uncle's widow. 5. A brother's son's widow. 6. A sister's son's widow. 7. The sister of a deceased wife.
As nearness of kindred is made the ground of prohibition, and as these casjas are included within " the degrees " specified, the Church has considered them as belonging to the class of prohib- ited marriages. It is, however, to be considered that the word " prohibited," as here used, is very comprehensive. Some of the marriages specified in the Levitical law are prohibited in very different senses. Some are pronounced abominable, and those who contract them are made punishable with death. Others are pronounced unseemly, or evil, and punished by exclusion from the privileges of the theocracy. Others again incur the penalty of dying childless ; probably meaning that the children of such marriages should not be enrolled in the family registers which the Jews were so careful to preserve.
As this distinction is recognized in the law itself, so it is founded in the nature of the case. As nearness of kin varies from the most intimate relationship to the most distant, so these marriages vary in their impropriety from the highest to the lowest degree. Some of them may, in certain cases, be wrong, not in themselves, but simply from the obligation to uphold a salutary law. That is, there may be cases to which the law, but not the reason of the law applies. For example ; a man may go thousands of miles from home and marry : his wife would stand in a very different relation to her husband's brothers, than had she lived in the same house with them. The law forbidding a woman to marry the brother of her deceased husband, would apply to her ; but the reason of that law would affect her in a very slight degree; nevertheless, even in her case, the law should be observed.
There is another obvious remark that ought to be made. Strong repugnance is often felt and expressed against the Levitical law, not only because it is regarded as placing all the marriages speci- fied on the same level, representing all as equally offensive in the sight of God, but also from the assumption that all the marriages forbidden are, if contracted, invalid. This is a wrong view of the subject. It is inconsistent with the law itself, and contrary to the analogy of Scripture. The law recognizes a great disparity in the impropriety of these marriages. Some, as just remarked, are utterly abominable and insufferable. Others are specified because inexpedient or dangerous, as conflicting with some ethical or pru- dential principle.
It is in this as in many other cases. The Mosaic law discounte-
vol. in. 27
418 PART m. Ch. XIX. — the law.
nanced and discouraged intermarriage between the chosen people and their heathen neighbours. With regard to the Canaanites, such intermarriages were absolutely forbidden ; with other heathen nations, although discountenanced, they were tolerated. Joseph married an Egyptian; Moses, a Midianite; Solomon married Pharaoh's daughter. Such marriages, in the settled state of the Jewish nation, may have been wrong, but they were valid. Even now under the Christian dispensation, believers are forbidden to be' unequally yoked together with unbelievers. It does not follow from this that every marriage between a believer and an un- believer is invalid. These remarks are not out of place. The truth suffers from being misapprehended. If the Bible is made to teach what is contrary to the common sense, or the intuitive judgments of men, it suffers great injustice. No man can force himself to believe that a man's marrying the sister of a deceased wife is the same kind of offence as a father's marrying his own daughter. The Bible teaches no such doctrine; and it is a slander so to represent it.
Concluding Remarks.
The laws of God are sacred. They are founded, not only on his infinite wisdom, but also on the nature of his creatures, and, therefore, should be sedulously observed. There may, in some cases, be honest difference of opinion as to what the law or will of God is, but when ascertained, it is our wisdom and duty to make it the rule of our conduct. This is so obvious that the statement of it may seem entirely superfluous. It is so common, however, for men professing to be Christians to make their own feelings, opinions, and views of expediency, the rule of action for themselves and others, that it is by no means a work of super- erogation, to reiterate on all proper occasions the truism that there is no wisdom like God's wisdom, and that men are never wise except when they follow the wisdom of God as revealed in his Word, even when they have to do it blindly.
There are certain principles which underlie the marriage laws of the Bible, which all men in their private capacity and when acting as legislators, would do well to respect, —
1. The first is, that marriage is not a mere external union ; it is not simply a mutual compact ; it is not merely a civil contract. It is a real, physical, vital, and spiritual union, in virtue of which man and wife become, not merely in a figurative sense, but really, al- though in a mysterious sense, one flesh. This is not only expressly