Marriage with a Deceased Brother's Wife; Condemned by the Laws of Nature, Scripture, and the Testimony of Churches and Nations (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1869. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI. General Results. I HAVE thus, taking the chief writers and chief authorities on the subject as my guide, as well as the law of nature, clearly demonstrated, I think--1st, That the law of incest is plain and clear as laid down by Moses. 2nd, That the Jews have, when they did not maintain the lawfulness of polygamy, held the prohibitions in Leviticus xviii. to relate to incestuous concubinage or marriage--even the Talmudists maintaining that these prohibitions applied equally to cases of "nearness of kin" by affinity, as to "nearness of kin " by consanguinity. 3rd, That the early Christian Church must have adopted the prohibitions in Leviticus xviii., as to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the degrees in marriage, --no new laws having been given to them, and no abrogation of the old laws having been made known to them. teh, That the earliest decisions of the Christian Church of which we have any record, are against the lawfulness of all marriages prohibited in the Mosaic Code, and that down to the Reformation the Church's decisions were always to the same effect. 5th, That since the Reformation, with a few exceptions, Christian Churches, through their Ecclesiastical Courts and other indicatures, have maintained the binding obligation of the Mosaic Code, even to the prohibition of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, which they have inferentially drawn from that code. 6th, That the Roman Emperors in primitive Christian times, Christian States down to the Reformation, and general legislation in all the Protestant countries of Europe and America since then, have been on this subject in thorough accordance with the creeds and confessions of the Churches; in other words, all Churches and Nations recognising the authority of the Bible as a basis of...