fhould marry a woman defcended of the other, he would in that cafe uncover the nakedness of his fifte, the daughter of his father, and that in a scripture-fense of the words father and fifter, and daughter of the father, and the fame man is ftill the father in this fenfe of all that defcend from on both the lines, which are from him direct, and fo are all that ftand upon these lines collaterally to one another ftill fons and daughters of the fame father, and brothers and fifters in the fcripture-fense of the word: but in this law the Lord keeps close to the strictest sense of the words, as we see y 10. The words fon and daughter stand in their stricteft fenfe, and the largest sense is avoided. "The nakedness of thy son's daugh"ter, or of thy daughter's daughter." Juft fo, y 14. the fense of the word aunt is exprefsly determined, "Thou shalt "not uncover the nakedness of thy father's brother; thou "fhalt not approach to his wife, fhe is thine aunt." The prefbytery have thought, that, feeing this is the reason of the prohibition that he is his aunt, this word must carry farther import than father's fifter; and what should that be? It is this, as they declare, As fhe is the aunt of her husband's immediate nephew, her niece, fo fhe is an aunt to her grandniece, and all in a direct line downward. And this is their authoritative fenfe of the reafon for a man's not approaching to his father's brother's wife. It fhould not be thought, that they are imagining the Bible was at firft written in our lan guage; and yet, even in our language, the aunt fimply and the grand-aunt are different defignations, and different perfons; and the aunt will never make grand-aunt, unless we put grand to it: nor fhould it be thought, that this presbyte ry is cafting about to fetch in an old Popish notion into a Proteftant church, That perfons fhould not marry in such a relation as has a common name given to it. But as this their interpretation of the reafon of this prohibition is wholly befide the plain mind of the law-giver, and founded upon their fense of an English word: fo it is moft evident, that the rea fon the lawgiver there points out for a man's not approaching to his father's brother's wife, is, seeing that husband and wife ftands for the fame thing throughout this law, as being one flesh, fhe is the fame thing to him as his father's brother, whofe nakedness her's is, and she is fo to him, his father's fifter or his aunt. This is very clear in the text, which fays, a man uncovers the nakedness of his father's brother by approaching to his wife; and was it poffible for the presbytery to overlook this, and give another fenfe, if they had not been in the greatest hafte to condemn J. B.? Thus aunt here, as in other places, is ftill father's fifter, Exod. vi. 20. Numb. xxvi. 29. And if it fignify coufin-german in these places, according to the mind of fome interpreters, then the reason hereby fetched into the Levitical law upon incest makes coufin-germans unfit for marriage. 3. Neither does this law make the least use of the notion of parentage, but in the ftricteft fenfe. We have heard how it expreffes the relation betwixt the grandfather and grandchild, and gives fuch a reafon for the prohibition, even in that law, as leaves not room for a general notion of parentage to come into this law; and as it meddles not with any general notion of parentage, fo it makes no manner of ufe of the notion of fuperiority and inferiority. It forbids equals (brother and fifter) to marry, but not on the account of their equality. It forbids fuperiors and inferiors (the begetting parent and child, and child's child, and the uncle and niece) to marry but not on the account of the fuperiority or inferiority. The wife lawgiver goes more strictly to work than to infift in this cafe upon a general notion, that, if it were followed, would take in innumerable marriages that have no manner of concern with the subject of this law, or the reason of it, fuch as all marriages betwixt tutors and pupils, magistrates and subjects, masters and fervants, elder and younger, ministers and people, learned and unlearned. And if this general notion of parentage and fuperiority fhould be restricted to the affair of kindred and affinity, it would still be unlawful for one coufin german, or his wife, to marry the other coufin-german's child or grandchild, upon the direct line still downward, as the prefbytery speaks. But if the general notion of parentage and fuperiority must yet be further restrained unto great nearness of kin, then that general notion is dwindled away into a particular, and the stress leans on great nearness of kin, the Lord's own reason: but who shall determine that nearness of kin to us, if it be not he who can say, "I am the Lord?" He does indeed determine it: but not a fyllable speaks he in this law of a general notion of parentage, or of fuperiority or inferiority. The civil law, as it stood when Antichrift was growing to his height, forbids the granduncle to marry his grand-niece; for this reafon, because he is unto her in place of a parent. And these foreign divines, who, by their circumstances in the countries and times wherein they lived, have been induced to explain the law of God by Juftinian's law, have themselves obferved a difference be tween tween that law and the law of God in this cafe, and have been obliged to ftrain exceeding hard to reconcile the commentary with the text; but they might have saved their pains if they had confidered, that Chriftians made no bonds in those days of carrying points wherein the divine authority claimed a concern, much farther than God's law carried them. 4. And as little does the law of God make any mention of a reafon taken from the removal of the relation from a forbidden degree on the one fide, but not on the other. It is the true relation of brother and sister is a forbidden degree, and the law forbids the marriage of uncle and niece, where the relation is removed upon one fide, but not on the other, and leaves it free to coufin-germans, where the relation is removed on both fides: but does it infinuate this reason, taken from the difference which we obferve betwixt these two cafes? nothing like it; but declares another expressly, which will carry the thing no further than the Lord himself carries it, who ftops on both hands where there is an equal distance of relation, that is, where there is an equal number of perfons intervening. And why should God's own reason be neglected in this cafe, and another put in place of it, which he never once points to, and which carries the thing farther than it can go upon the reason he gives? And it is here to be obferved, that, in the cafe of coufin germans, the relation is removed only upon one fide, from the forbidden degree of uncle and niece, or aunt and nephew, and stands on the other. Though there be no ufe made of the forefaid things in the law of God upon inceft, yet we must consider how this law of his ftands, and if any thing fhall be found in it from which the unlawfulness of J. B.'s marriage can be inferred, let it be declared unlawful. The following obfervations upon this law may serve to clear this matter to unprejudiced minds. 