suppose that they who are concerned in such marriages, will not fear the objection; but they have reason to value the advantage. Pietas geminato crescit amore,d while the marital love is supported with the cognation. 6. St. Austin's argument is to me highly considerable: "Fuit antiquis patribus religiosa curæ, ne ipsa propinquitas se paulatim propaginum ordinibus dirimens longius abiret, et propinquitas esse desisteret, eam nondum longe positam rursus matrimonii vinculo colligare, et quodammodo renovare fugientem ;-The dearness of kindred will quickly wear out, and cousins will too soon grow strangers; therefore the patriarchs had a religious care to recall the propinquity which was dividing and separating too fast, and, as it were, to bind it by the ties of marriage, and recall it when it was flying away." And indeed there is no greater stability to a family, no greater band to conjugal affections, than the marriage of cousins. 6 I should now speak no more to this question, but that I have often met with a trifling objection, concerning which I could never find any reasonable pretence, or ground of probability to warrant it: Second cousins may not marry, but are expressly forbidden; therefore, much rather first cousins, though they be not named.' To this I answer, that I never knew the marriage of second cousins forbidden, but by them who at the same time forbade the marriage of the first; and indeed I have searched and cannot fix my eye upon any thing that I can imagine to be the ground of the fancy : therefore, I can say no more to it; but that the law of God does not forbid either, nor the laws of our Church or State, nor the laws of nature or nations, or right reason, but these marriages have advantages in all these. And we find that Isaac married his second cousin, and that was more for it than ever could be said against it. Abraham was careful, and Rebeccah was careful that their children, respectively, should marry within their own kindred; for it was so designed, because those families were to be greatly and specially d Ovid. M. x. 333. Gierig. vol. ii. p. 100. Lib. xv. c. 16, de Civit. Dei. blessed; and they called one another into the participation of it. I conclude this question with as much warranty to the marriage of cousins-german, as can derive from the premises; they may without scruple own it, and say, Viderit amplexus aliquis, laudabimur ambo. I know no other pretences of any instance obliging Christians, derived only from the judicial law. These two do not oblige; and, therefore, the rule is true in its direct affirmation. RULE IV. The Ten Commandments of Moses, commonly called the Moral Law, is not a perfect Digest of the Law of Nature. THE Jews in their Cabala say, that the law of God was made before the creation of the world two thousand years, and written in black burnt letters on the backside of a bright shining fire; according to that of David, "Thy word is a lantern unto my feet, and a light unto my path." Their meaning is (for under fantastic expressions they sometimes intended to represent a material truth), that the decalogue, or their system of moral precepts, was nothing but an express of the tables of the law of nature; long before Moses's time given and practised by their fathers. But this was not a perfect system; it was the best that ever was since Adam broke the tables of the natural law, and let sin and weak principles into the world; and it was sufficient in the present constitution of the world; but even this also was but like "a pædagogue to bring us to Christ." In the schools of Moses they practised the first rudiments of perfection; but Christ was the last, and therefore the most perfect, lawgiver; and they that did commence under Moses, the servant of God, were to proceed under Jesus Christ, the Son of God; and, therefore, the apostle calls Christ réλos roũ vóμou: and if we will acknowledge Christ to be our lawgiver, and the Gospel a a Romans, vii. 14. to be his law, called in the New Testament, "the law of liberty," "a royal law;" then we must expect that our duty shall be further extended than to a conformity in our lives to the ten words of Moses. I do not here intend to dispute whether Christ hath given us laws, of which, neither before Moses nor since, there are any footsteps in the Old Testament; for I think there are none such, but in the letter or in the analogy they were taught and recommended before but this I say, that some excellences and perfections of morality were by Christ superadded in the very instances of the decalogue; these also were bound upon us with greater severity, are endeared to us by special promises; and we, by proper aids, are enabled to their performance; and the old commandments are explicated by new commentaries, and are made to be laws in new instances, to which by Moses they are not obliged; and some of those excellent sayings which are respersed in the Old Testament, and which are the dawnings of the evangelical light, are now part of that body of light which derives from the Sun of Righteousness: insomuch that a commandment which was given of old, was given again in a new manner, and to new purposes, and in more eminent degrees; and, therefore, is also called a new commandment. Thus the conversation evangelical is called an old commandment' and a new one.' So that in the whole this will amount to the same thing, as if they were new commandments. I will not, therefore, trouble this article with those artificial nothings; or endeavour to force any man to say Christ hath given us new commandments; but this I suppose to be very evident, that we are by Jesus Christ obliged to do many things, to which the law of Moses did not oblige the sons of Israel: but whether this was by a new imposition, or a new explication of the old, it matters not, save that some men will be humoured in their own manner of speaking. 