As early as 1580, Holland, the Doctor shows, declared in an ordinance, "that no persons related in blood, or by affinity, within the forbidden degrees, shall be permitted to cohabit or be married, under penalty of being declared infamous, and subjected to corporeal punishment and heavy fines, and if they persisted in their crime, to banishment." In another ordinance, the forbidden degrees are enumerated; and it is declared, "that no man may marry the widow of his deceased brother, nor may any woman marry the husband of her deceased sister." Pp. 49, 50.
And to prove what construction is put on Levit. 18: 16, by the Reformed Dutch Church, the Doctor quotes from the marginal notes of the translators, appointed by the National Synod of Dortrecht, held in 1618 and 1619, the following words: "From this law it necessarily follows, that a woman who has been married with one brother, may not, after his death, marry with another brother; and, upon the same principle, a man who has been married to one sister, may not, after her death, marry the other sister." He quotes also their note on verse 18, which is
