ELEVENTH LEAF.

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.