Then you inquire, what they would answer a Jefuit, when he fays the paffage is not juftly tranflated? For it seems, though they have unhappily got that weapon, the word of God, in their hands, you still hope they have not skill to use it; and your hope is founded in what you propose by way of question to them. But how would you, though well skilled in the languages, defend your people against that Jefuit, that have not letters, and are not capable to judge of what is faid of the juftness of the tranflation by the knowledge of the language? What could you answer him, to the fatisfaction of your people's confciences, that an illiterate man could not anfwer? And feeing you have taken up the Jefuitical argument, for the honour of the church and the clergy, against these illiterate men, and their English Bible, could you blame any of your people that should go off to the Roman church, because they know not if the tranflation be juft; and when the question came, whether they fhould believe you or the learned Jefuit, a clergyman of a more ancient church, in the knowledge of letters, with a pretence of infallibility, they chused to believe the Jefuit? You know the strongest thing you have to say in this case against the Jefuit, is what the illiterate may say as well as you. Or, are you indeed for the people's believing in your church, inftead of their English Bible? Or, perhaps you'll come next to a question, if a man can be faved without skill in the facred languages, yea, without the original manuscripts? And clergymen have played the like of this, to keep fouls in dependence on their au thority. But if these illiterate leaders be fo ignorant of the word of God, their only weapon, and unable to use it, why do not you men of letters, by your ability to handle the word against them, reduce the people that are misled by them to your obedience? And if you be not able to do that, why do you proclaim your own fhame, by crying your church is in danger from men that want letters? Your description of the New-Teftament minifter comes not well in immediately after your discourse of the neceffity of the arts and sciences to the ministry of the gospel: for it will agree full as well to the illiterate as to men of letters. It is true, your defcription is deficient, as to a main part of the character of fuch a minifter, which cannot be declared, without fuch an understanding of the difference betwixt the Old Teftament and the New, as you might learn from the illiterate men, the preachers of the kingdom of heaven. You VOL. I. 3 P speak fpeak of a New-Testament minifter his making Christ all, and felf nothing; and yet you train up your young Chriftians, by the questions you put to them, in the way of felf. For an illiterate man would eafily fee him that could readily answer them as they are propofed, to be a felf-righteous Pharifee, and leaning, through felf-conceit, on the good difpofitions ex. preffed in your questions, inftead of the good pleasure of God's goodness, and setting up to be a Christian, in the confidence of a good difpofition toward it that he finds in his heart. You propofe a great many things to your catechumen, who may be ignorant of the fundamentals of Christianity, which are but fuppofed in your questions, and yet answer these questions; which he may alfo do without having the word of God for the only rule of his Chriftianity. And yet these questions contain a covenant, which you say he must make with God. And who are you that would give us an other covenant, and another miniftry, than that we have in the scriptures of the New Teftament ? It is not my province to point out the inconfiftencies of your fermon, in the things you offer against your brethren, That belongs to them, if they think it worth their while to take any notice of you. But if no other regard you, I hope you will accept of this, as a piece of fervice done to you, and the truth which you oppose, by, POST SCRIPT. Take the following copy of a fummons from the 'feffion of one of your brethren, as an evidence of the success of your preaching to them against illiterate minifters. You need not queftion if it be the effect of your warning, when you confider how much ear he gave to your firft warning, and how active he was upon it in the rife of that fect, which, to your great grief, is lately rifen among you. And you fee him as fenfible of his own call and mission, and of the neceffity of human arts and sciences in the miffion to the office of the ministry, as you can defire, and as far from joining issue with Julian as you could wish. Ketins, the fixteenth day of December One thousand seven hundred and thirty-three years. THE 'HE faid day the kirk-feffion confidering, That, by the wholesome conftitutions of this national church, and by the word of God itself, no man ought to intrude into the facred office of the ministry, without being called and fent of God; nor ought they to be received into Christian houses, nor bid God speed: Yet it is of verity, that you Alexander Morice weaver in the Gafk, in this parish, upon the 30th day of November, have invited, welcomed to your house, and bidden God speed to Don and Cant, pretended preachers, and encouraged them to make a fhew of preaching, upon one or other of the days of this fent month, in the barn of Patrick Ritchie in Paty, and this parish, as common fame goes; for which, if found true, you ought to be cenfured according to the demerit of your fcandal. Extracted by, I pre ROE. CHRISTIE, Seff. Clk. James Watson officer, by warrant from the above kirk feffion, fummon you Alexander Morice, to compear before the kirk-feffion Sabbath next, the 30th inftant, to answer to the points of the above libel, with certification. This I give you December 21. 