11
next reason is, when denying that the seven brothers mentioned in Matthew xxii. 24–28, were "all sons of the same parents," a quotation from the "book of Tobit," in which a woman, after having had seven husbands, laments, "I am the only daughter of my father, neither hath he any child to be his heir, neither any near kinsman, nor any son of his, alive, whom I may keep myself for a wife." Now, this writer's own quotation from the Apocryphal book of Tobit contradicts his own assumption and assertion; for how could the woman possibly have lamented that her father had no son alive to whom she might keep herself for a wife, if it was not lawful for her to be the wife of such a son? His other and third "illustration" is, that it "would contradict an express enactment: 'Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother's wife: it is thy brother's nakedness.' Leviticus xviii. 16." Now, not to notice the fact that many learned interpreters regard Leviticus xviii. 16, and all the verses preceeding, as referring not to marriage, but to adulterous connexions between near relations; but assuming that marriage is referred to in Leviticus xviii. 16, what is there in it in the slightest degree inconsistent with, much less contradictory to, Deuteronomy xxv. 5, according to the authorized version, since, in the former, reference is made to a living brother's wife. and in the latter the reference is to a deceased brother's widow. The tenth commandment says: "Thou shalt not covet [desire] thy neighbour's wife;" but who but such as the magazine writer and his man Galloway would interpret this command as forbidding a man to covet or marry his deceased neighbour's widow?
Thus there is not a shadow of ground to justify this writer's denying the authorized version of the Scriptures in regard to the command of Moses as to a man's marrying the childless widow of his deceased brother—a marriage in which there could be nothing improper or wrong, much less immoral, when commanded by God himself.
