Page:Unlawfulmarriage00jane.djvu/35

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HISTORICAL FACTS.
31

testants of Germany: "Though all this did not avail to secure the Protestants of Germany in this error." Again, p. 10, 2d par.: "The Protestant Church of Europe, at that early day, seems to have had no idea that the law of Moses bound us in this particular." He then quotes Luther and Melancthon in support of his assertion.

If the Puritan had read Dr. Livingston's dissertation on this subject, he would have been preserved from this unfounded assertion; for that venerable man has quoted the closing part of the famous letter written "by those celebrated divines, who, in the name of their Church, replied to the inquiry made by Henry VIII. whether it was lawful for a man to marry his sister-in-law." Let it be transcribed: "It is manifest and cannot be denied, that the law of Levit. 18, prohibits a marriage with a sister-in-law. This is to be considered as a divine, a natural, and a moral law, against which no other law may be enacted or established. Agreeably to this, the whole Church has always retained this law, and judged such marriages incestuous. Agreeably to this, also, the decrees of Synods, the celebrated opinions of the