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HISTORICAL FACTS.
39

notice quotations from Selden, but for the present we only remark, that, in page 20, first par. he represents him as expressing his own sentiments, when, in fact, he only recites, as a historian, the sentiments of the Jews, collected from Maimonides, &c.

Nothing produced by the Puritan is sufficient to authorize him to class Selden with those who vindicate the lawfulness of the marriage in question; nor have we seen any thing in his writings to justify it. One thing is plain, Selden, and the Talmudists, and the Karaites, and the Hebrews are all in direct opposition to the Puritan's doctrine, "that these statutes in Lev. xviii. do not prohibit marriage at all." (P. 6, last par. of the chap.)

Selden was a lay-member of the Westminster Assembly, who formed the Confession of Faith that contains the article on the subject of marriage so much opposed at present. Had he believed it to be unscriptural, he would have opposed its adoption; but from the history of the labors of that venerable body, it does not appear that he made any opposition. To an article of the Church government, he did oppose himself. He