Page:Vindicationoflaw00hath.djvu/71

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SCRIPTURAL PRINCIPLES.
63

the beginning: to the end of that Act no difference is made between the marriage with a mother, a sister, or a sister-in-law; and if it were repealed to-morrow, all those marriages would be equally void; but the children could not, after the death of either parent, be declared illegitimate.

This letter has become longer than I intended, from my desire to leave nothing of importance untouched. I do not enter into the Hebrew disquisitions of Dr. M'Caul. To a printed copy of my speech I added an appendix, containing observations by a writer of great ability, to show what might be said on the other side on that head. I do not profess any critical knowledge of Hebrew. The learned author of the tract I quoted is quite competent to defend himself, if he think it necessary, even though his "manifest ignorance" is assumed by Dr. M'Caul as proved by some printer's blunders in setting up Hebrew type, a style of controversy to be greatly deprecated. But I must be allowed to repeat an observation I made in my speech at Willis's Rooms: "That it is singular we should be called upon as Christians to follow the Jewish Rabbis in om- interpretation of Scripture." I commented on the Jewish system of narrowing God's law by their traditions. To my great astonishment, Dr. M'Caul (page 36 of his letter to me) disputes this proposition, and says, "that so far from narrowing God's law, the great and fundamental sin of the Jewish traditions is the