Page:Marriagewithade00forbgoog.djvu/9

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put myself before you in so prominent a manner. And if the fact that I am going to rely on the thoughts and views of others in now addressing you, and indeed to put their words on this paper, will prepare you for thinking (for I suppose it is undeniable that a string of quotations is somewhat wearisome) that tedium and weariness will be your only reward for any trouble you may have taken in coming here this evening, I will ask you to reflect on the extreme value of the opinion of those from whose writings I am going to quote. I shall refer, amongst other publications, to the Bishop of Lincoln's (Wordsworth) commentary on the Bible in his notes on Leviticus: to articles or reviews in the Ecclesiastic, a valuable serial which came out between the years 1846 and 1868, and is made up into 30 volumes: to "A Tract for all English Churchmen and Churchwomen," "against profane dealing with Holy Matrimony in regard of a man and his wife's sister," by him who bore the honoured name of John Keble, 3rd ed., 1849: and last, but not least, to that doctor and great theologian, Dr. Pusey, of whom the Church has been so recently deprived, and whose theological knowledge and fitness to write upon the Hebrew Scriptures none will deny. Dr. Pusey's writings which I purpose quoting are two in number, which I shall refer to as (1) and (2) in the future pages of this Address: (1) "God's prohibition of the marriage with a deceased wife's sister (Lev. xviii. 6) not to be set aside by an inference from a restriction of polygamy among the Jews (Lev. xviii. 18)," 1860; (2) "Marriage with a deceased wife's sister prohibited by Holy Scripture, as understood by the Church for 1500 years," Evidence given before Her Majesty's Commissioners, with a Preface by Dr. Pusey, 1849. A writer in the Ecclesiastic in 1848 (Vol. VI., pp. 145, 146) says: "If we could be brought to consider this kind of marriage as in no way opposed to the Divine Law, and the universal consent of the Church, we should be found amongst the advocates for the repeal of the civil enactment which prohibits it. But such is not our opinion. We hold marriage with a wife's sister to be (1) contrary to the plain words of Scripture fairly and legitimately interpreted; (2) contrary to the universal judgment and common consent of the Church catholic; (3) contrary to the