CELESTIAL MARRIAGE.
(Continued from page 16.)
The first great commandment which God gave unto mankind, as recorded in the Scriptures, was, to “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” (Gen. i., 28.) The principal object was to people this creation with myriads of intelligent, moral beings, after His own image and likeness, endowed with God-like capacities, and capable of progressing in the grand scale of knowledge and happiness, until they should receive a fulness, and become like God, and be glorified in Him, and He in them, that they might be one in glory, and in power, and in dominion. Herein is God glorified, because there are millions of beings who eventually become like Himself, with whom He can associate, and who are capable of understanding and appreciating all the fullness of His glorious attributes, and of acting with Him in the most perfect harmony, in all the magnificent works of Creation. Herein are the dominions of the Almighty enlarged, by the accession of new worlds, people with being in His own form and of His own order. And herein joy, and gladness, and happiness, reign in the bosom of the great Creator, in all their fullness and perfection, because He exercises His infinite goodness in the formation of numberless worlds, people with beings upon whom, if obedient, He bestows all the fullness of His own great perfections.
If, then the multiplication of human beings add to the dominions of the Almighty, glorifies His name, and gives Him an opportunity of displaying His infinite goodness, it is reasonable to suppose that He would give laws unto mankind, regulating them upon so important a subject—a subject fraught with consequences that are eternal. Think, for one moment, of the great responsibilities resting upon the father and mother of an infant child: they have been instruments in giving existence to a being capable of eternal happiness or of eternal misery;they have been entrusted with the protection and instruction of a being in the image and likeness of God, who, by proper training, may soar aloft in wisdom, and knowledge, and power, and God-like majesty, to the realms of immortality and everlasting light: they have been entrusted with a treasure infinitely more valuable than all the riches and honours of this world—a treasure which, by their mismanagement, may be lost—eternally lost—a treasure for which they are accountable in the great judgment of quick and dead. O, how great will be glory and happiness of that man and woman who have obeyed that great first commandment to “Multiply,” and have trained up themselves and their children unto life and immortality! On the other hand, what wretchedness and misery, will be inflicted upon those who have been instruments of unlawful connections, whose illegitimate children will remain as a standing curse, both in time and in eternity, to testify loudly of the unvirtuous associations of their guilty parents! O, how fearful the responsibilities resting upon mankind in regard to this momentous subject!
It is because of the infinitely important consequences involved in the multiplication of the human species, that God has regulated the same by the strictest kind of laws. He has not permitted an indiscriminate intercourse between the sexes, as among the dumb brutes; but He has ordained Marriage as the only justifiable means through which the sexes can legally “multiply and replenish the earth.” All connections out of the marriage covenant, are unlawful in the sight of God; and all who are guilty of such crimes will be severely punished for the same. In ancient times, persons committing adulteries, fornications, and unvirtuous connections, were punished with death, according to the law of God, which reads as follows:— “If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel. If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour’s wife: so shalt thou put away evil from among you. But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die.” (Deuteronomy, xxii., 22, 25.)