidden by Lev. xviii.</i>
+18.&rdquo;&nbsp; That is, by the law of the Levirate simply, this
+would have been required, but by the exception of the above verse
+it is forbidden. <a name="citation21"></a><a href="#footnote21"
+class="citation">[21]</a></p>
+<p>And this is what I mean by saying the passage shews all I
+want.&nbsp; It proves incontestably that according to the Mishna,
+according to the Jewish Rabbis, according to Dr. M&rsquo;Caul,
+the enactment of the 18th verse of the xviii. of Leviticus was
+inserted, for the very purpose which I have all along
+supposed:&mdash;that it was the declaration of God&rsquo;s will,
+that when the operation of the law of the Levirate <i>per se</i>
+would bring about the brother taking his own wife&rsquo;s sister
+to wife to raise up seed unto his brother, <i>then</i> the
+exception to the exception came in and forbade him to do so, if
+her sister, his own wife, were alive.&nbsp; And this is what made
+me say (p. 13) that Dr. M&rsquo;Caul came very near to the
+application of that text which I have been unfolding, though I
+was obliged to add, he overlooked its importance in interpreting
+the law as contained in Leviticus, for he allows that the 18th
+verse of Leviticus xviii. reaches to, is intended to reach to,
+and to forbid, this especial union, which otherwise would have
+been enjoined by the law in Deut. xxv., but it appears never to
+have occurred to him that this is the ample and sufficient
+explanation of the existence of that 18th verse.&nbsp; He never
+seems to have conceived it possible that it should be restricted
+to being the exception to the Leviratical Law, and not be a
+general Law itself.</p>
+<p>I would, my Lord, for many reasons, had it so pleased God,
+that Dr. M&rsquo;Caul were alive.&nbsp; His ability and learning,
+his strong sense and true piety, and not least his willing
+readiness to <a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+22</span>join with those who might differ from him in many points
+in the defence of our common Church and common faith against the
+assaults of infidelity and rationalism, make his death a no
+ordinary loss to us in days like these.&nbsp; But beyond this, I
+own, had it so been possible, I should have liked to point out to
+him how his own statements, his own authorities, and his own
+reasoning had been the very means to lead me to the conclusion,
+that we find a very complete and sufficient explanation of the
+existence and meaning of the 18th verse of Lev. xviii., without
+any occasion to resort to so violent an over-riding one statement
+of Scripture by another, as he has advocated.&nbsp; And this too
+without having to question the ordinary translation of the verse,
+or to find any difficulty in the sense of the words, &ldquo;in
+her lifetime.&rdquo;&nbsp; All this, at any rate for the sake of
+argument, I seem able to concede to Dr. M&rsquo;Caul, to take his
+own account of <i>an</i> application of the passage, and only
+add, that it seems to me to be <i>the</i> application, and the
+only application needed.&nbsp; I cannot forbear adding, that if
+there be but a chance of this being so, it makes it a most
+serious thing for anyone to speak lightly of the restrictions in
+question&mdash;not merely of this one of the brother&rsquo;s
+wife, but of all those laid down in this chapter of Leviticus, or
+to <i>think</i> even of relaxing that code; for who shall say
+that we shall not thus &ldquo;haply be found to fight against
+God,&rdquo; and be bringing ourselves and our country under the
+curse of His Word, denounced against all who defile themselves in
+these things: &ldquo;Ye shall therefore keep My statutes and My
+judgments; and shall not commit any of these abominations,
+neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth
+among 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 not you out also, as it spued out the nations that were
+before you.&nbsp; For whosoever shall commit any of these <a
+name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>abominations,
+even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their
+people.&nbsp; Therefore shall ye keep Mine ordinance, 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.&rdquo; <a name="citation23"></a><a href="#footnote23"
+class="citation">[23]</a>&nbsp; In these days, my lord, we have
+many things to make us anxious&mdash;many things, I do not go too
+far in saying, to make us tremble; but I hardly know anything
+which should fill us more with anxiety, fear and trembling, than
+the thought that our legislature should bring us under this
+terrible curse of God, by sanctioning, as the act of a people
+among whom &ldquo;Christianity is&rdquo; still &ldquo;the law of
+the land,&rdquo; any one of those abominations, for which even
+the nations of Canaan were cut off and spued out.&nbsp; And as to
+individuals, I must say, there are to me few things more
+calculated to raise mixed feelings of pity, contempt and horror,
+than the levity and recklessness of some of those who are
+advocating the change&mdash;pity for the ignorance of many who
+have been misled by mere bold assertion, contempt for the
+reasoning powers of others who seem never to dream of looking at
+any side of the question except that on which their own passions,
+prejudices, or wishes are enlisted, and horror at the fearful
+temerity of those who dare approach and argue upon such a
+subject, without at least a sense of its importance, of the
+reverence with which all discussion relative to it should be
+conducted, and an awe, at any rate, as to the possibility, after
+all, of God&rsquo;s law and will being in accordance with the
+Church&rsquo;s interpretation of it for so long a time, and
+wholly against the &ldquo;new thing&rdquo; which the spirit of
+modern lawlessness seems anxious to introduce!</p>
+<p>My Lord, I have not designed or attempted to go through the
+whole argument on the question of the alteration of <a
+name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>the Marriage
+law as now proposed, but have sought to confine myself to these
+points:</p>
+<p>I.&nbsp; That the whole strength of the case of the promoters
+of the change, so far as Holy Scripture is concerned, rests upon
+the text, Lev. xviii. 18, this text being taken to override the
+prohibition of Lev. xviii. 16.</p>
+<p>II.&nbsp; That the contradiction of two general laws in
+God&rsquo;s Word, the one to the other, in the course of three
+verses is highly unlikely and improbable; so improbable that we
+are justified in expecting to find some other solution of the
+difficulty.</p>
+<p>III.&nbsp; That in the case in hand, there is another solution
+falling very naturally into its place by careful comparison of
+Scripture with Scripture.</p>
+<p>To sum up the general argument, even at the risk of some
+repetition, we may state it thus:&mdash;</p>
+<p>(i.)&nbsp; We have the general rule laid down: &ldquo;None of
+you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him&rdquo;
+(verse 6).</p>
+<p>(ii.)&nbsp; We have the instances and exemplifications of what
+this &ldquo;nearness of kin&rdquo; means, all of these given
+directly with reference to the <i>man</i>, leaving the
+corresponding <i>woman&rsquo;s</i> duty to be inferred (verses
+7&ndash;17).</p>
+<p>(iii.)&nbsp; We have the particular case of the
+brother&rsquo;s wife (verse 16); whereupon, by parity of
+reasoning, is inferred the prohibition of the wife&rsquo;s
+sister, it being here to be observed, that unless the cases of
+the different sex, by parity of reason, be taken as contemplated
+by the Holy Ghost in giving this Scripture, we have no written
+law against several most frightful kinds of incest. <a
+name="citation24"></a><a href="#footnote24"
+class="citation">[24]</a></p>
+<p>(iv.)&nbsp; We have an exception to the very letter of the law
+as to the brother&rsquo;s wife, by the injunction of the law of
+the Levirate, in the provision for preventing the extinction of a
+house in Israel, by the brother&rsquo;s taking his deceased
+brother&rsquo;s <a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+25</span>wife (if he have died childless), and raising up seed
+unto his brother: this, not in the nature of a prohibition, but
+of an exceptional injunction or command. (Deut. xxv.
