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in the integrity of its enactment, and all the entries find their place in the schedule, because no single entry is repealed even by the modification caused by section 2?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