Page:Against profane dealing with holy matrimony.djvu/7

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AGAINST

PROFANE DEALING

WITH

HOLY MATRIMONY.



The Church of England in all times has received this for one of her laws concerning Marriage, That a man may not marry his wife's sister. It has been the law of this Church and Realm ever since Christianity came here in the Saxon times. That no one may be ignorant of it, it is appointed to be set up conspicuously in every Church.

Whoever have been married among us, have declared, solemnly in the Church, “as they will answer at the dreadful Day of Judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed,” that they know neither of this nor of any other “impediment, why they may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony:” and have been warned before God, by His Priests in His Name, that if they “are coupled together otherwise than God's word doth allow, their Matrimony is not