+5&ndash;10.)</p>
+<p>(v.)&nbsp; We have an exception to the above exception,
+forbidding its being extended to the taking the wife&rsquo;s
+sister in the case of the above injunction working (as in one
+special case it might work), to the result of a brother, in
+taking his deceased brother&rsquo;s widow, taking also, by the
+same act, his own wife&rsquo;s sister, and thus, if his own wife
+were still alive, having the two sisters together as wives.&nbsp;
+For this would be the case, were there no exceptional
+prohibition, when two brothers had married two sisters, and when,
+though one of the brothers had died childless, yet both sisters
+were alive.&nbsp; Then there comes in the exception:
+&ldquo;Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her .
+. . beside the other in her lifetime&rdquo; (verse 18); as if it
+were said, In no case&mdash;no, not when the law of the Levirate
+would otherwise require it&mdash;no, not when the saving of a
+house in Israel from extinction would otherwise demand
+it&mdash;shall a man take his wife&rsquo;s sister, his own wife,
+her sister, being yet alive: where, too, we may observe, that the
+parallelism in the cases of the two brothers and the two sisters
+is strictly and exactly maintained; for the woman in no case
+<i>could</i> take a second brother, the other being alive; for
+her husband, the first brother, <i>must be dead</i> before the
+law of the Levirate could operate at all; therefore the
+wife&rsquo;s sister <i>could not</i> (even when two brothers had
+married two sisters) take her husband&rsquo;s brother beside the
+other in his lifetime, and thus the wife&rsquo;s sister is
+exactly equally restrained from taking the sister&rsquo;s
+husband, when the circumstances would lead to it by a man taking
+&ldquo;a wife to her sister . . . beside the other in her
+lifetime.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>Thus, too, it is clear that the law of this 18th verse is a
+law of prohibition, not of relaxation, and therefore naturally <a
+name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>and properly
+comes in its place with the other prohibitions of this 18th
+chapter of Leviticus.</p>
+<p>And I venture to submit, that this is the whole meaning and
+application of this much controverted verse: viz., that it is not
+in the nature of a general law at all, but is merely the
+declaration of an exception to an exception&mdash;an exception to
+preclude two living sisters being simultaneously the wives of one
+man, even when the law of the Levirate, but for this prohibition,
+would lead to such result.&nbsp; I must add, that to me it seems
+to be a full, natural and sufficient explanation of the passage
+without any further application at all, that is, without
+supposing it to have anything to do with the general law, or to
+be any relaxation of the prohibition of the 16th verse as to the
+brother&rsquo;s wife, or the converse case to it, by analogy, as
+to the wife&rsquo;s sister.</p>
+<p>Possibly the exact bearing of the foregoing argument may be
+made plainer by a paraphrase of the Scriptural statements,
+putting them something into the form of statute law, by which
+means the different provisions of the several passages may be
+combined and their connection be seen, as various provisions in
+the clauses or sections of an Act of Parliament are read
+together.&nbsp; I dare say I shall expose myself to not unjust
+criticism for technical blunders, in attempting to adopt
+Act-of-Parliament phraseology; but I shall be content to bear
+this, if I may attain my main object, viz., to shew how the
+different parts of the law combine and should be read in
+connection with each other, and especially what is the force and
+due application of what will be, so to speak, the last clause or
+section in the Act.</p>
+<p>Suppose, then, God&rsquo;s law as to these marriages to stand
+in the statute-book of a Jewish Parliament, imagining for the
+moment such to have existed.&nbsp; Might not the principal
+enactments stand something in this way?&nbsp; It will be
+understood <a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+27</span>that a permission or tacit sanction of polygamy must be
+assumed, as part of the common law of the community.&nbsp; Say,
+then, that the enactments in question stood thus:&mdash;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">[None to intermarry with those near
+of kin.]</p>
+<p>&sect; 1.&nbsp; Be it enacted, that none shall inter-marry
+with any related to them, whether by blood relationship or by
+affinity, within the following degrees, as set forth in the
+annexed schedule:&mdash;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">[Schedule of Prohibited
+Degrees.]</p>
+<p>(Then suppose Archbishop Parker&rsquo;s Table of Prohibited
+Degrees here annexed as the schedule.)</p>
+<p>The Act would then continue:&mdash;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">[Brother to marry deceased
+Brother&rsquo;s Wife, to raise up seed to his Brother.]</p>
+<p>&sect; 2.&nbsp; Provided always, that, in reference to the
+above prohibition of the brother taking his brother&rsquo;s
+widow, it shall yet be lawful, authorized and required (under
+penalty of a stigma of disgrace, to be attached to him who fails
+in compliance), that in the case of a man&rsquo;s brother dying
+childless, in order to prevent the extinction of a house in
+Israel, his brother shall take the deceased brother&rsquo;s wife,
+and raise up seed unto his brother; and, therefore, that the
+first-born child of such union shall succeed in the name of the
+brother who is dead, and be accounted and taken by the law of
+this land as not of the family of the second brother, but of the
+first, and shall be the heir, both in name and possessions, of
+that deceased brother, whose widow&rsquo;s child he is.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">[But none to take a wife to her