6 I give an instance: The Christians are obliged to love their brethren, and their neighbours; the Jews were so too: but Christ commanded us to love those whom the Jews did not call brethren or neighbours; even all that have the 1 John, ii. 7, 8. same nature, even all that are in calamity. For to the question asked by the pharisees, 'And who is our neighbour?'-Christ answered by the parable of him that fell among the thieves: he that is in need, is our neighbour. The Jews understood this to mean nothing but one of the same nation or religion; the rest they hated. Here then is a new duty, to which the Jews, in the same latitude and in the same expressions, were not bound by the decalogue; and this is as much as a new commandment; for it is new to me, if it imposes a new duty. So if God forbids incest, and by it only means the conjunction of parents and children, if afterwards he commands us to abstain from brother and sister, uncles and aunts, this is a new law under the old words. The Jews might hate their enemies, but Christians have none; that is, they have none whom they are to repute such by a legal account. The seven nations in Palestine were, legally and properly, to be accounted enemies; but to Christians all are to be esteemed as brethren in some account or other; οὐδεὶς ἐχθρὸς τῷ σπουδαίῳ, "To a good man no man is enemy :"d SO that by alteration of the subject-matter, the old law is become new; that is, we have a new law. "Lex vetus amorem docet in proximos, nova in extraneos; -The old law teaches love to neighbours, the new to strangers:" that is, to such whom the Jews called so; but yet the Christians are to treat as neighbours. For that is a duty to us, which was not so to them; and we may perish for omitting that, to which they were not obliged so much as under the pain of a legal impurity. But not only in the object of our duty, but in the expression and signification of action, Christ is a new lawgiver. They and we are bound to love our brethren; but the precept of love did not bind them to what we are bound: we must dief for our brethren; and of this we have an express commandment, which, it is certain, they had not; and no sign of it in their moral law. And it is not the same words, but the same intention of duty that makes the same law. The Jews were bound to love their wives; but an easiness of divorce did consist with that duty exacted by that law, but Levit. xix. 18. • Tertull. d Hierocles, Needham, p. 56, line 11, a sum. pag. 1 John, iii. 16. John, xv. 12, 13. it will not do so in ours. alters the kind, so it is in laws; for every new degree of duty that is required, supposes a new authority or a new sanction to infer it; for the same law does not in one age directly permit an action, and in another forbid it; it does not reward in that person, which in another it will condemn. But I add other instances. If repentance be a precept, and not only a privilege, it is certain, that, in the Gospel, there is a precept which was not permitted, much less enjoined; for this obedience supposes Christ to be our Redeemer in nature, before he is our lawgiver; and, therefore, that it could be no part of their moral law. But repentance is not, properly and primarily, a law of nature; for though it was the first action of religion that we find was done in the world, yet it is such a one as supposes nature lapsed, and therefore at the most can be but adopted into the law of nature; but yet because it is as much a part of the law of nature, as restitution is a part of natural justice, this instance is not altogether an improper illustration of this rule. Now as in moral actions, a degree But there are also many things for which provisions are made in the law of nature; for which there is no caution in the decalogue. I instance in the matter of incest; and if any man will reduce it to the fifth commandment, it is certain he must then suppose only the mixture of parents and children to be, and that of brother and sister not to be, incestuous; for these cannot come under the title of father and mother; and if it be referred to the seventh commandment, it will be as improper as to suppose jeering to be forbidden in the sixth. I could add, that there being but two affirmative precepts in the decalogue, there is no caution against sins of omission in any other instances. I will not instance in those precepts which relate to our blessed Lord himself, and are superinduced by Christianity upon the law of nature; such as are "faith in Jesus Christ,hope of eternal life,-fraternal correption,-avoiding scandal,-custody of the tongue in many instances,—the sacraments,—to stand fast in Christian liberty,-searching the Scriptures, humility,-mortification,-bearing the infirmities of the weak," and many more; all which proclaim Christ to be our lawgiver; but do not properly denote the VOL. XII. - A A, |