Page:Law of Marriage as relating to the prohibited degrees of affinity.djvu/103

Rh or rather, Almighty God prohibits those things which, we must infer from the chapter, were practised by the Egyptians and Canaanites: we know that there are incestuous marriages in Egypt.

428. But those customs are not defined in the chapter, are they, so as to point out clearly what those customs were?—Since the preamble of these laws (so to speak) is, "Ye shall not do after the doings of the Egyptians and the Canaanites;" and then Holy Scripture goes on to lay down certain acts which they shall not do, and sums up, "Defile ye not yourselves in any of these things;" it seems quite plain that these things, here specifically forbidden, were the practices of those nations prohibited generally at the beginning of the chapter. But my object in mentioning this, was in proof that these precepts are moral. The chapter speaks of certain practices of the heathen as being abominations, and as defiling the land in which they lived. Then it prohibits certain things, and says, that whereas there were certain practices in Egypt and Canaan which were defilements, they shall not do any of those things. From that I infer that the laws prohibiting them are not ceremonial laws, but that they are judgments of God as opposed to the abominations of the heathen.

429. Are you to be understood as coming to the conclusion, that, by virtue of the whole of that chapter, it is sufficiently clearly pointed out that marriages of this description were intended to be prohibited; that is, marriages within the prohibited degrees of affinity?—I hold, as the Church of England does, that both the specific instances given under the general prohibition, "None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness," and those which are equal to those instances, and which are like in principle to those instances, are prohibited. I believe that those prohibitions in the 18th chapter of Leviticus are binding now as part of the law of God.

430. And you consider that it is not only what is there specifically mentioned, but every thing ejusdem generis, and that those marriages are ejusdem generis?—Yes.