Man or Woman Alone Imperfect--Marriage Ordained of God--Sanctity of
Proper Sexual Relations--Matrimony a Part of Religion--The First Pair
Immortal--Marriage for Eternity--Keys of Celestial Marriage--Condition
of Those who Marry Only for Time--Man the Head of the Woman--Plurality
of Wires--Continuation of the Righteous Forever--Eternal Family
Organizations--Everlasting Increase and Dominion.
No man or woman, separate and single, can attain the fullness of
celestial glory. Perfection of being, happiness, exaltation or
dominion, is unattainable by either sex alone. The nature, desires,
capabilities and manifest design of both male and female humanity
proclaim this, and the voice of Deity has endorsed and sanctified the
utterance of nature. Woman was made for man. Marriage is ordained
of God. In its correct form it is under the divine direction. The
Father of the race has the right to a voice in the sexual unions of
His children. Those relations are fraught with so much consequence,
relating to time and eternity, that the Supreme Ruler should regulate
them for the benefit of the parties, the welfare of society and the
good of posterity in this world, as well as for eternal results in the
life to come.
The male and female elements of humanity seek union, of their own
volition. The natural attraction that prompts this is right and proper.
But if there were no rules and restrictions for the government of
these tendencies and the actions resultant, confusion would ensue,
and the effects would be sorrow, ruin and destruction. Matrimony
therefore becomes a part of religion. It is a divine institution, and
hence should be divinely directed. The first marriage on record was
solemnized by Deity. It was God who said, "It is not good that the man
should be alone." It was God who brought Eve and gave her to Adam.
It was God who commanded the twain made one flesh to "increase and
multiply."
Marriage, properly contracted, is therefore holy and pure, and its
relations, unabused, are sacred and chaste. The notion that celibacy
is purer than matrimony, that either man or woman is holier in the
sight of heaven because of nonintercourse with the other sex, is a
gross error, unwarranted by reason or revelation. There is no attribute
of the mind or function of the body that is in itself, or in its
legitimate exercise, impure or degrading. It is only the wrong use of
any of our powers that is sinful.
The first marriage recorded in scripture was the union of immortals.
The curse of death had not been pronounced when the ceremony was
solemnized. There was no sin then, and therefore there was no death.
The man and woman became ONE as eternal beings, and dominion was given
to them over all earthly things, together. Death and the rule of man
over the woman came as the consequences of transgression. The penalty
was paid, the redemption was wrought out, and through the atonement
those two persons are restored to their pristine condition.
In the resurrection, then, Adam and Eve come together as at the first
in the garden, and there is no more separation for them. They are
rejoined, not as ghostly beings without the feelings and powers of
tangible personality, but as the man and the woman made one eternally,
with power to increase and multiply and have dominion, with all
eternity before them for the exercise of every power with which the
Creator endowed them, spiritual, mental and physical, standing at the
head of the race, perfected by experience and obedience to eternal law,
and ready to act in the harmony with celestial intelligencies, and
preside over their own posterity forever.
Here is a sample marriage. It was not for time alone, but for eternity.
Death intervened, but only as an incident. The bond that bound them
in matrimony was not sundered. The seal set upon them was of heavenly
stamp. Its virtue reached within the vail. Its force extended into the
world to come. There was no end to it. God had a hand in it and it was
His seal and sanction that made it valid and everlasting. All other
marriages solemnized on similar principles and under the same authority
will be of the same virtue and effect. Ordinances performed by those
divinely appointed are as though attended to by Deity in person.
"Whoso receiveth you receiveth me," saith the Lord. What they "bind on
earth shall be bound in heaven." Herein is the authority of the holy
Priesthood, and herein is the sealing power for the Saints of God, by
which they may enter into the holy order of celestial marriage that
lasts while eternity endures. The KEYS of this power are only held by
one man at a time on the earth, being vested in the president of the
whole Church of God in the flesh. But while he holds the keys, others
may officiate therein under his direction and authority.
Unions formed by men and women, of their own arrangement without
any divine sanction or divine ceremony, are only temporary in their
nature. They end when the parties or either of them die. God does not
acknowledge that which He has not appointed. Neither the vows of the
man and woman, nor the ceremony performed by a person unauthorized by
the Almighty are recognized in heaven, but only pertain to earth and
time. The claim of parents thus united, over their offspring, is but
of the earth, earthy, and does not extend into the spheres beyond.