+sister, beside the other in her life-time.]</p>
+<p>&sect; 3.&nbsp; But, inasmuch as in the case of two brothers
+having married two sisters, the enactment of the preceding
+section might, and, in the event of one brother dying childless,
+would, authorize and require a man to take to wife two sisters,
+his brother&rsquo;s widow being in such case his own wife&rsquo;s
+sister, and whereas, if his own wife should at such time be
+alive, this might lead to rivalry and vexation, be it further
+enacted, that nothing herein enacted, in the previous section <a
+name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span>or in any
+part of this Act, shall authorize, permit or require any brother,
+even for the purpose of saving a house and family from
+extinction, to take to wife the sister of his own wife, his said
+wife her sister being yet alive; and be it therefore enacted,
+that in such case, where such would be the result of the
+enactment of the previous section of this Act the provision of
+the said previous section shall become inoperative and of none
+effect, rather than a man take a wife to her sister to vex her,
+beside the other, in her lifetime.</p>
+<p>Upon this illustration I will only ask&mdash;Would not such an
+Act of Parliament be perfectly distinct and clear?&nbsp; Could
+any one possibly misunderstand it?&nbsp; Would not every clause
+and section have its own plain and intelligible sense?&nbsp;
+Especially would not the last clause or section have a full and
+sufficient both sense and application without any man&rsquo;s
+dreaming for a single moment of there being contained in it a
+repeal of any portion of the table or schedule of degrees?&nbsp;
+I say contained <i>in it</i>, because no doubt the second section
+would contain something of this kind, and yet, be it observed,
+not a repeal, but a partial exception; that is, in one particular
+case, and for one particular specified purpose, the second
+section would modify one entry in the table, that of the
+brother&rsquo;s wife or sister&rsquo;s husband (as it is
+confessed on all hands, the law of the Levirate, Deut. xxv., does
+modify the law of the 16th verse of Lev. xviii.), but even so, I
+must insist upon it, not <i>repealing</i> it; for the exception
+would operate <i>only</i> when the brother had died childless,
+leaving the entry in the schedule in fulness of prohibition in
+all other cases.&nbsp; And it is beyond all question that that
+modification would be due to the second and not to the third
+section of the Act.&nbsp; The third or last section would have
+nothing to do with any relaxation of the law, but would be merely
+a restrictive provision in relation to the working of the
+previous section, being, as I have all along been shewing, <a
+name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>a narrowing,
+not an enlarging the liberty given under the exception in the
+previous clause and having no further bearing:&mdash;therefore
+having nothing to do with any entry in the schedule; nothing to
+do with the permission to take the brother&rsquo;s wife or the
+sister&rsquo;s husband, and, if so, nothing at all to do with the
+object for which that clause, so to speak, is used by the
+promoters of the change in our law, as proposed in the
+Wife&rsquo;s Sister&rsquo;s Marriage Bill.</p>
+<p>Moreover, does not this account make it perfectly intelligible
+why the first section should remain in the integrity of its
+enactment, and all the entries find their place in the schedule,
+because no single entry is repealed even by the modification
+caused by section 2?&nbsp; But surely it would have been absurd
+to enact, or to retain in the table, the entry as to a
+brother&rsquo;s wife or sister&rsquo;s husband, if an almost
+immediately subsequent contradictory enactment were wholly to
+repeal it, as contended by the promoters of the Bill in
+question.</p>
+<p>I do not know that I have more to add unless it be to meet
+briefly a possible objection from the law of the Levirate not
+being found in the same place with the other two passages, nor
+indeed in the same book of Leviticus, but in another book of Holy
+Scripture.&nbsp; It may, perhaps, be asked&mdash;Is it not
+strange and unnatural to find the exception to an exception
+entered where the first exception itself is not recorded, and
+perhaps even before that exception was made at all?</p>
+<p>I would reply, first&mdash;</p>
+<p>If this be an objection, it is one to which the Mishna, and
+the Jewish Rabbis, and Dr. M&rsquo;Caul are open just as much as
+I am.&nbsp; For they all acknowledge and maintain that upon that
+18th verse of xviii. Leviticus is founded the prohibition which
+they all claim as to the brother in the case of two brothers
+having married two sisters; of the one <a name="page30"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 30</span>not being permitted to obey the
+injunction of the law of the Levirate, as to taking the
+other&rsquo;s wife in the particular case of the one brother
+leaving a widow whilst the other brother&rsquo;s wife is yet
+living.</p>
+<p>I would reply, secondly&mdash;</p>
+<p>That the objection, from the exception in Deut. xxv. not
+possibly having been then made, is as nothing when the lawgiver
+is not man but God, who knows from the beginning all which He
+intends. <a name="citation30"></a><a href="#footnote30"
+class="citation">[30]</a></p>
+<p>I would reply, thirdly&mdash;</p>
+<p>That a fair and reasonable account of the statements in
+Leviticus xviii. not alluding directly to the law of Deut. xxv.,
+and not in any way indicating the exception there made or to be
+made to the prohibition of verse 16, is to be found in this: that
+all the statements in that chapter of Leviticus are
+<i>prohibitions</i>, whilst the record in Deuteronomy is a
