writer on the subject, there is no room for our pronouncing any other judgment than that this, was not a lawful marriage. It is the opinion which is expressed without hesitation by Stair and by Erskine, and by Bankton and by Mackenzie. It is also mentioned by Forbes and by Wallace, who had a good deal of experience in such matters, and was himself a commissary. But, still more, I think it is the opinion which is expressed by Professor Bell and by Professor More. It is the opinion also which is expressed by a gentleman of great experience in consistorial law, Mr Ferguson. I therefore have no hesitation in saying that, according to the law of Scotland, this was an unlawful marriage, being within the prohibited degrees; and in the view which I take of the case, the consequence of that is, according to the instruction we have got from the House of Lords, that this party was not a legitimate son of his reputed father, and cannot succeed to this estate.' Lord Ivory,—' I have no doubt upon either point raised here. I entirely agree in the conclusions at which your Lordship has arrived, and I adopt almost implicitly the grounds upon which these conclusions have been formed.' Lord Curriehill,—I think the view of the law is, that, as to this matter, parties in the married state are to be held as identified; that those related to the one in any degree are to be held to be related to the other in the same degree.' Lord Deas,'When we come to the institutional writers, who treat of the question in a civil point of view, we find an entire coincidence of opinion,—all lay it down expressly, that the blood relations of husband and wife are held as related by affinity to the one spouse in the same degree as by consanguinity to the other."

I may state, in addition, as regards France, that even the Code Napoleon, decreed the 17th March 1803, and promulgated the 27th of the same month, declares-chap. i., article 162, "In the collateral line, marriage is prohibited between brother and sister, legitimate or natural, and the affinity in the same degree;" and as regards the whole Turkish dominions, the law of the Koran is :-"Marry not

women whom your fathers have had to wife (except what is already past), for this is uncleanness, and an abomination, and an evil way. Ye are forbidden to marry your mothers, and your daughters, and your sisters, and your aunts, both on the father's and on the mother's side, and your brother's daughters, and your sister's daughters, and your mothers who have given you suck, and your foster-sisters, and your wives' mothers, and your daughters-in-law which are under your tuition, born of your wives unto whom ye have gone in (but, if ye have not gone in to them, it shall be no sin in you to marry them), and the wives of your sons, who proceed out of your loins; and ye are also forbidden to take to wife two sisters, except what is already past, for God is gracious and merciful." Sale has this note after the words, "Forbidden to take to wife two sisters,"" The same was also prohibited by the Levitical law."

This, in reference to a people who may marry if they please at least four wives, may not be regarded as important; it may be of interest, however, to state, as regards China, with its 400,000,000 inhabitants, that the law there is, and has been, to punish marriage with a brother's widow with death.

CHAPTER VI.

GENERAL RESULTS.

I HAVE thus, taking the chief writers and chief authorities on the subject as my guide, as well as the law of nature, clearly demonstrated, I think—

1st, That the law of incest is plain and clear as laid down by Moses.

2nd, That the Jews have, when they did not maintain the lawfulness of polygamy, held the prohibitions in Leviticus xviii. to relate to incestuous concubinage or marriage— even the Talmudists maintaining that these prohibitions applied equally to cases of "nearness of kin" by affinity, as to "nearness of kin " by consanguinity.

3rd, That the early Christian Church must have adopted the prohibitions in Leviticus xviii., as to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the degrees in marriage, no new laws having been given to them, and no abrogation of the old laws having been made known to them.

4th, That the earliest decisions of the Christian Church of which we have any record, are against the lawfulness of all marriages prohibited in the Mosaic Code, and that down to the Reformation the Church's decisions were always to the same effect.

5th, That since the Reformation, with a few exceptions, Christian Churches, through their Ecclesiastical Courts and other indicatures, have maintained the binding obligation of the Mosaic Code, even to the prohibition of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, which they have inferentially drawn from that code.

6th, That the Roman Emperors in primitive Christian times, Christian States down to the Reformation, and general legislation in all the Protestant countries of Europe

and America since then, have been on this subject in thorough accordance with the creeds and confessions of the Churches; in other words, all Churches and Nations recognising the authority of the Bible as a basis of human legislation, have held and decided in essence or substance that, "A man may not marry any of his wife's kindred nearer in blood than he may of his own, nor a woman of her husband's kindred nearer in blood than of her own."

I say I have demonstrated, whatever may be thought or felt on the subject of inferential prohibitions or conclusions, that the law of Moses, as I have quoted it, has been as a Divine law common to all ages and peoples; that it is binding on all; and that, with few and rare exceptions, it has been by every Church and State, founding on the Word of God, recognised, accepted, and enforced among all. If there has been at any time, or if there is now, a disposition in some countries and among certain classes of society to alter the current of opinion and the course of practice, that disposition has not been shewn towards the clear and express prohibitions of the code. It has been evinced towards the inferential or logical deductions which have been drawn from it or added to it, by those who believe that the lawgiver of the Jews meant these inferences to be drawn ; in other words, that he meant to convey that in every case in which a prohibition was addressed to the man, a similar prohibition was to be regarded as addressed in a like relationship to the woman; and in every case in which a prohibition was addressed to the woman, a like prohibition in relative circumstances was to be regarded as addressed to the man.

It is not my purpose to enter into a discussion on this point, about which, in certain cases, the wisest and best of men have differed the same condition of things not in every instance being at all applicable in the matter of affinity to man and woman alike. It is enough that I give, as I have done, the strong and almost unanimous testimony of Churches and States against all the varieties of incest prohibited by Moses, and that I give

also their testimony against what they regard as other forms of incest not specifically prohibited by the same Divine lawgiver. If Churches and States hold that to be incest which Moses has not expressly condemned, how great must be the guilt of those who live an incestuous life, either by concubinage or marriage, under circumstances condemned alike by Moses, the Jews, the earliest Christians, the whole Fathers and Councils of the Churches to the Reformation, and the whole Ecclesiastical and Civil Courts of the Protestant world down to the present time. To this new feature of our existing immorality, I now come.