Page:Unlawfulmarriage00jane.djvu/69

Rh his allies, over thirty-two closely printed octavo pages, has not been inclosed in a nut-shell. 2. Our argument, designed to refute his, cannot, if we have to follow him in all its windings, be brought within such narrow limits.

He also says, immediately after the quotation above, "The whole stress of that argument is laid on two passages, which are supposed to forbid the marriage of a brother's widow, and thus to imply the prohibition in question—Lev. 18:16, and 20:21." Here he is mistaken. We do not choose to place our fabric on a part of the foundation, when we have the whole ample and firm for its support. He may wish it there; but we rest our argument on the whole of Lev. xviii. from the first to the eighteenth verse inclusive.

2. The reason for enacting these statutes assigned by the Puritan appears to us fanciful. (See p. 11.) We are unable to see how the Israelites were more exposed to commit lewdness by incestuous commerce with their mothers, or sisters, or aunts, while sojourning in tents in the wilderness, than when settled in comfortable houses in the promised land. The necessary secresy for the perpetration of such vile acts of