1. The reafon given in the introduction is precifely this, Lev. xviii. 6. "None of you fhall approach to any that is " near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness; I am the "Lord." Here the Lord lays the nearness of kin for a foundation to all the following prohibitions, which are his explications upon this general, and are all built upon this foundation; and then he declares his fovereign authority as the abfolute Lord and Lawgiver, and thereupon calls for obedience, and proceeds to determine by that his authority what is that nearness of kin. If he had refted in the general, and left us to determine in that matter of the near nefs nefs of kin, we had been in the greatest uncertainty, and our confciences had been perplexed with numberlefs fancies and reafonings of our own about it, as is evident from the various reafons men have imagined to themfelves against marriage, in the degrees he forbids, which reasons he never once points to, and from the Popish fancies about near kin; but because he knew we would be ready either to stop too short, or else proceed too far, in fixing the bounds where death fhould lie on the one fide, and life on the other, he takes the matter fo in his own hand, as to make the men guilty of a very criminal ufurpation, who shall take upon them by their wisdom to determine in this matter lefs or more, than he has thought fit to determine. "I am "the Lord" has a dreadful import here, not only to the dif obedient, but also to them that take away or add, and interpofe their authority where his is not interpofed in this cafe; and this falls heavy upon the church of Rome and the Pope, who pretending to act in his name, and seeking to advance the intereft and authority of that church, took upon them to forbid far beyond what he forbids. But this land is mercifully delivered from that Antichriftian authority in this point; and the law of the land renders unto God what is his own in this matter, by referring wholly to his law. 2. In the prohibitions that proceed upon this ground of the nearness of kin, the Lord puts the husband and wife for the fame thing, and speaks of their nakedness as one and the fame, they being " no more twain, but one flesh. The na"kedness of thy father's wife is thy father's nakedness, the "nakedness of thy brother's wife is thy brother's nakedness; "thy father's brother's wife is thy father's fifter, or thine aunt, faith the Lord:" And fo he that marries his wife's brother's daughter, doth the fame thing in this cafe as if he married his own brother's daughter; and the like might be faid of his brother's grand daughter, if the law had forbidden that far down, or in that degree; for we can make no further use of affinity here than the law does, nor can we carry it unto any degree of kin which is not there forbidden. And thus it is most true, that the man may not marry any of his wife's kindred nearer in blood than he may of his own, nor the woman of her husband's kindred nearer in blood than of her own, as fays the affembly of divines at Westminster: but thefe foreign divines that follow the civil law in that notion, of them that are in the place of parents, and fo go further VOL. I. 3 Q than than the word of God in the cafe of confanguinity, yet de not seem to carry the thing fo far in affinity. 3. The Lord likewise expressly makes the nakedness even of the grandchild, to be unto the grandfather his own nakednefs, in forbidding him to uncover it, y 10. "The naked"nefs of thy fon's daughter, or of thy daughter's daughter, "their nakedness thou shalt not uncover; for their's is thine "own nakedness." Thus, though there be not fo many perfons between the grandfather and his grandchild, as between the uncle and the nice; yet the reafon given for the prohibition upon this direct line carries further than upon the other lines, where the prohibitions go merely upon the nearness of kin. It has been faid against the Papists, that marriage with the children of grandchildren is not forbidden expressly, for this reason, because it is not a fuppofable case, (and truly it is far lefs fuppofable than a marriage with a brother's grandchild, which is not exprefsly forbidden, as a marriage with a man's own grandchild is), yet it is altogether needlefs and unrea fonable to feek any other reafon for the thing, when there is a fufficient reafon evidently given in the law itself; which reafon makes it plainly as unlawful for perfons to uncover the nakedness of the grandchildren of their grandchildren, whose nakedness is their own nakedness, as for a man to uncover the nakedness of the grandchildren of his wife, whofe nakedness is his own: fo marriage with the grandchildren of a person whofe nakedness is declared in the law to be our own, is exprefsly made unlawful to us in this law: and as the Lord does not mention this reafon in forbidding upon the direct line, till he came down to the grandchild, fo in the same sense wherein it can be faid, that a man's grandchild's nakedness is his own, in that fame very fenfe all that defcend from him, and to whom blood is derived from him, their nakedness is his This the prohibition is perpetual upon the direct line: And thus far the law of nature, as known to them destitute of revelation, goes clearly along with the revealed law; and this that the Lord fays of a man's own nakedness is a clear explication of the law of nature. own. But now the nakedness of them lineally defcended from a perfon, is declared by the Lord to be the perfon's own nakednefs, and that only unto the perfon from whom they are fo defcended, and unto the purpose of debarring the uncovering of nakedness between them. And as the Lord has thus fated it, fo we cannot carry it further; neither does it in deed |