Page:Unlawfulmarriage00jane.djvu/33

Rh was then" (Henry's time) "much divided, yet before then there was almost a general consent upon this proposition, that the Levitical degrees do not, by any law of God, bind Christians to their observance." Thus it appears the Puritan has fallen into an unfortunate anachronism. We are inclined to believe he quoted Taylor at second-hand, without examining his work for himself.

Taylor's testimony, in regard to the agreement on the proposition he names, cannot be admitted; because it is merely negative, and his examination of the Schoolmen was altogether too limited. He says only one schoolman dissented from this proposition. In this he appears, from the statement of Burnet, in his History of the Reformation of the Church of England, to have been entirely mistaken. This historian has given an abstract of what was published about Henry's divorce. In that abstract, after stating the explicit testimony both of the Greek and Latin fathers in favor of the permanent obligation of the Levitical prohibitions, he says: "They observed that the same doctrine was also taught by the fathers and doctors in the latter ages;"