Page:Unlawfulmarriage00jane.djvu/190

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
186
UNLAWFUL MARRIAGE.

Every man is my kinsman according to the flesh. Why? Because we are all descended from the same common pair, have the same blood flowing in our veins, and partake of the same nature. "God," says an inspired writer, "hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth, for to dwell on all the face of the earth." Acts 17:26. Hence the language of the prophet, "And that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh," (original מִבְּשָׂרְךָ; Sept. ἀπὸ τῶν οἰϰείων τοῠ σπερματός,) Isai. 58. 7. All these expressions are to be determined by the context and the occasion. They are, according to the context and occasion, more general or more restricted in their meaning.

The meaning of the terms in Levit. 18:6, is explained in the context, by the prohibitions; which obviously show, that it includes relations by affinity, as well as relations by consanguinity; and that it is to be extended as far as the degrees specified, and no farther.

Philology does not, as Omicron asserts, "confine the prohibition in verse 6 to blood-kindred," (p. 27,) in his sense of the terms. He means, as is manifest from the two preceding para-