Unlawful Marriage/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX.
Summary view of the Argument.
It is now time to present the reader with a summary of the whole discussion.
After an introduction designed to trace the rise of the present debate, we entered on the subject, by making various remarks on the Puritan's historical facts.
In the first and second chapters we detected many mistakes and misstatements of our brother; showed how he has misrepresented Jeremy Taylor, and greatly erred in regard to the views of the Protestant Church of Europe; and that he has no right to claim Calvin, or Grotius, or Selden, as favoring the marriage of a man with his deceased wife's sister.
His attempt to ascribe a papal origin to the prohibition of such marriages, was frustrated.
It was also seen there is more reason to apprehend the change that has occurred in the views and laws of various States on this subject, may be traced to the influence of infidelity; and that it does not augur well, that, in this retrograde movement, the State has taken the lead, and wishes to draw after it the Church of God, which, in former times, very properly influenced and instructed the State.
In our third chapter, the consequences that must result from the principles the Puritan has endeavored to establish, were exhibited. If the law in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus has been repealed and is not binding on the Christian Church, and especially if it have no reference at all to marriage; then it follows, as a necessary consequence, that the Church, in every age, since the days of Moses, has been destitute of a written rule on the subject of unlawful marriages, and left entirely to the single intimation in the second chapter of Genesis, and the unaided light of human reason. This we believe to be highly improbable: and considering how clearly God has announced the Decalogue, the moral law, first engraven on tables of stone, and then recorded by the pen of Moses; how it was afterwards explained by the writings of the Prophets, by the teaching of the Redeemer, and in the writings of inspired Apostles; and considering also what particular instructions are given in regard to the Divine ordinance of human government; we felt it to be reasonable to infer from what God had done for our benefit in these matters, He had not withheld from us a written announcement of His will on a point relating to His own peculiar institution, which lies at the foundation of human society; an announcement so necessary to protect this institution against abuse, and to secure domestic purity, as well as to preserve good morals in the community.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters are devoted to the proof of the perpetuity of the Levitical law.
In establishing this point, beside offering direct proof, we reasoned on the Puritan's own principles. He assumes, without proof, that this law belongs to the Jewish civil or judicial code; and then admitting that some parts of this code are binding on Christians, he applies to this law the criteria laid down by Turrettin, to ascertain what portions of the Jewish civil code are, and what are not, binding on us; and by the application of these criteria, he thinks he has proved the Levitical law, in the eighteenth chapter, to have been repealed, and thus deprived of its binding authority. But, in opposition to our brother, we have endeavored to show, that he has not followed his guide, and that, by a correct application of Turrettin's criteria, these Levitical statutes are proved to be permanent and obligatory on the Christian Church.
It was also shown that this law is ecclesiastical and not municipal, and has not been repealed; and that, even admitting it does not relate to marriage, it must be unrepealed; because, according to the Puritan's own showing, it forbids lewd, unclean "acts of an incestuous character," and is, therefore, a natural and moral law.
In the seventh chapter, which contains remarks on the Puritan's reasoning and exposure of its fallacy, we have, among other things, endeavored, from the uniform judgment of the Church, both Jewish and Christian, to prove that this Levitical law relates to marriage.
We have also attempted to prove, in opposition to all the needless labor of our brother to establish what he deems the meaning of the phrase, "uncover nakedness," that it does mean sexual intercourse; that this intercourse receives its character from circumstances, and is, according to circumstances, virtuous or vicious, honorable or disgraceful; and that, in this very chapter of Leviticus, it is, in one place, applied to the commerce of married persons.
In regard to the term wife, on which the Puritan lays so much stress, it has been evinced that it does, in this chapter, mean more than wife, in the ordinary signification of the term; because the prohibition of sexual intercourse between a son and his mother, a man and his father's wife, a man and his aunt, is permanent; applying not only to the lifetime of the husband, but to the time subsequent to his death, when his wife has become a widow.
In the eighth chapter, this Levitical law is proved to be one natural law; being founded in nature, as it has for its basis the natural relations subsisting between man and his Creator, and between man and his fellow-creatures; and that no prohibition in this law is to be excepted, because all are founded on the same common basis.
Through all this extended discussion it was necessary to pass, in order to prepare the way for proving the marriage of a man with his deceased wife's sister to be unlawful and incestuous. Had our brother not denied the true design and perpetuity of the Levitical law, but admitted it as prescribing limits to marriage, and permanent in its obligation, we might, without all this previous labor, have entered immediately on the proof that such marriages are prohibited by these Levitical statutes.