for some moments, in the highest strain, I had almost said, of divine eloquence.-O si sic semper!

..... "May the Lord prosper you in your own soul, and to the souls of many!

“I remain,

"Your faithful friend and servant,

"THOMAS SCOTT."

To the Editor.

ON MARRYING A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER.

"DEAR JOHN,

"Aston Sandford, January 9, 1815.

"I AM not willing that your letter should remain unanswered; though I am not in frame for labor and thought to-day, having been much worn down yesterday, and greatly harassed by my cough. Not that I have any thing to say on the subject of it, which has not occurred to you: but, lest expecting something from me should occasion any demur as to the counsel to be given, and the measures to be adopted, in the interesting and affecting case which you state. I cannot but feel much for Mr. and all concerned; but it appears to me that the first severe conflict or trial is the safest, and promises best for future repose and comfort.

"When I wrote the first edition of the Commentary, I had no idea of the work occupying the place which it now does: and I thought questions of this kind, as requiring studied and rather labored disquisition, rather foreign to my design: and I have since been so cramped by want of time or room, that I have not attempted any thing of the sort material in addition; though I see and lament the deficiency in this, and several other particulars of a similar nature. I have, however, always considered the marrying of a wife's sister as contrary to the laws given by Moses, as well as to our laws: and in more instances than one have prevented it; once not less than thirty-three or thirty-four years since, before I ever thought of writing on the Bible.

"I was aware that our spiritual courts took cognizance of such marriages, and that sometimes very harassing effects followed from them; but I was not aware that the penalties of the law were so very severe. Probably this,

with the odium which may attach to informants, who make a gain of such matters, may have disposed the public mind, or those concerned, to pass them over unnoticed. But the law is like a loaded blunderbuss, the lock of which is grown rusty: it may not easily be fired; but, if it should, it may do dreadful execution: and I think nothing short of peremptory duty should induce a man to expose himself, and all dear to him, to such consequences, or to the continually alarming idea that he lives exposed to them.

"But I am also decidedly of opinion, that it is our duty to be obedient to every law of the government under which we live, which we can obey without disobeying God, whatever self-denial it may require of us; and that in refusing obedience we sin against God. Ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake: and deliberately to venture on an action, which cannot be recalled, exposing a man to the accusation of his conscience in future, is far from tending to the comfort of a person rather prone to dejection; however it may seem at the present.

"I must also think that our law in this respect coincides with the divine law to Israel. If, notwithstanding the exemption of marrying the widow of a deceased brother, who died childless, the prohibition of marrying a brother's widow be absolute, (Lev. xviii, 16.) I see not on what ground it can be otherwise than absolute, that a woman should not marry the husband of her deceased sister. The case seems perfectly parallel; the reasons entirely the same. In the case of a man not being allowed to marry his aunt; whence our laws conclude, that a woman ought not to marry her uncle; some difference may be marked: a reversal in the superiority of relation takes place in the one instance, and not in the other. But even this cannot be urged in the case in point.

"That these laws cannot be in all possible cases of moral obligation, must be admitted. It might be possible for a man and woman to be placed in the same situation as Adam and Eve, as to such matters. Yet still in all ordinary cases some laws of this kind are needful and highly beneficial: and, I apprehend, in all countries professing Christianity more strict rules have been adopted, not only by legislators, but by missionaries and casuists, than were adopted by the heathen: yet St. Paul's language concerning him who had his father's wife implies, that the regul

tions of the more enlightened Gentiles on this subject were right. The only fault in nominal Christians has been extending the restrictions beyond those in the divine law.— But, if we reject the laws in Leviticus, we have no law of God on the subject; no, not against marrying sisters or brothers, or any relation. Now can we think that God intended to set aside these laws in Leviticus, and to give no other in their stead? Can we suppose that he meant to leave the Christian church without law, in this most important matter? But, if not without law, the laws in Leviticus, in all general cases, are in full force: and therefore, as a casuist, I must consider the intended marriage as contrary to the law of God. The regulations and permissions of the judicial law about divorces and polygamy, being unsuitable to the more enlarged dispensation of the gospel, are particularly regulated by our Lord and his apostles: when therefore, as is the present case, no regulation is made, no intimation of change given, it must be supposed that the law continues in force.-Whatever these laws are, they are not rituals, ceremonies, shadows of good things to come: so they do not pass away of course, as the ceremonial law did.

