ing them to be depositaries of his truth to prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah. The reason assigned " is nearness of kin." This reason has as much force at one time as at an- other, for all nations as for any one nation. There was nothing peculiar in the relation in which Hebrew parents and children, Hebrew brothers and sisters, and Hebrew uncles and nieces, stood, which was the ground of these prohibitions. That ground was the nearness of the relationship itself as it exists in every and in all ages. There is, therefore, in the sight of God, a permanent reason why near relations ought not to intermarry.
3. If the Levitical law be not still in force, we have no divine law on the subject. Then there is no such sin as incest. It is an offence only against the civil law, and a sin against God only in so far as it is sinful to violate the law of the state. But this is contrary to the universal judgment of men, at least of Christian men. For parents and children, brothers and sisters, to inter- marry is universally considered as sin against God, irrespective of any human prohibition. But if a sin against God, it must be forbidden in his Word, or we must give up the fundamental prin- ciple of Protestantism, that the Scriptures are the only infallible rule of our faith and practice. As such marriages are nowhere in the Bible forbidden except in the Levitical law, if that law does not forbid them, the Bible does not forbid them.
4. The judgments of God are denounced against the heathen nations for permitting the marriages which the Levitical law for- bids. In Leviticus xviii. 3, it is said, " After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt shall ye not do : and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do ; neither shall ye walk in their ordinances. " This is the intro- duction to the law of prohibited marriages, containing the specifica- tion of the " ordinances " of the Egyptians and Canaanites, which the people of God were forbidden to follow. And in the twenty- seventh verse of the same chapter, at the close of these specifica- tions, it is said, " All these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is denied." Again, in ch. xx. 23, still in reference to these marriages, it is said, " Ye shall not walk in the manners of the nations which I cast out before you : for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them." This is a clear proof that these laws were binding, not on the Jews alone, but upon all people and at all times.
5. The continued obligation of the Levitical law on this subject
412 PART m. Ch. XIX. — THE LAW.
is also recognized in the New Testament. This recognition is involved in the constant reference to the law of Moses as the law of God. If in any of its parts or specifications it is no longer ob- ligatory, that is to be proved. It contains much which we learn from the New Testament was designed simply to keep the He- brews a distinct people ; much which was typical ; much which was a shadow of things to come, and which passed away when the substance was revealed. It contained, however, much which was moral and of permanent obligation. If God gives a law to men, those who deny its perpetual obligation are bound to prove it. The presumption is that it continues in force until the contrary is proved. It must be hard to prove that laws founded on the permanent social relations of men were intended to be tempo rary.
Besides this general consideration, we find specific recognitions of the continued obligation of the Levitical law in the New Tes- tament. John the Baptist, as recorded in Mark vi. 18 and Mat- thew xiv. 4, said to Herod that it was not lawful for him to have his brother Philip's wife. It matters not, as to the argument, whether Philip was living or not. The offence charged was not that he had taken another man's wife, but that he had taken his brother's wife. It may be objected to this argument that during the ministry of John the Baptist the law of Moses was still in force. This Gerhard denies, who argues from Matthew xi. 13, " All the prophets and the law prophesied until John," that the Baptist's ministry belongs to the new dispensation.1 This may be doubted. Nevertheless John expressed the moral sentiment of his age ; and the record of the fact referred to by the Evangelists whose Gospels were written after the Christian Church was fully organized, is given in a form which involves a sanction of the judgment which the Baptist had expressed against the marriage of Herod with his brother's wife. It is also to be remembered .that the Herodian family was Idumean, and therefore, that a merely Jewish law would have no natural au- thority over them.
The Apostle Paul, moreover, in 1 Corinthians v. 1, speaks of a man's marrying his step-mother as an unheard of offence. That this was a case of marriage and not of adultery is plain because the the phrase yvvaiKa %x*lv is never used in the New Testament ex- cept of marriage. This, therefore, is a clear recognition of the
i Loci Theologici, xxvi. v. ii. 2. 1. 1. § 129, edit. Tubingen, 1776, vol. xv. p. 285. Ger- hard subjects the whole subject of prohibited marriages to a protracted discussion.