Page:Maymanmarryhisde00mack.djvu/18

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How then can marriage with a sister's husband be clean? How can you prove any difference between the relationships?


Lastly; Remember that neither Church nor State are infallible guides in this matter. Take Scripture as your only rule. The case of the Corinthian Church should be remembered as a warning to us. The Apostle reproaches them with having permitted a connexion which was "not so much as named among the Gentiles,—that one should have his father's wife" (1 Cor. v. 1). This shows us that even a Christian Church may sanction gross sin, and should warn us not to think the approbation of any Community sufficient to make that excusable which the laws of God, natural or revealed, disallow.

It is remarkable that hardly any one advocates the marriage of a woman with two brothers. Why? Because men make the laws; and what man can endure the idea of his wife marrying his brother? The feeling is, however, equally strong in the other sex. What woman can endure the idea of her sister marrying her husband? And yet this is advocated, though no example of its being allowed can be brought forward from Scripture. These two facts show us that no body of men are secure from error in this or any other matter. It is not therefore superfluous, again to direct the reader's attention to the consequences of permitting marriage with two sisters.

The marriage of uncle and niece may be vindicated on precisely the same grounds as that of a brother and sister-in-law. It is no where expressly forbidden. Some, who boldly maintain that the Old Testament is not a rule for Christians in these matters, would throw open the door to the marriage of still closer connexions. Nowhere but in the Old Testament