Page:Unlawfulmarriage00jane.djvu/90

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86
LEVITICAL LAW

riages, is to be guilty of uncleanness, of incestuous intercourse, which can never be changed in their character by any ceremony of marriage. Marriage, in whatever way contracted, cannot hide their vileness, nor render such illicit commerce between the sexes as comes within the limits set to our liberty, honorable. It is vile, odious in the sight of God, though covered by the mantle of marriage. It is like whited sepulchres, "beautiful outward, but within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." Such lewd acts, such vile, illicit intercourse, is certainly prohibited by the Decalogue.

We close this chapter by adverting again to a passage before quoted. If we understand his meaning, he deems it necessary, to sustain the perpetuity of the prohibition against the marriage of a deceased wife's sister, that we should find a similar law among heathen nations.

Was this a correct way of treating this important subject? When we have an inspired law, consisting of sundry statutes of the same nature, are we to try each particular part of this Divine law, by the laws of heathen nations; and, if we are unable to find a particular part