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our churchmen, be preserved from thus sinning against the holy law of God and nature. Let our statesmen, as well as our churchmen, consider well the awful words of our Saviour in the text: 'Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets; I am not come to destroy but to confirm. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven' (St. Matt. v. 17-19)." An appendix to this sermon gives the correspondence of Dr. William Berriman, "one of the most judicious, learned and pious clergymen of the Church of England in the last century". In one of his letters (in 1734) he says, in answer to a person who asked his opinion on the subject of these marriages, "You will allow me, I suppose, that the prohibitions in Leviticus are part of the moral law, obliging all nations: since the neglect of them is charged among the abominations of these nations that were cast out before the Israelites". He then gives two rules to be observed: 1. "That as the man and wife are become one flesh by marriage, whatever degree of consanguinity makes it unlawful for him to marry with his own relations, the same degree of affinity makes it unlawful for him to marry with his wife's relations." 2. "That whatever is forbidden to one sex is in the same degree unlawful to the other sex: so that if a woman is not allowed to marry two brothers, neither may a man marry two sisters. But that a woman cannot marry two brothers,—or, which is the same thing, that a man may not marry his brother's wife,—is plain from Levit. xviii 16." Let us in concluding this portion of the subject, stamp on our minds and endeavour to impress on all around us, the one great barrier against marriage with a deceased wife's sister, the one general prohibition, in Lev. xviii. 6, "None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him". Nearness of kin is what is commanded to be avoided in contracting marriages. "Since the word, 'near of kin'" Dr. Pusey says (I., p. 13) "(as is plain from the instances given in Leviticus xviii.), includes
