Marriage affinity question Author:James Gibson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH. 5 our Lord the same words, is then quoted, with the addition, (verse 6,) " Wherefore they are 110 more twain, but one flesh. ... more »What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder;"—giving us thus the original and the final law on the subject, with which we at least have finally to do. It thus proves very clearly, that the Word of God has determined, as the original law at the creation, and as the Christian law laid down by our Lord, and therefore the perennial, immutable law of God, that marriage shall only be between one man and one woman. The bearing of this on the present discussion will afterwards appear. In the fourth section it says, " Marriage ought not to be within the degrees of consanguinity or affinity forbidden in the Word." In proof of this doctrine, the Confession refers to the whole 18th chapter of Leviticus; and the man is not to be reasoned with who denies that there are degrees of affinity forbidden in it, equally with degrees of consanguinity. The portion of the Confession of Faith which embodies the subject of the present discussion is the following:—" The man may not marry any of his wife's kindred nearer in blood than he may of his own, nor the woman of her husband's kindred nearer in blood than of her own." The passages quoted in support of this general statement are the following:— Lev. xx. 19-21, " Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother's sister, nor of thy father's sister; for he uncovereth his near kin: they shall bear their iniquity. And if a man shall lie with his uncle's wife, he hath uncovered his uncle's nakedness: they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless. And if a man shall take his brother's wife, it is an unclean thing; he hath uncovered his brother's nakedness: they...« less