Mr. Blount's oracles of reason examined and answered in nine sections in which his many heterodox opinions are refuted, the Holy Scriptures and revealed religion are asserted against deism & atheism / by Josiah King ...

Pag. 138.

The Canon of Scripture, which seems more nearly to concern this case, is Leviticus 18. ver. 18. where it is said, Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, besides the other in her life time: But this doth not therefore seem to restrain or pro∣hibit the marrying of two sisters one after the other; for the first being dead, the other cannot be a Rival or vexation (as the Text calls it) to her dead sister: And then how shall the Prohibition be urg'd, if the reason of it be removed? it is rationally apparent that there is great stress placed in those Ex∣pressions (during her life) and (to vex her, in un∣covering her shame upon her) as doth more fully appear in our Translation of the Bible in Queen Eli∣zabeth's Reign, printed An. Dom. 1599.

ANSWER.

If, as Mr. Blount says p. 137. all Penal Laws are straitly ty'd up to the express Letter of the Law (where there is par ratio, the like or same reason) and no where to be construed by Pa∣rallels;

he hath lost more for his purpose in this place of holy Scripture, than he got by the former. For then nothing can be concluded from this place of Leviticus, for marrying a Wife's Sister after her death, the express Let∣ter of the Law mentions nothing of it. All that can be said for it from this place, is by dedu∣ction and consequence.

I shall therefore give a full Solution in the words of the foresaid Learned Doctor: p. 437. if by the English reading of our Bibles, Leviticus 18. ver. 18. (Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister to vex ber, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life-time) it be thought that the marrying the Wife's Sister in her life time, be the only thing forbidden, that will presently be answered from the margent of our Translation, where the Hebrew word is fitly and truly ren∣dred [Not a wife to her sister] but [one wife to another] and so is a direct Prohibition of Poly∣gamy; at least, when the first is deprived and vexed, by taking in of the second, but not a Permission to marry, that was otherwise prohi∣bited.