ever, we cannot discover any precise degree of relationship as the limit of matrimonial intercourse. We doubt not that the law of nature prevailed, that society was so framed as to enable every man to secure his own happiness without invading the present or future happiness of another, that marriages were not allowed that would have disturbed the general system of happiness, by levelling distinctions and confounding duties the observance of which are essential to the prosperity of the social state, and we infer therefore that marriages between persons related in an ascending and descending line were tacitly or by implication prohibited.* Beyond this we have no evidence to guide our decisions. We have, indeed, certain proof that a marriage between a man and his deceased brother's widow was not deemed immoral in itself, because, to secure certain advantages peculiar to their domestic polity, it was expressly enjoined. In the case of offspring the lawfulness of such a marriage was not denied.+ But where the brother died childless it became an imperative duty, which if the survivor neglected to perform he was to be stigmatized for ever.

The universal law of marriage, that which was imposed in the beginning, and embraced the whole human family, as we have seen was expressly directed against polygamy, yet it is evident that the strictly Mosaic law, while remotely intended to work its extinction, was immediately applied to its regulation; and we have no reason to conclude that there was any necessary contrariety between the law of absolute prohibition, extending through all time and comprehending the entire species, and the law of temporary adjustment which was limited in its application to a single people. Indeed, so far from being opposed to each other, they are identical in principle and in their final cause. The apostle Paul speaks of times of igno'rance which God winked at,' and our Lord assured the Jews that in forming his scheme of legislation Moses had special regard to the hardness of their hearts;' and he particularly refers to his relaxation of the law of marriage having in view the inveterate practice of polygamy, the evils of which he was resolved as far as possible to counteract and neutralize. Thus his granting divorces not only for great, but comparatively trivial

*These indeed, from their very nature, carry with them their own prohibition. It is absurd to imagine that children would marry their parents or parents their children: and wherever the social state has advanced in civilization, the union of brothers and sisters has grown into desuetude, and in all Christian lands is totally abandoned, and requires not to be forbidden by any law.

The twentieth verse in the twentieth chapter of Leviticus contains no prohibition with regard to marriage; see 18th verse.

causes, was a wise expedient for diminishing polygamy; a divorced wife making room for the introduction of another without two or more being compelled to dwell together.

In another instance we observe the jealous care with which the rights of a wife were guarded if her husband for any cause originating in himself resolved to take another; having dealt deceitfully with her, he must either remit the price of her redemption, she being the purchased handmaid of the family, as well as his own betrothed, or he must continue to her his protection and support; nor forget that she was still his wife, and entitled to all that is implied in that peculiar relation. We refer our readers to Exodus xxi. 10, 11, compared with Genesis xxx. 14, 16.

There is one violation of the sanctity of the marriage state, a peculiar aggravation of the turpitude of polygamy, on which the law of Moses has fixed the stigma of fornication and adultery, placing it amongst those impurities which are denounced in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus; the offence is thus described, 'Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister to 'vex her, to uncover her nakedness beside the other in her life' time.'

Some consider this passage as directed against polygamy generally; perhaps it is levelled against polygamy under aggravated circumstances. But whether one or the other, or both be intended, no criticism can torture it into a restriction of the law of marriage. If against polygamy generally, it has nothing to do with affinity-it merely amounts to this, 'Thou 'shalt not take one wife to another in her lifetime.' If it be directed against polygamy under aggravated circumstances, it is a prohibition with two reasons to enforce it; 'Neither shalt 'thou take a wife to her sister in her lifetime to vex her:' the first reason is the vexation it would cause to the sister wife, and the second is the unlawfulness of such a connexion during the life of both, and its perfect legality in the case of the wife's death. This is strongly implied, for Dodd, in loco, remarks, ' though a man might not marry two sisters together, it seems a 'natural conclusion from the phrase 'in her lifetime,' that he 'might marry two sisters in succession; and thus we learn from 'Selden, the Jews generally understood it.'*

Mr. Fry, who nearly a century ago published his able work entitled The Cases of Marriages between Near Kindred particularly Considered,' observes on this text, Many learned men have thought it to be a prohibition of polygamy; but that sense of it is rejected by the best commentators.' He quotes Poole in confirmation of this remark, and proves that the passage does not refer to marriage at all, but is a prohibition of a most offensive and indelicate practice, which he numbers among the abominations of the Canaanites,

The more closely this whole chapter of Leviticus is examined the stronger we feel will be the conviction of every one competent to form a judgment on the subject, that it has no relation whatever to marriage; but that it belongs to the third division of the law regarding sexual purity, which is at the same time at rehearsal and denunciation of the worst offences of this nature which prevailed among the Canaanites. The enumeration is made with a view of justifying the severity of God in destroying them, and of exhibiting to the Israelites those particular species of crime, with their various aggravations, which, being connected with idolatry, would always kindle his indignation and bring down upon the offenders the most terrific punishments.

Sir William Jones, in a letter published many years ago in the appendix to a treatise entitled 'The Legal Degrees of Mar'riage Stated and Considered, by John Alleyne, Esq., Barrister at Law,' has written fully on this point, and demolished the foundation on which canonists and civilians have built the monstrous structure of what they have called the prohibited degrees. With pleasure we quote his authority, corroborated as it is by Hammond, Poole, and other learned commentators. Sir William Jones thus writes to Mr. Alleyne, 'I have read over the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus in Hebrew, with a 'view to discover the true meaning of the words which you 'desire me to interpret; and I have examined all the passages 'that I could find in the historical and prophetical parts of Scripture, in which the same expression occurs.' Here follows the learned author's criticism on the somewhat indelicate phrase 'thou shalt not uncover the nakedness,' &c., which he observes is never used throughout Scripture to signify marriage, but the contrary expression is always used in the case of marriage, viz., spreading a skirt over a woman, and covering the nakedness.'* Of the accuracy of this interpretation every Hebrew scholar will be able to judge for himself."

'But from what root soever,' continues Sir William Jones, 'the Hebrew words are derived, or whatever may be their meaning in the dialects of Asia, it is surprising that the chapter before us should ever have been taken for the law of marriage, since it is apparent that all the laws contained in that chapter relate only to the impure lusts and obscene rites of the Egyptians and Canaanites, to the abominable cus

against whose gross impurities the eighteenth and twentieth chapters of Leviticus are specifically directed.

The phrase of uncovering the nakedness' is literally translated from the Hebrew; as orvah signifies nakedness, and gala (or, as the Arabians pronounce it jala) to reveal, to disclose, to unfold, to expose, to lay open.' The same word, orvah, is used in Exodus xx. 26, to which we refer.

toms and ordinances, as they are called, of the idolatrous nations who were extirpated by the chosen people. This must be evident to all unprejudiced and attentive readers, from the whole tenor of the chapter: first, they are commanded to beware of the doings of the Egyptians, and the inhabitants of Canaan; then these doings are enumerated, with a special law against each of them; and, lastly, the general command is resumed, 'Defile not yourselves in these things, for in all these things are the nations defiled which I cast out before you.' Now what these impurities were we learn from history, where we find that the most shocking and disgusting ceremonies were actually performed in Egypt and Syria, by persons of both sexes, in honor of those deities who are described by Selden and Milton, and who were worshipped in Europe under the names of Venus, Adonis, and Priapus. A nauseous picture of human depravity! That obscenities, which none but a Romish casuist could figure to his imagination, should have been practised as religious rites, not in Asia only, but in Greece and Italy! I cannot help believing, therefore, that the whole chapter from which our prohibited degrees are deduced, contains laws, not against marriage within certain degrees, but against all obscenity whatever, and especially against the unnatural prostitutions committed by the idolaters of Canaan and Egypt. If any argument can be drawn from Asiatic philology, it may be worth while to add, that the Arabic verb, from which orvah or nakedness is derived, signifies, in the twelfth conjugation, to commit any shameful action, that aura means obscene, and that ara is interpreted by Golius Promiscue facta aliis rei potestas. But I lay no great stress on these minute circumstances, which may happen to be accidental. No man has examined this subject more diligently than Fry, the author of a pamphlet which you justly commend, and you see my opinion perfectly coincides with his. He makes another observation, which I think decisive, that the phrase of concealing the nakedness, not of exposing it, is constantly used in Scripture for the nuptial rite. I turned to the passage in Ezekiel, where that vehement poet, or rather orator, is describing the covenant with the Jewish nation, which covenant is very often (we know) expressed by the allegory of a marriage. His words are, 'Thy season was a season of love. I spread the border of my mantle over thee, and covered thy nakedness; that is, I married thee. What is conclusive evidence if this be not? And if this interpretation of Leviticus be just, what will become of the canons and rubrics in the Levitical degrees?'

That Sir William Jones's view of the Levitical prohibitions is critically just, and that they have no application whatever to marriage, may be further proved by considering that the reasons assigned for them refer to the present, and not to the past. They are all in the present tense: It is thy father's wife;' 'She is thine aunt,' or as it is rendered in the margin of our Bibles, 'She is thy father's brother's wife;' 'She is thy son's 'wife.' This phraseology fairly implies that these various relations must really exist in order to constitute the heinousness of

the crime forbidden. It proceeds on the assumption that they are not dissolved by death, that the father, the father's brother, and the son would be the injured and the living parties, and therefore that the offence prohibited could not be marriage with the widow of either, but adultery with the wife under circumstances the most revolting and detestable.

There is also a moral reason deeply seated in human nature which adds peculiar force to this argument. The intercourse forbidden in many of the instances specified cannot possibly refer to marriage. The very idea of them is too monstrous to have been entertained by any beings, however profligate and depraved, in whose hearts the notion of family and affinity was not totally extinguished. As crimes against all the social and domestic relations of life, they could only have been conceived by the impure imaginations which had their origin in idolatry, and were inspired by the worship of demons. St. Paul describes them as the characteristics of heathen immorality in his time, and traces them to the same diabolical source. Let the reader compare with attention the prohibitions in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus with the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, from the twentieth verse, passim.

To this interpretation of the Levitical prohibitions an objection has been raised which, however specious, is not tenable. It has been urged that if these prohibitions do not relate to marriage, they leave criminal desire to luxuriate through the whole range of sexual impurities which they do not specifically denounce. The reason for their special enumeration we have already stated-they were the abominations that caused the destruction of the idolatrous Canaanites. But our direct reply to the objection is, that the original law of marriage has clearly defined the limit of sexual intercourse, and that to transgress it in any case, whether specifically denounced or not, is most strictly forbidden by the moral law of Sinai, which condemns by implication every act offensive to chastity, as is evidently shown by our Lord, who declares, that to look upon a woman with an impure desire, is a species of adultery.

If further proof were necessary in establishing this argument against the application of the Levitical prohibitions to marriage, it is to be found in the marriages sanctioned by Moses during his administration of his own laws, which were considered the most honorable among the Jews in after times, and a deviation from which is in so many words declared to be a sin to be avoided, and when committed to be worthy of condemnation and punishment. We refer to the thirty-sixth chapter of the book of Numbers, verses ten and eleven, 'Even as the Lord 'commanded Moses, so did the daughters of Zelophehad; for Mahlah, Tirzah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Noah, the