Page:Unlawfulmarriage00jane.djvu/50

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46
HISTORICAL FACTS.

ing in favor of this marriage; but as no reference is given of the places where they have expressed their opinion, we have been unable to find them.

Of Luther and Melancthon we have already spoken. (P. 32.)

Chancellor Kent certainly has not "pleaded for the lawfulness of such marriages." In his Commentaries,[1] after naming N. Webster on the one side and Dr. Livingston on the other, he says, "It is not my object to meddle with that question; but such a marriage is clearly not incestuous or invalid by our municipal law."

Dr. J. P. Wilson has published no opinion on the subject. We knew him for many years, and never heard him utter his sentiments, nor did we ever hear that he had till we read the Puritan.

Judge Story, in his Conflict of Laws, says, Grotius "maintains, in strong terms, that there is no foundation for the prohibition;" and then quotes from the original Latin the following words as proof: "And by the most ancient canons, which are called Apostolical, he who married two sisters one after the other, or his

  1. Vol. ii. p. 85, note a.