Page:Unlawfulmarriage00jane.djvu/14

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10
INTRODUCTION.

to report their judgment on the question to the next Synod, the pamphlet was widely and gratuitously distributed among the members of the Classes, with a view to influence their decision, and to effect a change in the action of that Christian Church in regard to such marriages.

It had doubtless very considerable influence on the members of that Church, and particularly on her younger ministers. The General Synod of the Reformed Dutch Church, at their last session, having received the reports of their Classes, departed from what had heretofore been the uniform practice of their Church, and the Church of Holland, from which they were descended, by resolving, "that all resolutions which may have been passed by the General Synod, forbidding a man to marry his deceased wife's sister, be and hereby are rescinded."[1]

In the year 1816, the venerable Dr. John H. Livingston, Professor of Theology in the Seminary of that Church, prepared and published a dissertation on this question, at the request of the General Synod. It is able and learned.

  1. See their Minutes for 1843, p. 221.