+<i>permission</i> or indeed a <i>command</i>; that, therefore, it
+is perfectly reasonable and natural that we should not find
+prohibitions and relaxations of the law mixed up together.&nbsp;
+Thus Leviticus keeps to its prohibitions, verse after verse, with
+the warnings and denunciation of penalties proper to its subject;
+and Deuteronomy deals with its exceptional relaxation, and the
+duties and consequences therewith connected.&nbsp; And it may be
+just worth while to add that although the 18th verse of Leviticus
+xviii. is an exception, it is still in the sense and application
+which I have been enforcing, a prohibitory not a permissive
+exception; a consideration which not only shows it is in its due
+place among the other prohibitions, but also strengthens the view
+taken in this letter of its being no more than a
+prohibition.&nbsp; It <i>prohibits</i> the taking two sisters
+simultaneously, even under circumstances which, but for its
+existence, would have <a name="page31"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 31</span>required such union, and it does not
+permit anything as against the laws of the 6th and 16th
+verses.&nbsp; Were Dr. M&rsquo;Caul&rsquo;s view, and the view of
+the promoters of the alteration of our law of marriage correct,
+we should at least have the anomaly of a permissive precept
+foisted in, if I may so say, among the prohibitory sentences of
+this chapter, dealing in all else with prohibitions only.&nbsp;
+For, it is plain, to read the verse as meaning a man may marry
+two sisters, if it be not simultaneously, is a permission upon
+the previous restriction; whilst to say a man may <i>not</i>
+marry two sisters simultaneously, even when the law of the
+Levirate would seem to demand it, is a prohibition.&nbsp; The law
+of Deuteronomy, therefore, (the law of the Levirate,) being a
+permission or command, not a prohibition, makes it no marvel that
+that injunction is not found among the prohibitions, whilst that
+the prohibitional exceptional decree of the 18th verse of Lev.
+xviii., should be found where it is, among the prohibitions, is
+no marvel either.</p>
+<p>I would reply, fourthly&mdash;</p>
+<p>That to find the law of the Levirate in this place in the Book
+of Leviticus would have been to find a provision solely and
+simply of the Jewish economy and polity, most unnaturally
+intermixed with the provisions of God&rsquo;s general moral
+law:&mdash;that is, what is applicable solely to Moses and the
+people under him, confused with the law intended for all nations
+and people, as witnessed by the denunciations of that chapter of
+the book of Leviticus with which we have been concerned.&nbsp;
+How is it possible to suppose the Leviratical injunction of
+Deuteronomy could have found a place among the things prohibited
+and condemned as the abominations of the Canaanites and
+Egyptians?</p>
+<p>I would reply, fifthly&mdash;</p>
+<p>That if any further answer to the above objection be <a
+name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>needed, there
+is, at least, the general and most sufficient reply, that we are
+no judges of the right collocation of different points in
+God&rsquo;s revelation to man.&nbsp; When we see the fitness of
+anything, even as we can judge, we may glorify Him and be
+thankful; when we cannot, we may and should &ldquo;put our mouth
+in the dust&rdquo; and be humble.&nbsp; If things are not made
+more plain to us than they are, or even are less plain than they
+might have been, let us remember our state of trial, and
+acknowledge that all such may be, for ought we know, exactly so
+revealed as they are, and so placed as they are, for our
+trial.&nbsp; There is no reason why we should not be tried just
+as much as to difficulties put before our intellect, as by
+temptations appealing to our passions; and, as Bishop Butler has
+remarked, there are some men who, but for the former, might be
+found to have hardly any trial at all.&nbsp; (Analogy, Part ii.,
+chapter 6.)&nbsp; If the particular objection here advanced be
+analyzed, it will be found to be but this:&mdash;Why should there
+have been <i>an omission</i> of this law of the Levirate in
+Leviticus, when, in the same place, there is the record of a
+prohibitory exception to it?&nbsp; But who shall pretend to
+account for the omissions of Holy Scripture?&nbsp; Take but that
+one record in St. Luke&rsquo;s Gospel of the two disciples who,
+on the morning of the Resurrection, walked to Emmaus, and were
+met by Jesus on the way, as they talked of those things which had
+come to pass, and were sad.&nbsp; What can be more wonderful to
+our conception than what we find, and what we do not find!&nbsp;
+After their converse concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a
+Prophet mighty in word and deed before God and all the people, we
+find that He himself, &ldquo;beginning at Moses and all the
+Prophets, expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things
+concerning Himself.&rdquo; <a name="citation32"></a><a
+href="#footnote32" class="citation">[32]</a>&nbsp; But we <i>do
+not find</i> a single syllable of all this discourse recorded in
+the Gospel.&nbsp; <a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+33</span>If we judged by what seemed to us likely, how sure
+should we feel that it would have been set down!&nbsp; Oh! how
+many difficulties might have been met! how many objections have
+been answered! how many heresies have been avoided! how great a
+flood of light have been thrown upon various points of history,
+prophecy, and doctrine! and how great a guide have been given for
+all in life and conduct! had it seemed good to the Holy Ghost to
+let the Evangelist record that discourse.&nbsp; If we judged by
+our sense of likelihood, should we not say, &ldquo;What could be
+so full of interest and of edification!&nbsp; How important! how
