2. The Harmony of Husband and Wife.
So much then for the more common understanding of the
two or three whom the Word exhorts to be in agreement. But now
let us also touch upon another interpretation which was uttered by some
one of our predecessors, exhorting those who were married to sanctity
and purity; for by the two, he says, whom the Word desires to agree on
earth, we must understand the husband and wife, who by agreement
defraud each other of bodily intercourse that they may give themselves
unto prayer; when if they pray
for anything whatever that they
shall ask, they shall receive it, the request being granted to them by
the Father in heaven of Jesus Christ on the ground of such
agreement. And this interpretation does not appear to me to cause
dissolution of marriage, but to be an incitement to agreement, so that
if the one wished to be pure, but the other did not desire it, and on
this account he who willed and was able to fulfil the better part, condescended to the one who had not the power or the will, they would not both have the accomplishment from the Father in heaven of Jesus Christ, of anything whatever that they might ask.