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 smallest doubt that it is so, and I believe that the great majority of the Clergy of England, so far as they have considered the matter, think the same. I will try to set forth the grounds of this opinion, as plainly and as concisely as I can.

In Leviticus, chap. 18, certain marriages are forbidden, as specially offensive to God. Some people say, that the prohibition belongs to the civil law only of the ancient Jews, and that, so far as it is concerned, persons of other nations may contract such marriages without sinning. But this must be a mistake, for it appears from the end of the chapter, that such marriages were among the crimes which drew down God's heavy anger upon the Canaanites. “Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things, for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: and the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: (for all these abominations have the men of the land