+needful for us to know what our Lord said, when beginning at
+Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded unto them in all the
+Scriptures the things concerning Himself!&rdquo;&nbsp; But not
+one word of it is set down, and, perchance, for the very cause
+that it would have too much abridged our trial had we possessed
+such an exposition, and that we may learn in all things not to
+judge amiss as to the hard things or the secret things in
+God&rsquo;s Word nor to think &ldquo;His ways are as our
+ways.&rdquo;&nbsp; Had that discourse been placed before us,
+perchance there had never been an Arian or a Socinian in the
+world.&nbsp; (How good we might think it!)&nbsp; Had the whole
+marriage law of God, if we may so say, been systematically set
+down in His holy Word, it may be there would have been none now
+to tamper with it.&nbsp; (How happy, too, we should think
+it!)&nbsp; But we might as well say, &ldquo;How happy if Adam had
+had no trial put upon him, and so had never fallen!&rdquo;</p>
+<p>But our duty is, as it is, and as God has thought fit to set
+it before us.&nbsp; He has revealed to us His law and will in
+such manner and degree as seemed to Him good.&nbsp; It is
+our&rsquo;s to receive it and to seek to understand it as most
+humbly and reverently we may, and, asking His grace and help, to
+do our best to keep it: to keep it individually in our own lives,
+<a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>and so far
+as He permits us, to keep it from all defilement or breach in the
+laws of our country.&nbsp; We call ourselves, and rightly, a
+Christian country, for we are, as baptized into the body of
+Christ, His members.&nbsp; Let us remember, if even carelessly,
+much more if wilfully, we go against His commands, and set human
+law in its permission against the divine law in its prohibition,
+we are rebellious against Him who is our God and our King; we are
+going back from our Christian state and profession; we are
+placing ourselves on the level of the nations&mdash;the Egyptians
+and the Canaanites&mdash;who committed all those abominations,
+against which His curse is denounced who is &ldquo;the same
+yesterday and today, and for ever.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">I have the honour to be,<br />
+My Lord,<br />
+Your Lordship&rsquo;s very faithful and humble servant,</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">M. W. MAYOW.</p>
+<p><i>Buckingham Road</i>, <i>Brighton</i>, <i>July</i>
+14<i>th</i>, 1869.</p>
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Whilst these sheets are passing through the press,
+I am reminded of an objection taken to the whole line of the
+argument of my letter upon the very strength of the law of the
+Levirate.&nbsp; I am told (and I think the view was touched upon
+in the report of the Commission) that there are some who deem the
+law of the Levirate to be the total repeal of the prohibition as
+to the brother&rsquo;s wife (which most certainly it is not), and
+who would then go on to say, And, upon your own shewing, after
+the wife&rsquo;s death this very law of the Levirate will bring
+you to the conclusion of marrying the wife&rsquo;s sister.</p>
+<p>I should, perhaps, hardly deem it necessary to notice
+seriously such an objection, but that I hear of it as actually
+made or revived at the present time.&nbsp; I will then say a few
+words upon it.&nbsp; I reply; Consider what must be assumed, <a
+name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>and what must
+be denied, to bring this argument in any way to bear upon the
+question before the Legislature.</p>
+<p>First&mdash;It must be assumed that the law of the Levirate is
+a law binding upon Christians; that it is a law, not simply
+intended for the Jewish economy, but that a Christian man is
+intended to take his brother&rsquo;s widow, if he have died
+childless, and raise up seed unto his brother.</p>
+<p>Secondly&mdash;It must be assumed that this object is to be
+attained, not by the taking the brother&rsquo;s widow, but by
+taking the wife&rsquo;s sister, which is the object of the Bill,
+but was not the object at all of the Jewish legislation, and
+which, moreover, is absolutely absurd as to the end of raising up
+seed unto a brother.</p>
+<p>Thirdly&mdash;It must be denied that polygamy is forbidden to
+Christians; for if the brother in the case supposed have a wife
+previously to his brother&rsquo;s death, (this wife being still
+alive, but not the sister of his deceased brother&rsquo;s wife,)
+then, according to the law of the Levirate hereby assumed to be
+in force, he must still take his brother&rsquo;s widow to wife to
+raise up seed unto his brother.</p>
+<p>Or, Fourthly, if the argument be not carried quite so far, and
+it be maintained that the brother should say, &ldquo;I cannot
+take her, lest I mar my own inheritance;&rdquo; or, &ldquo;I
+cannot take her, as I have already a wife;&rdquo; or, &ldquo;I
+like not to take her for I am engaged to another;&rdquo; or, if
+he should for any cause refuse, then, at least, if the law of the
+Levirate be binding upon us (which is the argument; for if not,
+it does not help the promoters of the Bill at all), the refuser
+should undergo the penalty provided in the case, and we should
+have to witness the scene of the widow, or the wife&rsquo;s
+sister, calling together the elders of her city, and loosing the
+shoe of her husband&rsquo;s brother, or sister&rsquo;s husband,
+and spitting in his face and saying, &ldquo;So shall it be clone
+unto that man that will not to build up his brother&rsquo;s
+house;&rdquo; and we should <a name="page36"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 36</span>have to revive the name of &ldquo;the
+house of him that hath his shoe loosed.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>No!&nbsp; Who does not see that the whole scope and intention
