of Moses, seems to have been acquainted with the obligation of a brother raising up seed to his brother, by marrying his widow, (Gen. 38:6–11,) and with the punishment to be inflicted on whoredom. (Gen. 28:24–26.) Some of the sins of the Canaanites may have been sins of ignorance, while others were wilful violations of known duty.
But the Puritan insists that this law is not permanent; and to establish his position he argues, on two grounds, that this law belongs to the civil or judicial code, and that it has been repealed. The whole of his argument is based on a petitio principii; it is a mere begging of the question in debate. We contend, and design to prove it, that this law does not belong to the civil or judicial code. He affirms it does; and, without offering any proof, assumes it as true, and makes this assumption the basis of his whole argument: "The statutes in question (p. 4, the 2d paragraph) belong to the civil or judicial law of the Hebrew Commonwealth." Let us allow his assumption for the present, and test the correctness of his reasoning.
Having admitted that some principles of this