"If one thinks of the present moment, the heart would be disposed to dictate a different decision than the head does: but, taking in all consequences, the heart comes over to the decision of the head.—Thou shalt not in any wise suffer sin on thy neighbor; but shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (Lev. xix, 17, 18.) And I am persuaded that, if Mr.

is induced, from regard to the divine law, to cut off as it were the hand which would cause him to offend, he will ere long find that the Lord will, in one way or other, se support and comfort him, that he shall rejoice in the pain

ful decision.

"Last year at this time I was very ill, I am now only poorly. The rest as usual. May the Lord bless you all, and grant you a happy year, so I trust we all pray.

"Your most affectionate Father,

"THOMAS SCOTT."

It is not to be concealed, that I have felt considerable hesitation in giving this letter to the public, because of the

* That is, the law of the land among the Jews, a contradistinguished to the moral law of universal obligation.

pain it must occasion to such readers as may feel themselves concerned in its contents. If, however, the practice against which it is directed be wrong, and erroneous views respecting it be also very common, tenderness for those who have fallen into it must not prevent our cautioning others. And accordingly I feel myself sanctioned in printing the letter, by the writer's having fully approved of my sending, at the time, a paper, containing the same sentiments, to a respectable periodical publication.

That the practice is wrong, and utterly unwarrantable for us, at least, on the grounds stated in the third and fourth paragraphs of the letter, none surely can deny, even though they should be unwilling to admit the general conclusion against it from scripture-which, however, it does not seem easy to set aside.

The principle of our laws appears to be this: That in the Levitical laws 'all the degrees by name are not expressly set down; for the Holy Ghost there did only declare plainly and clearly such degrees, from whence the rest might evidently be deduced. As for example, where it is prohibited that the son shall not marry his mother, it followeth also, that the daughter shall not marry her father.' And by this parity of reason the case before us is determined. Leviticus xviii, 16, and xx, 21, forbid a man to marry his brother's wife (i. e. widow): therefore, it is inferred, a woman is not to marry her (late) sister's husband: for a woman stands precisely in the same relation to her sister's husband, that a man does to his brother's wife. The words of Bishop Jewel, in his printed letter upon this point, are as follows: 'Albeit I be not forbidden by plain words to marry my wife's sister, yet I am forbidden to do so by other words, which by exposition are plain enough. For, when God commands me that I shall not marry my brother's wife, it follows directly by the same, that he forbids me to marry my wife's sister. For between one man and two sisters, and one woman and two brothers, is like analogy or proportion."

It is well known, indeed, that there was a case (alluded to in this letter, and the same on which the Sadducees pretended to found an argument against the resurrection of the dead,*) in which a man was even required by the judicial law of the Jews to marry his brother's widow. But

* Luke xx, 27, &c.

the reason assigned, and all the circumstances of the case, have induced commentators pretty generally, I believe, to conclude, that this was an exception from the general rule, made for the Jews only, and designed to keep their genealogies unbroken, and their inheritances in the same line. Leviticus xviii, 18, has also been adduced in the argument: but it is very obscure, and the reader may be referred to my father's commentary upon it.

With regard to the 'penalty' of the law,-such marriages are pronounced incestuous, and are liable at any time during the life of the parties to be declared void, and the issue of them illegitimate: and, if I am not mis-informed, the instances are neither few nor remote in which this has taken place. It seems also that any clergyman knowingly cele brating such a marriage, or being present at it, is subject 'to be suspended from his ministry for three years, and otherwise to be punished according to the laws.'-See Burn's Ecclesiastical Law, Article, Marriage. Title 1.: and Blackstone, b. i, c. xv.

"SIR,

To J. B., Esq., Uxbridge.

Aston Sandford, July 24, 1815.

"IF there were the least prospect of one letter settling your mind on the subject of your last, I should (though quite overdone with engagements,) not decline the service: but volumes after volumes, for a long course of years, have been found inadequate to decide the point in contest; and to engage in such a controversy privately, do little in publicly, would be useless.

as I could

"I am as much dissatisfied with Mr. -'s arguments as you are, and was sorry that he engaged in the controversy: and I know no book that I can recommend as satisfactory on either side of the question. The dissenters constantly charge on us, what is not true, as to oaths, &c. In a pamphlet called 'The Evils of Separation from the Church of England,' published in Ireland, by the Rev. Peter Roe, Kilkenney, (sold by Seeley and Hatchard, London,) you will find thirty pages of my writing* on some of the great

*Since increased to ninety-seven pages. See second edition, or Scott's Works,

ol. ix.