+of the law of the Levirate was Judaical, and limited to and
+exhausted by that economy.&nbsp; And, therefore, if the
+connection between the law of the Levirate and the 18th verse of
+Lev. xviii. be established, as I have endeavoured to shew it is,
+it will follow that the exception to that law <i>must</i> belong
+exclusively to it and expire with it; and, therefore, that the
+supposed permission to take the sister, &ldquo;beside the
+other,&rdquo; if it be not &ldquo;in her life-time,&rdquo; has,
+as I have all along been arguing, nothing to do with us as
+Christians at all, but is tied to and restrained by the law of
+the Levirate, and of the Jewish dispensation.&nbsp; Under it, it
+was lawful, it was enjoined, when a brother died childless, for
+the brother to take his wife and raise up seed unto his brother;
+and this would be lawful and enjoined in that particular case
+even when his brother&rsquo;s widow was his own wife&rsquo;s
+sister, if his own wife, the sister of the other were dead.&nbsp;
+But among Christians I cannot believe that any one seriously
+believes for a moment that the law of the Levirate remains, and
+so no one can suppose, if the 18th verse of Lev. xviii. be merely
+the exception to that law, that it has any bearing upon, or gives
+any permission to, Christians in their marriages at all. <a
+name="citation36"></a><a href="#footnote36"
+class="citation">[36]</a></p>
+<p style="text-align: right">M. W. M.</p>
+<h2><a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+37</span>APPENDIX A.</h2>
+<p>The only two passages which I have met with taking the same
+line of argument with that of the foregoing letter are the
+following.&nbsp; In an appendix to the Speech of Vice-Chancellor
+Sir W. Page Wood, Feb. 1st, 1860, I find this comment upon the
+statements in the Mishna:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;The passages from the <i>Mishna</i> afford
+singular support to the view which the Bishop of Oxford, at the
+late meeting, stated to be held by some divines in America, viz.,
+that the difficult 18th verse of the 18th chapter of Leviticus
+was, in fact, a special prohibition against a wife&rsquo;s sister
+being married to her brother-in-law, even when the exceptional
+<i>Levirical</i> law (or law by which the brother-in-law was to
+raise up seed to his deceased brother) might otherwise have
+appeared to supersede the general code of the 18th
+chapter.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>In an article recently reprinted from the Church Review, of
+February, 1861, understood to be from the pen of the Rev. T. W.
+Perry, I find also this:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;May it not be, then, that the prohibition
+simply related to the (apparently) Patriarchal requirement (see
+Gen. xxxviii. 8), enforced in Deut. xxv. 5&ndash;10 (that is,
+<i>after</i> the Levitical prohibitions were given), which
+commanded the <i>next kinsman</i> to marry the widow of one who
+died without issue, in order to preserve the inheritance?&nbsp;
+For if the next kinsman was a brother of the deceased, the duty
+of raising up seed to his brother first devolved upon him.&nbsp;
+But he might refuse to perform it.&nbsp; In that instance he
+underwent a kind of punishment.&nbsp; The widow loosed his shoe
+and spat in his face before the elders of his city (Deut. xxv. 8
+and 9), and he became stigmatized as &lsquo;the house of him that
+hath his shoe loosed&rsquo; (v. 10).&nbsp; This liberty to refuse
+(see also Ruth iii. 12 and iv. 6) may have been a Divine
+relaxation of the Patriarchal rule, designed, perhaps, to render
+more effectual the prohibition in Lev. xviii. 18.&nbsp; But it
+may not improbably be, that the penalty attached was meant to
+secure the custom from contempt, by deterring the kinsman from
+excusing himself on grounds which the law of the Levirate
+(<i>i.e.</i>, the law of raising up seed to the deceased brother)
+did not mean to recognize.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Then, after some remarks upon the jealousy or vexation likely
+to arise, the writer continues:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;May it not, therefore, have been that God
+designed, in Lev. xviii. 18, to provide against this evil, which
+was very likely to attend upon the performance of the existing
+rule, and of his own command (then to be given) touching the
+marriage of the deceased brother&rsquo;s wife?</p>
+<p>&ldquo;Yet, how does this explanation meet the difficulty
+arising from the alleged permission contained in the words (v.
+18) &lsquo;in her life-time?&rsquo;&nbsp; Thus&mdash;If the next
+kinsman&rsquo;s wife were already dead, or if she died before the
+kinsman&rsquo;s part had been done to the widow, or after that
+part had been done by another kinsman, who had died leaving the
+widow still childless then, as she <i>could not be vexed</i>, the
+widow&rsquo;s brother-in-law was free to marry her, for the
+purpose specified in the Levirate law.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>And again:&mdash;</p>
+<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Since this first suggested itself to us, we
+have learnt (see Tract x. p. 21, of the Marriage Law Association)
+that the <i>Mishna</i>, treating of the civil law <a
+name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>of the Jews
+as to marrying the deceased brother&rsquo;s wife, says that he
+may not marry her <i>if she is his own wife&rsquo;s sister</i>,
+and, moreover, that the prohibition holds good <i>after</i> the
+wife&rsquo;s death.&nbsp; It is possible that this latter part of
+the tradition may be akin to what our Lord called (S. Mark vii.
+9) &lsquo;your own tradition,&rsquo; and so may have tended to
+&lsquo;frustrate the commandment of God,&rsquo; in Lev. xviii.
