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6. Whatever may be the evasions, which men interested in the question, may devise, it is undeniably
indecent to marry a sister in law. It is inimical to public virtue, to innocent intercourse, and the
comforts of society; and is peculiarly indelicate and cruel to the sister who is made an accomplice in the crime.
7. The divine law against Incest is of perpetual obligation, and has always been well understood.
No instruction upon this subject is now needed, nor will any be received from incompetent teachers.
The Church of the New-Testament is under the same law with regard to Incest, with the Church of the Old;
in every age she has decidedly adopted the precepts contained in Levit. xviii. 6. 17. as the only
standard by which that crime is to be adjudged. It therefore cannot be true, that a marriage with a
sister in law does not give offence. And this consideration alone, abstracted from the authority of the
divine law which forbids them, ought to deter professing Christians from contracting marriages which
they know give great offence, and, as such, are very sinful. - Every nation upon earth, where the Christian
religion prevails, protests against such
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marriages, and pronounces them scandalous and incestuous; and every Church, of every denomination, that
is pure in the doctrines of the gospel and faithful in discipline, is always justly offended by such forbidden
connections; and must and will, without hesitation, excommunicate any member, who marries
HIS SISTER, whether it be a sister by consanguinity
or a sister by affinity; that is a sister by blood, or a sister in and by the law of God.
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