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56 This is not the place to examine the soundness of the author's arguments. Our object is, at present, to let the reader see distinctly what the Puritan aims at establishing. Hereafter we hope to show the entire fallacy of the arguments on which he rests his cause. Yet the last sentence in the above quotation calls for a passing remark. Did the Puritan ever read, in any respectable writers, what he, by his strong denial, seems to impute to his opponents—that they assert it to be "self-evident, that an express prohibition is, and must be, found in the Bible?" We never heard such an assertion from any man. Why, then, has he so misrepresented the position we take? When we make such an assertion, and not before, will it be fair for him to come out with such an emphatic denial.

Now, let the reader search through the Puritan's pamphlet to find, if he can, where he shows, in God's inspired word, is contained a prohibition against the marriage of brother and sister. We cannot find it. He makes no attempt to discover such a prohibition. He only shows we are not destitute of scriptural intimation in regard to marriage: "We are not wholly