authors who agree with Dr. M'Caul in his translation, nevertheless concur with us in holding the marriage in question to be forbidden by the Levitical Code, as will appear more fully hereafter.
Dr. M'Caul, in page 5, rather ingeniously lays hold of the interpretation of the 18th verse as a prohibition of polygamy, and says that all who so interpret it, "and infer that on the death of the first wife a second marriage is lawful, help to establish his third point, the inference from the words in her lifetime, as an obvious and legitimate conclusion." The fallacy here is so obvious, that I am surprised it did not occur to Dr. M'Caul that there are no such persons as he mentions. Those who read the 18th verse as a prohibition of polygamy, do not infer any thing as to the lawfulness of a second marriage after the first wife's death. No such inference is necessary, because a second marriage is nowhere forbidden. But the question with Dr. M'Caul is, whether when we have proved a prohibition in the preceding verses of the chapter by the course of reasoning I have used, there can be found a licence to marry within the prohibited degrees in a verse that merely (even in his translation) prohibits a special kind of polygamy. It will be seen as I proceed that this translation may be granted to Dr. M'Caul, and has been assumed by numerous authorities, who reject utterly the inference he would draw from it.
That I may not misrepresent this singular blun-
