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