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156 It was also seen there is more reason to apprehend the change that has occurred in the views and laws of various States on this subject, may be traced to the influence of infidelity; and that it does not augur well, that, in this retrograde movement, the State has taken the lead, and wishes to draw after it the Church of God, which, in former times, very properly influenced and instructed the State.

In our third chapter, the consequences that must result from the principles the Puritan has endeavored to establish, were exhibited. If the law in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus has been repealed and is not binding on the Christian Church, and especially if it have no reference at all to marriage; then it follows, as a necessary consequence, that the Church, in every age, since the days of Moses, has been destitute of a written rule on the subject of unlawful marriages, and left entirely to the single intimation in the second chapter of Genesis, and the unaided light of human reason. This we believe to be highly improbable: and considering how clearly God has announced the Decalogue, the moral law, first engraven on tables of