MARRIAGE WITH A. DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1101, 26 August 1873, Page 3

MARRIAGE WITH A. DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER.

A vague telegram appeared in the last Australian summary stating that " The Bishop of Melbourne will permit marriage with a deceased wife's sister." The following from the Age may be taken as explanatory : —Several clergymen having applied to the Bishop of Melbourne for instructions as to the lawfulness of solemnisingj under the provisions of the recent Act of our Colouial Legislature, the marriage of a widower with a sister of his deceased wife, he has published in the Church of England Messenger the following letter: — '■ Bishopscourt, July 23,1873.—My dear If I thought that the Act of our colonial Legislature, authorising marriage with the sister of a deceased wife, set aside a restriction which Q-od had by the Scriptures imposed upon us, or that it * ignored' a ' positive declaration of our great King* I should unhesitatingly say that we must obey God rather than man; or if there were any law of our church, binding upon us in "Victoria, which forbade the solemnisation of such marriages, I should say that, as clergymen, we must obey that law, and not use the liberty granted to us by the recent act. Bur, even if the prohibition in Leviticus be understood to refer to the sister of a deceased wife which is very doubtful (see note on Leviticus XVIII. 18 in the Speaker's Bible) —I do not consider it as obligatory upon the Church of Christ any more

than others of the Mosaic code. Nor do I regard the declaration that ' a man and his wife are one flesh' as placing a sister-in-law in the same relationship with a sister in blood. Again, so far as I knoWj the prohibition by our church of marriage with a deceased wife's sister is contained only in the canons of IGO3 (99) —which are certainly not binding upon the church here—and in the table of degrees ' set forth by authority' in 1563. I have not been able to ascertain by what authority this table was set forth : but I conceive that the ' admonition' contained in it never possessed any legal power, except from 32 Henry VIII., c. 38, and now is in no way obligatory upon the conscience, unless we consider it (which I do not) as a declaration of God. Such being my opinion upon this -vexed question, 1 do not regard a clergyman in Victoria as guilty of any Offence against the law of God or of the church in solemnising such a marriage, which the law of the land now authorises ; but as I know that some of my brethren think differently, and feel very strongly upon the subject, I consider that they are justified in refusing—indeed, bound in conscience to refuse—to do so. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind, and let no one judge another. —Tour brother in Christ, C. Melbourne."