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those who are 'near of kin' through the wife, not by blood, then it is equally plain that it includes the wife's sister. 'Near of kin' includes, it is plain, the wife's near relations. For, in God's word, it includes her mother, or her daughter. Then it includes the sister too, unless any will contend that the sister is not her sister's near relation. The argument which enforces the prohibition of marriage of the wife's sister by parity of reasoning from the prohibition of the marriage with the brother's widow is, I doubt not, valid, but it is not needed. For it appears from Holy Scripture itself, that the near relations of the wife are included in the general prohibition, 'None of you shall approach,' &c, and this being so, human reason of itself confesses that the wife's sister is near;"—and I therefore maintain the proposition with which I started, and trust I have shown, that 'marriage with a deceased wife's sister is contrary to the Law of God'. My second proposition is:
That it is not Approved of or Sanctioned by the Church.
I have been so lengthy in the first part of my subject, that this and the remaining proposition must necessarily be considered in an abbreviated form; but the leading ideas to be borne in mind can well be pointed out, while brevity is preserved. Again we must bear in mind the wide extent to which the marriage laws extended, including Jews and Gentiles, and therefore binding now in Christian days, only with a more binding force, as "The Christian Church is stricter than Paganism, and the Christian doctrine more severe and pure". (Eccl. Vol. VII., p. 189). "If the prohibition in Leviticus were given to the Jews alone, it manifestly could not extend to us Christians. But this was not the case. The marriage prohibited is only one out of a large class of unlawful connections with which the nations of the Gentile world had fearfully defiled themselves. Now marriage with a deceased wife's sister is an analagous case to marriage with a deceased father's wife. Both are close degrees of affinity, not of consanguinity; both were not so much as named among the Gentiles, i.e., were considered in the highest degree unnatural and odious connections. A learned Arabic writer says, "The