Death dissolves both these marital and parental ties, and each family
particle becomes disintegrated.
No power but that of Deity can bring them again together, and as God
proceeds by law, and the law fixed for these relations have not been
complied with, the separation continues while endless ages roll. "In
the resurrection _they_ neither marry, nor are given in marriage," but,
if in a saved condition, are as the angels, and they are ministering
spirits or servants unto those who obtain the crown of eternal lives,
"a far more and exceeding and eternal weight of glory," than that
which rests upon any of the angels. Men and women may be _saved_ in
a separate and single state, but they cannot be _exalted_ into the
fullness of celestial glory without union in celestial marriage,
because that is a state of perfection and comprehends the gift of
perpetual increase, in which there are endless dominion and the
exercise of all the powers of immortal manhood and womanhood united as
one in the everlasting covenant.
In the divine economy, as in nature, the man "is the head of the
woman," and it is written that "he is the savior of the body." But "the
man is not without the woman" any more than the woman is without the
man, in the Lord. Adam was first formed, then Eve. In the resurrection
they stand side by side and hold dominion together. Every man who
overcomes all things and is thereby entitled to inherit all things,
receives power to bring up his wife to join him in the possession and
enjoyment thereof.
In the case of a man marrying a wife in the everlasting covenant who
dies while he continues in the flesh and marries another by the same
divine law, each wife will come forth in her order and enter with him
into his glory. Is there any reason why this should not be so? Is not
each of these wives entitled to her position in eternity, by virtue of
the sealing power which made her part of the man? Why should one enter
into the exaltation of the celestial world, and the other be relegated
to singleness and servitude? They all become one in the patriarchal
order of family government. And if this be the case in heaven, why
should not similar conditions so far as possible exist on earth? Is
earth holier than heaven? If a man receives from the Lord more wives
than one under the sealing ordinances of celestial marriage, where is
the moral wrong? They belong to no other man, but are his by mutual
consent of all the interested parties, and they live together in the
marriage state, one as much as the other.
In this position there are occasions for the exercise of patience,
forbearance, charity, self-sacrifice and the exercise of all the
virtues to a far greater degree than in any other. In this plural
family relation, an experience can be gained that no other condition in
life affords, and the parties who so live and keep the law will be, in
the very nature of things, prepared for a wider sphere of dominion, and
power, and dignity, and might in the eternal world, than those who have
only experienced the monogamic condition. They will, therefore, if they
endure unto the end, go forward into the highest degree of exaltation,
while their posterity will multiply in an ever-increasing ratio, until
worlds will be filled by their generations and they will ascend to the
majesty and splendor of the Gods on high.
Herein is our Eternal Father glorified and His dominions extended.
By the continuation of the seeds of the righteous forever, the
multiplication of His sons and daughters creates the needs for worlds
and systems, to be brought forth according to eternal laws, to occupy
their position in the universe as dwelling places for spirits, and
embodied mortals, and perfected souls, in the various grades on the
path of progress towards the perfection of the celestial order; as orbs
of light and splendor, or globes of trial, punishment or correction,
each in its allotted sphere in the galaxy of suns and stars and
planets, and in the vast and wondrous plans of the Mighty Architect,
the Eternal Parent of organized intelligencies.
In obedience to His laws, there is present peace and future joy.
They who are in harmony with Him are in affinity with the source of
all pleasure and power. His commandments are found in the laws of
continuing life, which regulate as permanent things; and they who
reject Him and His counsels shut the gate against their own happiness
and advancement. But, for them who receive His gospel and conform to
all its ordinances and teachings, the door is open to the highest
courts in the heavenly mansions, and while they are helped through the
ordeals of mortal life, they gain the keys to all the glories of that
existence in which the family relation is perfected and perpetuated,
and every power of the whole being, refined, intensified and developed,
finds exercise, in its true sphere, to the complete and unalloyed bliss
of each one in the endless family circle, and the glory of Him who is
the Patriarch and Ruler of all.