Page:Vindicationoflaw00hath.djvu/60

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52
LETTER II.

wife's lifetime. But Dr. M'Caul says that Augustine must have held such an inference, because he adopted the translation. Now it is well known that Basil (in 375, if Dr. M'Caul wishes that to be the date) adopted the translation (as Dr. M'Caul triumphantly remarks), but wholly rejected the inference, as our Church has since done. And what possible ground can the fact of Augustine adopting the translation afford for arguing that he necessarily adopted Dr. M' Caul's inference? Surely his using the same word "superducere" to express the same thing, when speaking of polygamy generally, as when speaking of a prohibition of a particular form of it, does not prove that he inferred from that prohibition a licence to marry a wife's sister after the wife's death. The lawfulness of a second marriage, simpliciter, being abundantly recognized in Scripture, the prohibition of polygamy simply left that right untouched. If Dr. M'Caul could show that the Christian Church ever recognized as lawful a single marriage with a deceased wife's sister, he would do something, but without this his whole argument as to the translation of the words rather leads to a contrary result; for the Church, though adopting (in that case) his translation, yet rejects his inference as to its effect.

Having said so much on the confusion of the argument as to translation, with the argument as to exposition, and intending, as I do, to show that the inferential permission to marry a wife's sister,