+18, by perplexing the interpretation of the words, &lsquo;in her
+life-time.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>I may add, however, as shewing my argument to be an
+independent witness to the same sense and application of
+Leviticus xviii. 18, that I had no knowledge of either of these
+statements when I sketched out the argument of the preceding
+letter.</p>
+<h2>APPENDIX B.</h2>
+<p>I have said that I have no need to enter into the question of
+the &ldquo;one hour&rdquo; mentioned in the Mishna.&nbsp; And
+this is certainly true, because the question which I have been
+considering is not whether, if a wife&rsquo;s sister be forbidden
+at all she is forbidden for ever by both being alive together at
+a certain time but simply whether the whole matter involved in
+the words &ldquo;in her life-time&rdquo; be not explained and
+accounted for by its being a prohibition, narrowing the
+requirements of the law of the Levirate, and nothing more.&nbsp;
+But it may be added that the statement of the Mishna as to the
+&ldquo;one hour&rdquo; is certainly rather confirmatory than not
+of the second sister being wholly forbidden, except under that
+law&rsquo;s provision in the case of the death of the one
+previous to the widowhood of the other, because if the being
+forbidden for one hour forbids for ever, the second sister,
+whether herself a virgin or the widow of a stranger, being (like
+the brother&rsquo;s widow left a widow in her sister&rsquo;s
+life-time) marriageable to any other man than her brother-in-law,
+during all the time of her sister&rsquo;s married life, (she, I
+say,) would be all that time forbidden to him.&nbsp; This would
+answer certainly to the one hour, and if so, under the Rule of
+the Mishna, she would be forbidden to him for ever, which brings
+us to the general prohibition under the general law.</p>
+<p>Whether the above inference of the Mishna be a legitimate one
+from the words &ldquo;in her life-time,&rdquo; that is, that the
+forbidding should depend for ever upon the state of things at the
+time of the brother&rsquo;s death (as Dr. M&rsquo;Caul expresses
+it), I need not determine.&nbsp; Mr. Perry, in one of the
+extracts above, seems to think it might rather be one of the
+additions by which the Jews frustrated &ldquo;the Word of God by
+their tradition,&rdquo; and possibly it was so.&nbsp; But at
+least we may say that there appears to be a weighty moral
+consideration to support the view of the prohibition extending
+from one hour to the future life.&nbsp; Because thus, in the case
+of a man finding his brother&rsquo;s wife a widow, being his own
+wife&rsquo;s sister, and perchance preferring her to his own
+wife, he might otherwise be tempted to get rid of his own wife,
+<a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>by divorce
+(so easily obtainable as divorce became among the Jews) or
+otherwise, if such after-release set him at liberty to marry his
+brother&rsquo;s wife, being a widow: a temptation be it observed
+not occurring as to any other woman left a widow by his
+brother&rsquo;s death, because the tacit sanction given to
+polygamy under the Jewish dispensation would in that case render
+it unnecessary to obtain release from his own wife at all in
+order to take her.&nbsp; If the brother had died childless, he
+would be enjoined to take her, irrespectively of his own wife
+being alive.&nbsp; If not childless, he could never take her at
+all.&nbsp; And this moral reason is not perhaps wholly unworthy
+of consideration as applying to the general question of marriage
+with a wife&rsquo;s sister in a state of things in which polygamy
+is forbidden.&nbsp; If the greater intimacy arising between a man
+and his wife&rsquo;s sister might, if unrestrained by the
+knowledge that she can never under any circumstances become his
+wife, tend to produce attachment, who shall say it is not a
+merciful and a wholesome restraint, that she should be forbidden
+to him for ever?&nbsp; And this restraint, be it remarked, would
+be wholly lost under the change in our law now sought.</p>
+<h2>APPENDIX C.</h2>
+<p>The drift of the objection considered in the Postscript may
+receive an illustration from that great moral drama, in the plot
+and conduct of which horror at the incestuous connection of the
+king with his brother&rsquo;s widow bears so prominent a
+part.&nbsp; The case of the objector who would make the law of
+the Levirate a dispensation for Christians, is just as if
+Claudius king of Denmark had pleaded that law, though his brother
+had not died childless (for no modern legislation proposes to
+regard this limitation), as a reason for taking to wife his
+brother&rsquo;s widow;&mdash;or, as if, yet further, had Queen
+Gertrude died, leaving a sister, he should plead again that same
+law (for all modern legislation proposes to go to this extent),
+to sanction his afterward taking her also to wife.&nbsp; Surely
+all this, as the king says of another matter, is &ldquo;absurd to
+reason.&rdquo;</p>
+<h2>NOTE TO PAGE 12.</h2>
+<p>It is of much importance to mark clearly how absolute, upon
+Dr. M&rsquo;Caul&rsquo;s reading of Leviticus xviii. 18, is the
+contradiction involved.&nbsp; I add, therefore:&mdash;Let it be
+well observed that a time beyond that expressed by the words
+&ldquo;<i>in her life-time</i>&rdquo; must be understood to be of
+the essence of all the prohibitions.&nbsp; That is to say (and
+the awful importance of the matter requires it to be stated
+plainly), that it is incest and not adultery which is the subject
+of the prohibitions throughout.&nbsp; A man is prohibited from
+marrying his Mother not merely during his Father&rsquo;s life <a
+name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>time, but
+always&mdash;his Sister, not merely, if she be married, and, if
+so, during her husband&rsquo;s life-time, but always.&nbsp; So of
+the Brother&rsquo;s Wife, and the rest.&nbsp; Therefore according
+to the interpretation insisted upon, the collision is, as stated
+in the text, a complete contradiction; a universal negative on
+the one side met by a particular affirmative on the other, just
+as if one should say, negatively, &ldquo;No horses are
+black,&rdquo; and then immediately add, affirmatively,
+&ldquo;Some horses are black.&rdquo;&nbsp; For, the statements
+drawn out in full, including the case by parity of reasoning from
+verse 16, would stand thus:&mdash;</p>
+<p>Thou shalt not take thy Brother&rsquo;s Wife, whether in thy
+Brother&rsquo;s life-time or not.</p>
+<p>Thou shalt not take thy Wife&rsquo;s Sister, whether in her
+Sister&rsquo;s life-time or not.</p>
+<p>Thou mayest take thy Wife&rsquo;s Sister, if it be not in her
+Sister&rsquo;s life-time.</p>
+<p>Such is the over-riding demanded by Dr. M&rsquo;Caul&rsquo;s
+position, and necessary to the argument if this 18th verse is to
+be made in any way available for the purpose of the promoters of
+the change in our marriage law.&nbsp; The improbability of such a
+contradiction within two verses, including an assumed change in
+the subject matter, from incest to adultery, in a continuous
+catalogue of the enormities denounced, can, as it appears to me,
+hardly be exaggerated.</p>
+<p>There is one consideration further to which it may be well to
+call attention, viz., that the <i>translation</i> of Lev. xviii.