1733. 3 P 2 J. W. A 484 A Differtation on INCEST. A difpute between Mr Glas and the prefbytery of Dundee, concerning the lawfulness of J. B.'s marriage with J. M. his former wife's grand-niece, in 1729. [First published in the year 1730.] Mr Glas's reafons for the lawfulness of this marriage. I T is manifeft this marriage is upon none of these degrees exprefsly mentioned in the Levitical law, and more fully laid open in the common table, where the several inftances upon the degrees of nearness of kindred and affinity are pointed out. When the Lord takes notice of the abomi. nations of the Heathen in this matter of inceft, for which he took vengeance on them, and with which he severely dischar ges his people to defile themfelves; and when he makes fo particular a condescension on the several degrees, and explains this his law in no other part of his word; and when he makes this a cafe of life and death; it seems an inference very juft from this, That he hath left it free for any man to marry in any degree beyond these mentioned in the law. Yet whatever is by juft and neceffary confequence dedu. cible from God's law, is certainly in it; and therefore every fuch confequence must have some foundation in the law itself. And if there be any thing in the Levitical law that leads us to fee a marriage unlawful upon that degree whereon J. B.'s marriage is an inftance, though that degree be not very exprefs in the law, then they who thus fee it in the law must declare it unlawful, though it be really unlawful whether they fee it or not but, at the fame time, it will not be easily thought, that the Lord made the life and death of the people of his kingdom to depend on a point not obvious in his law. Now, let us fee if we find any thing in the law of God up од 1 on this fubject, from which we may infer the unlawfulness of marriage upon that degree whereon J. B.'s marriage is an inftance. And, 1. The law speaks not of that distinction of the lines direct, collateral, and oblique, which men have used in the explication of it, and for giving a ready up-taking of the dif ferent degrees. And no reason can be given why the exprefs prohibition goes not so far downward upon the oblique line as upon the direct, if we have not recourfe to the reafon mentioned in the law; or why there is but one degree forbidden exprefsly upon the oblique line, and but one upon the collateral, while there are as it were two (though they be but upon the matter one, as we shall fee) upon the direct line, espe cially if we confider that it is far more easy by nature's light to make an inference from one generation to another upon the direct line, than upon the oblique or collateral. The prefbytery seems to labour under a grofs mistake, in confounding the direct line and the oblique, reckoning, that, as they draw or fancy a line from the brother to his brother's daughter through his brother, fo there is fuch a real derivation of blood from that brother to his brother's daughter, as there is from her grandfather to her upon the direct line: and by this chimerical fancy, to which their line leads them, they must hold a higher degree of incest in the marriage of uncle and niece, than in the marriage of a brother and fifter upon the collateral line; whereas the nearness of brother and fifter in blood is beyond all poffibility of contradiction prefuppofed unto the nearness of uncle and niece. 2. It is evident there is no room left in this law of God for drawing inferences, by taking the words or names of the related perfons in ftricter or larger fenfes: for though there be fuch words made ufe of in this law, as occurs in other pla ces of fcripture, in a larger fenfe; yet that fenfe is plainly excluded in this law. And we had been left at the utmost uncertainty if it had been otherwise, as we may see by this inftance, Lev. xviii. 9. "The nakedness of thy fifter, the "daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, born 66 at home or abroad, their nakedness thou shalt not unco"ver." If we take father and fifter, and daughter of the father, in fuch a fenfe as they frequently bear, in fcripture, it will be unlawful for, not coufin-germans only, but for their children and children's children ftill downwards, to marry together; and fo no marriage, even in the collateral way, will be at all lawful: for if any man descended of the one coufin fhould 1 |