What then is marriage? It is a divine institution which honours and dignifies, defends and consoles the human family-which raises men above the brutes, and preserves them from pernicious passions-provides for the identity, education and prosperity of every succeeding generation-divides the cares, increases the comforts, and cements society by the most precious and perpetual ties. And, what distinguishes this institution from all others, is, that it produces an union, whereby two persons become ONE-not merely as to legitimate commerce, but one in regard to themselves, and the new relations thereby formed with others. God pronounces them one. Men account them one. They consider themselves to be one. So completely are they one, that the respective relatives and families are constituted equally near of kin to both husband and wife.

Hail wedded love, MYSTERIOUS LAW, true source

Of human offspring, sole propriety

In Paradise, of all things common else;

By thee adult'rous lust was driv'n from men,
Among the bestial herds to range; by thee

Founded in reason, loyal, just and pure,

Relations dear, and all the charities

Of father, son, and brother, first were known.

Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets,

Whose bed is undefil'd and chaste pronounc'd;

"The law of marriage is POSITIVE.

No gene

ral principle can of itself, establish with a binding force upon the conscience, the doctrine that the conjugal union is, in all cases, to subsist between one man and one woman only; and, with the exception of conjugal infidelity, is to last during the joint lives of the parties. Nothing but a divine institution could subject them to this condition: nothing but a divine revelation communicated the knowledge of it.”* In every question, therefore, which regards the parties who may lawfully marry, no maxims or customs sanctioned among men, nor any dispensations of civil or ecclesiastical governments, can ever be admitted. The divine law has

fixed the standard, and must decide the inquiry. God himself is the judge. "To the law and to the testimony" is the only appeal.

An institution so venerable in its origin, so interesting in its consequences and valuable to the human family, has an imperious claim upon the pro

*See a brief inquiry into the lawfulness of marrying a deceased wife's sister, in the CHRISTIAN'S MAGAZINE, vol. 4. page 80. &c. The author of that inquiry understood the subject; and had the limited pages of a periodical publication permitted him to trace the question to its first principles, he would have superceded the necessity of any farther discussion.

tection of society, and the care of the church. Every good citizen, every sincere christian, and every faithful minister of the gospel, must esteem it his duty, to prevent an ordinance, recommended by such high considerations, from being prostrated and defiled. To prevent its pollution by prohibited cohabitation, is the object of this dissertation. But, previous to an immediate inquiry upon that subject, it will be expedient to refer to the principles of affinity, and contemplate the evil of incest; to mark the distinctions of laws, and illustrate the manner in which moral precepts are introduced into the Mosaic code.

3

SECTION II.

AFFINITY.

A RELATION is the respect or connection which two or more things have to each other. When the term is applied to kindred, it denotes the connection which subsists between persons, in consequence of their mutual respect to the same family. A DEL GREE in the relation of kinsmen, expresses the interval by which the proximity or remoteness of such a relation is ascertained. The degree is computed agreeably to the respective steps, by which a removal is made from a common ancestor, and is calculated conformably to what is called the lineal, or the collateral branches. There are two sources of kindred or relation. One is denominated consanguinity, the other affinity.

CONSANGUINITY refers to a relation in blood, or a relation produced by descent from the same progenitor. The lineal descent is that which subsists

between persons descending in a direct line from parents to their children downwards; or ascending from parents to grand parents upwards, in both directions in infinitum. The collateral line differs from the direct, in that the relatives do not descend the one from the other. The primary degrees in these comprise, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces. Collateral kinsmen spring from one common ancestor, who is the stirps or stipes, the root or stock, from whence these relations have branched; but they do not immediately depend the one upon the other. The nearness or distance of relation in the collateral line is therefore calculated by the degrees or interval between them and their same progenitor. This forms what is called by civilians the "vinculum personarum ab codem stipite descendentium." The scale or steps agreeably to which the degrees of relation are computed, are too well known to need any reference or

enumeration.

AFFINITY is a relation produced by marriage. It originates in the union which God has established between husband and wife; and refers primarily to the degree of kindred contracted by the husband to