+18, is not to be confused with its <i>interpretation</i>.&nbsp;
+Dr. M&rsquo;Caul naturally insists much upon the translation, and
+in addition to his own critical judgment, allowed to be of great
+weight from his known eminence as an Hebrew Scholar, he gives
+many authorities in favour of the rendering as it stands in the
+text of our authorized version.&nbsp; Still it is to be remarked
+that the authorities whom he cites for the translation are by no
+means at one with him as to the interpretation.&nbsp; This point
+will be found very fully treated of in the second letter of the
+present Lord Chancellor to the Dean of Westminster, printed in
+1861, <a name="citation40"></a><a href="#footnote40"
+class="citation">[40]</a> and, if I remember rightly, it was also
+examined and the result put very forcibly by the Bishop of Exeter
+in the postscript to his letter to the late Bishop of Lichfield,
+published, I believe, in 1860, where it is observantly noted that
+of all our Reformers cited by Dr. M&rsquo;Caul as having accepted
+the authorized version as to the rendering of Lev. xviii. 18,
+there is not one who has gone with him in the application of it
+which he advocates, inasmuch as they have all either explicitly
+or implicitly received our table of prohibited degrees: a proof
+that even from Dr. M&rsquo;Caul&rsquo;s premise, as to the
+translation, they have not come to his conclusion as to the
+interpretation.&nbsp; And it is plainly in the interpretation,
+not in the mere translation, that the above-mentioned
+contradiction is involved.</p>
+<h2>Footnotes.</h2>
+<p><a name="footnote5"></a><a href="#citation5"
+class="footnote">[5]</a>&nbsp; Speech of Vice-Chancellor Sir W.
+P. Wood. p. 5.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote7"></a><a href="#citation7"
+class="footnote">[7]</a>&nbsp; Against profane dealing with Holy
+Matrimony, by the Rev. John Keble, pp. 12, 13.&nbsp; J. H.
+Parker. 1849.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote8"></a><a href="#citation8"
+class="footnote">[8]</a>&nbsp; Ibid. pp. 13, 14.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote9"></a><a href="#citation9"
+class="footnote">[9]</a>&nbsp; Letter to Rev. W. H. Lyall, by
+Rev. A. M&rsquo;Caul, D.D., pp. 1&ndash;4.&nbsp; Wertheim,
+Mackintosh, and Hunt. 1859.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote10"></a><a href="#citation10"
+class="footnote">[10]</a>&nbsp; Speech of Sir W. P. Wood, pp. 5,
+6.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote11"></a><a href="#citation11"
+class="footnote">[11]</a>&nbsp; Dr. M&rsquo;Caul&rsquo;s Letter
+to Sir W. P. Wood, 1860, p. 55.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote12"></a><a href="#citation12"
+class="footnote">[12]</a>&nbsp; See Note at the end of
+Appendix.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote13a"></a><a href="#citation13a"
+class="footnote">[13a]</a>&nbsp; Appendix A.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote13b"></a><a href="#citation13b"
+class="footnote">[13b]</a>&nbsp; Canon 99.&mdash;&ldquo;None to
+marry within the degrees prohibited.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;And all
+such marriages so made shall be judged incestuous and
+unlawful.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>A Table of kindred and affinity, wherein whosoever are related
+are forbidden in Scripture and our laws to marry
+together.&mdash;<i>Book of Common Prayer</i>.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote14"></a><a href="#citation14"
+class="footnote">[14]</a>&nbsp; Letter, p. 55.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote15"></a><a href="#citation15"
+class="footnote">[15]</a>&nbsp; St. Matt. xxii. 24.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote16"></a><a href="#citation16"
+class="footnote">[16]</a>&nbsp; It may be useful just to state
+that the law termed the law of the Levirate is that law laid down
+in Deut. xxv. 5&ndash;10, that in case a Jew dying childless, his
+brother should take his wife and raise up seed unto his
+brother.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote18"></a><a href="#citation18"
+class="footnote">[18]</a>&nbsp; Letter to Rev. W. H. Lyall, p.
+14.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote20"></a><a href="#citation20"
+class="footnote">[20]</a>&nbsp; Letter to Vice-Chancellor Sir W.
+Page Wood, p. 29&ndash;31.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote21"></a><a href="#citation21"
+class="footnote">[21]</a>&nbsp; Appendix B.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote23"></a><a href="#citation23"
+class="footnote">[23]</a>&nbsp; Lev. xviii., 20&ndash;30.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote24"></a><a href="#citation24"
+class="footnote">[24]</a>&nbsp; See Dr. Pusey&rsquo;s Evidence
+before the Royal Commission, First Report, p. 37, questions
+431&ndash;3.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote30"></a><a href="#citation30"
+class="footnote">[30]</a>&nbsp; It is, moreover, evident that
+something of the kind of the law of the Levirate was a usage of
+the Patriarchal times, from the history recorded as to the sons
+of Judah in the book of Genesis.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote32"></a><a href="#citation32"
+class="footnote">[32]</a>&nbsp; St. Luke xxiv. 27.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote36"></a><a href="#citation36"
+class="footnote">[36]</a>&nbsp; Appendix C.</p>
+<p><a name="footnote40"></a><a href="#citation40"
+class="footnote">[40]</a>&nbsp; Second Letter of Vice-Chancellor
+Sir W. Page Wood, pp. 47&ndash;63.</p>
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S
+SISTER***</p>
+<pre>
+
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