must ever render it questionable whether they have rightly apprehended the truth in that fulness and distinctness which ought to command universal assent, and that of their neighbours, which may incapacitate them for receiving anything beyond a certain number of primary, fundamental truths. The minister of the Church ought indeed to be persuaded, as ought every minister of the State, that the legitimate government, however constituted, has a right to decree ordinances; and he should recognise his own duty to obey her ordinances; just as a judge is bound to execute the law of the land, and to give judgement accordingly. But the judge is not bound to believe that the law of the land is thoroughly righteous and without blemish; nor is the minister of the Church bound to believe that all her ordinances are framed with perfect wisdom in the manner best fitted for her present position in the world. Both the one and the other may rightfully hold that there are many things defective and faulty in the institutions they are called to administer, and may declare this, and may do what in them lies to remove the flaws which they may perceive. Nay, it is their duty to do so; and they will be faithless servants if they shrink from it. Only it should be done temperately, in a loyal, affectionate spirit. : Still less should it be required of any one, that he should make any declaration concerning the historical origin of such enactments. Facts are stubborn things, and will not bend to yea and nay. It is quite enough, in the present instance, that the minister of the Church should be resolved to regulate his own conduct, if occasion arise, in conformity to the Table of prohibited degrees and this he may do in perfect conscientiousness, under the conviction that, as all government is ordained by God, so especially is the government of the Church, and that she consequently has authority to determine the practice of her children. But to exact that a man should acknowledge that this Table is exactly what it ought to be, and that it is grounded on any immediate expressions of God's will in the Scriptures, far exceeds the due limits of ecclesiastical sway, and is an act of tyranny as foolish as it is wicked. Such acts are most injurious to the Church, by degrading her ministry from that loving service, which is perfect freedom, into a base and slavish bondage; and they tend to justify the calumny of our enemies, that our profest opinions are not such as we hold in sincerity and truth, but are merely taken up under constraint, and for the sake of the wages which we receive. In the present instance, as the Table of Prohibited Degrees is not a part of our Prayerbook, the rulers of our Church have not committed this sin; though in a number of others they did, when they altered the Act of Uniformity in 1662. NOTE J: p. 31. The main object of the preceding Notes has been to examine the grounds on which it is asserted that a marriage with the sister of a deceast wife is positively forbidden in the Bible. This question is of considerable interest in itself; and the controversy on the Bill now pending in Parliament has given it a great immediate importance. To form a right judgement on that Bill, it is of moment to ascertain, first, whether such marriages are indeed prohibited in Scripture, and next, should there be any prohibition of them, whether it was intended to apply to the Jewish polity solely, or equally to all forms of civil society. If, as I think has been shewn, there is no such direct prohibition, we may then discuss the objects of the present Bill calmly and deliberately, on moral and social grounds, as a matter on which a Christian Church and nation has a full right to declare its will: we may hope to check a good deal of that vehement clamour, which has been poured out so profusely on this occasion: and, should the decree of the Legislature be to alter the existing law, the Clergy will be readier to receive that decree with patience and submission. That these are matters on which a Christian State has a right and is bound to legislate, will hardly be disputed by any intelligent person. They were matters of legislation to Constantius, to Theodosius, and other Roman emperors. They were matters of legislation to the Parliament under Henry the Eighth, when the number of prohibited degrees, which had been greatly enlarged by the Church in the lust of exercising its sway, was very properly and rightfully curtailed. Still too in our days the civil legislature retains the same right; though, as the Clergy are excluded from the Lower House, it would be desirable that the Church should have an opportunity of considering the measure, with reference to her own obligations, in her synod. On the expediency or inexpediency of the proposed measure, regarded as a social and moral problem of the deepest importance, I have refrained from expressing an opinion, because, as I have said in the Charge, I do not feel duly qualified to form one. Were it allowable to look at the question with reference to the higher classes solely, I should wish, as I have also said in the Charge, that the present law should be retained, both on account of the precious domestic blessings which we derive from it, and because in matters concerning the primary relations of family life the course of wisdom is quieta non movere, unless under the pressure