# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1856_S52
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

52 Excerpts as Contributions to Pastoral Casuistry.

he took captive his reason unto the obedience of faith, they nevertheless cannot but acknowledge him as one of the most profound and acute of philosophers and theologians, since his many philosophical as well as theological writings, and his influence upon his age, are proofs of this that speak loudly enough. —

Since, in the German territorial churches, alongside the divine commandments respecting the contracting of marriage, additional state laws were and still are everywhere in force, a preacher here, faced with the question of which degrees of kinship permit or forbid marriage between certain persons, cannot orient himself by the existing tables from which a pastor in Germany could quickly inform himself as to the permissibility or impermissibility of an intended marital union. Here, of course, the question can only be: which marriage is, with regard to degrees of kinship, permitted according to God's Word, and which is not? This question is all the more important here, since the state laws of this place in many instances themselves permit such marriages as God's Word condemns as immoral marriages — indeed even such as it brands as incestuous unions.

We hope, therefore, to meet the wishes of many conscientious pastors in our new fatherland when we communicate to them, from a work that perhaps lies in the hands of only a few, excerpts on forbidden marriages — a work which, setting aside the positive marriage laws valid in this or that country, derives these matters solely from God's Word and demonstrates their binding force in the time of the New Covenant as well. At the close of the excerpt we intend, on the basis of it, to give a clear table by means of which the marriages forbidden and permitted with respect to kinship, according to God's Word, can quickly be ascertained.

Crusius writes in the cited book, among other things, the following:

* * *

There are two kinds of forbidden marriages. Some are altogether shameful, and where they are attempted, no true marriage results from them, but they are a form of fornication, namely incest. These occur in the descending line of kinship, namely between parents and children, and the spouses of parents or children. By "parents," however, are to be understood not only the nearest parents, but all persons from whom someone is descended, e.g., grandfather, great-grandfather, etc.; and under the title of "children" belong not only the nearest children, but no less the grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc.

That marriage between such persons is unjust, nature itself already teaches, which is clear from the fact that among all peoples, at least among all civilized peoples, it has ever and again been held shameful, 1 Cor. 5:1, which accordingly must have a natural ground. But from Holy Scripture, the very first institution