speak of with such deep horror, (Amos ii. 8.) may be regarded among us as a part of Christian liberty.
And will the matter stop there? If the Levitical degrees of affinity are no impediment, why should those of consanguinity be so? It seems that in the greater part of Protestant Germany, dispensations may be had for an uncle to marry his niece, or for an aunt to marry her nephew. Why should it not be so, if people feel no horror of it, and if the prohibition in Leviticus is but for the Jews? And so by no very violent steps we shall have reduced our prohibition to the first degree only of consanguinity. All but brothers and sisters will be allowed to marry: that will be true Christian liberty: and we must trust to natural horror only—for we shall have done away with the Scriptural warning—to prevent what we now shrink from imagining. But, alas! what answer will the Clergy of poor crowded districts be compelled to give, if they should be called before some future commission, and asked how far natural horror could be depended on, as a safeguard, in ignorant abandoned families?
As to Polygamy and Divorce, when the Spirit of Scripture and the Voice of the Church are