of some strong, manifest, urgent cause. It is contended indeed by Archbishop Whately (in the Appendix to the Report of the Commissioners, No 5) that the beneficial consequence of the present law, on which the chief stress has been laid, the facility it affords for a sister-in-law to undertake the charge of her deceast sister's children, without supplying ground for scandal, is "all a chimera;" for that "the law has no power to create or prevent scandal of that kind: it is fashion or public opinion: e. g. a man, whether married or single, cannot, without scandal, take a young married woman, not his sister, to live alone in the house with him as his sister; yet their marriage would be unlawful." Here the Archbishop's sagacity seems to be baffled, as not seldom happens, by his ingenuity. The law, though it does not create public opinion, has ever great power in shaping and upholding it; and were the law removed, the opinion would be shaken and overthrown. The case brought as parallel is totally different. A sister-in-law, in taking charge of her nephews and nieces, would be fulfilling a duty especially incumbent upon her: the married woman, living in another man's house, would be violating the primary duty of cleaving to her husband. The Archbishop continues, "In the present case, whatever scandal ever could arise would be rather promoted by the prohibition: for, as long as they were free to marry, it would be inferred by all charitable people that if they wisht to cohabit they would marry; but, if prohibited, they would be exposed to temptation to illicit intercourse." This is another instance of the superfine ingenuity with which logicians give sense the slip. For it is plain that the same argument would apply to any other unmarried woman, who therefore might live with any single man irreproachably; since in this case also it might equally be supposed "that, if they wisht to cohabit, they would marry." Nor is any count taken of that delicacy which would make a woman shrink from placing herself in a position where she might be supposed to be courting an invitation to marriage. At present her living with her brother-in-law is almost as free from suspicion, among the higher classes, as if she were living with her brother. On the other hand, that there is strong and grave cause for altering the present law, would seem to ensue from the Report of the Parliamentary Commission, which speaks of a very large number of cases where the law has been disregarded and violated, and of a mass of evils resulting from it. The Report has indeed been attackt from divers quarters, often captiously, at times somewhat scurrilously: but I am not aware that the statements of facts have been materially shaken or discredited. Hence there seems to be conclusive evidence that the law is continually infringed, so as to be practically almost nugatory, among the middle classes. With regard to the lower classes it was found more difficult to obtain satisfactory information: but he who is at all acquainted with their way of living, must needs perceive that, from various circumstances in their condition, of no transitory kind, but seemingly wellnigh unalterable,—I am not speaking of the shameless manner in which they herd together in our large towns, but of their condition in our best regulated towns and villages,-while in their class also a widower, when left with young children, will naturally and rightly invite his wife's sister to replace their mother's care over them, the intimacy thus bred will have a strong tendency to terminate in concubinage, if it may not in marriage. It is on these grounds that an opinion in favour of a change has been exprest by the five excellent clergymen, whose experience in the charge of enormous parishes has enabled them to apprehend the evils arising from the present state of the law. It is urged indeed by the advocates of the present law, that we must not allow the violation of it to be pleaded as an argument for changing it else every law will be repealed; as every law fails more or less in its preventive object: whereas the very fact of its violation is the proof of the need of it; since, if there were no offenses, laws would be superfluous. In this reasoning there is no little confusion. No law, it is true, has ever absolutely fulfilled its purpose by extinguishing the evil it was directed against: but many laws have made great advances toward such a fulfilment; those, I mean, which have an acknowledged deep moral ground, and which carry the moral sense of the nation along with them. On the other hand, among laws, there are numbers which have never met with such a response, and which are regarded merely as positive ordinances imposed by superior power. In certain states of society such laws may be maintained through a passive acquiescence. Often however it will happen that, being regarded as mere positive ordinances, without any special moral ground, they will be frequently violated, for this very reason, because the conscience of the nation does not connect any sense of guilt with the violation. Now the primary duty of a wise legislature is to seek the main strength of its laws in the moral sense and conscience of the nation; without which its laws will be inefficient, and Law itself will lose its majesty and awe. Hence, when any laws are found to be perpetually infringed, it becomes |