Page:Against profane dealing with holy matrimony.djvu/39

 Clergy, must neither ourselves yield to such profane changes, nor by our silent indifference give others reason to think that we are prepared to yield to them. I hope we shall in good time speak out, and tell our statesmen and lawyers, that no Act of Parliament, nor provincial Canon, nor any thing short of a true Œcumenical Council, can possibly set us free from the obligation we feel, to regard the marriage of a man with his wife's sister, and all others like unto it, as prohibited by Scripture under the penalties of incest. So that for no religious purpose—communion, burial, or the like—can we ever recognise such a connexion as a marriage. By God's help, “we will not defile ourselves in any of these things: for in all these things the heathen were defiled. We will keep God's ordinance, that we commit not any one of these abominable customs that were committed before us, and that we defile not ourselves therein: He is the our ” (Levit. xviii. 24, 25, 30.) THE END. BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORD.