The people before the flood, and also the Sodomites and Canaanites, had carried these corruptions and degeneracies so far, that G.o.d, in mercy, destroyed them, and thus put an end to the procreation of races so degenerate and abominable; while Noah, Abraham, Melchesidech, and others, who were taught in the true laws of procreation, "_were perfect in their generation_," and trained their children in the same laws.
The overthrow of those ancient degenerate races is a type of that which now awaits the nations called "_Christian_," or in other words, _The great wh.o.r.e of all the earth, for her sins have reached unto heaven, and G.o.d hath remembered her iniquities_.
Where is the nation called "_Christian_," that does not uphold or permit prost.i.tution, fornication and adultery with all their debasing, demoralizing, degenerating and corroding effects, with all their tendencies to disease and crime, to operate unchecked, and to leaven and corrode all cla.s.ses of society?
Where is the "_Christian nation_" that does not prohibit the law of G.o.d, as given to Abraham and the ancients in relation to marriage?
Where is the "_Christian nation_" that punishes the crime of adultery and fornication with death, or other heavy penalties?
Where are the inst.i.tutions which prohibit the marriage of all persons disqualified by nature, or by vicious habits and practices, to answer the ends of an inst.i.tution so holy and pure?
Where are the inst.i.tutions which would protect, encourage, and honour the patriarch Jacob, with his four wives and their children?
Where is the community who would feel themselves honoured in a.s.sociating with such a family--although, all corrupt practices would be frowned down, and all persons discountenanced, who, under the name of gentility, n.o.bility, or royalty, glory in their conquests and victories over the principles and practices of virtue and innocence?
Echo answers, Where?--unless we look to the far off mountains and distant vales of Deseret, a land peopled by the Latter-day Saints, and governed by the law of G.o.d, the keys of the eternal Priesthood, and organized in the New and Everlasting Covenant.
Amid these eternal mountains shall be reared the holy temple of our G.o.d, and all nations shall flow unto it, in order to be taught in His ways, and to walk in His paths, for out of Zion has gone forth the law, as predicted by the Prophet Isaiah.[A]
[Footnote A: See the law of G.o.d on Marriage, revealed for the government of the Saints. First published at Great Salt City, Deseret, 1852.]
By this law those distant communities live. There the patriarch of a hundred children is had in reverence and honour. His virtuous and honourable wives are considered as mothers in Israel, the daughters of Abraham and Sarah, and worthy to be numbered with the holy women of old. And there the daughters of Israel are not prost.i.tuted with impunity. There, the crimes of adultery and fornication are seldom mentioned, or known to exist. There, no virtuous female is doomed by law, or custom, to drag out a useless life in the loneliness of the cloister; the monotonous and sinful pleasures of the Harem; the haunts of vice and crime; or in the lonely and heartrending gloom and solitude of a single life.
There, in the holy chambers of the sanctuary, are revealed and ministered those sacred ordinances, covenants, and sealings, which lay the foundation of kindred sympathies, a.s.sociations, and family ties, indissoluble and eternal. Ties which are stronger than death, more durable than the ramparts of their snow-clad mountains, and which will never be dissolved--
"While life, or thought, or being lasts; Or immortality endures."
The restoration of these pure laws and practices has commenced to improve or regenerate a race. A holy and temperate life; pure morals and manners; faith, hope, charity; cheerfulness, gentleness, integrity; intellectual development, pure truth, and knowledge; and above all, the operations of the Divine Spirit, will produce a race more beautiful in form and features, stronger, and more vigorous in const.i.tution, happier in temperament and disposition, more intellectual, less vicious, and better prepared for long life and good days in their mortal sojourn.
Each succeeding generation, governed by the same principles, will still improve, till male and female may live and multiply for a hundred years upon the earth---
"And after death in distant spheres, The union still renew."
The eternal union of the s.e.xes, in and after the resurrection, is mainly for the purpose of renewing and continuing the work of procreation. In our present or rudimental state, our offspring are in our own image, and partake of our natures, in which are the seeds of death. In like manner, will the offspring of immortal and celestial beings, be in the likeness and partake of the nature of their divine parentage. Hence, such offspring will be pure, holy, incorruptible and eternal. They will in no wise be subject unto death, except by descending to partake of the grosser elements, in which are the inherent properties of dissolution or death.
To descend thus, and to be made subject to sorrow, pain and death, is the only road to the resurrection, and to the higher degrees of immortality and eternal life. It is by contrast that intelligences appreciate and enjoy. How shall the sweet be known without the bitter?
How shall joy be appreciated without sorrow? Or, how shall life be valued, or its eternal duration appreciated without a contact with its mortal antagonist--death?
Hence, the highest degrees of eternal felicity are approached by the straight gate, and the narrow path which leads through the dark valley of death, to eternal mansions in the realms of endless life. This path has been trodden by the eternal Father, by His son Jesus Christ,--and by all the sons and daughters of G.o.d, who are exalted to a fulness of joys celestial.
As has been before remarked, the union of the s.e.xes, in the eternal world, in the holy covenant of celestial matrimony, is peculiar to the ordinances and ministrations of the Apostleship, or Priesthood after the order of the Son of G.o.d, or after the order of Melchisedec. The Aaronic Priesthood, or the inst.i.tutions peculiar to the law of Moses, seemed to have recognized no such ordinances or eternal covenants, hence, the Jewish ordinances of matrimony come to end by death.
Nor did the sects of the Pharisees, Sadducees, or others of that nation, conceive of anything more lasting than this life, in the covenants of matrimony. Hence, the Son of G.o.d, in answer to the Sadducees, referred to the order of the angels, in the resurrection, instead of the order of the G.o.ds.
But, the Apostles, holding the keys of the eternal mysteries of G.o.d"s kingdom, to seal both on earth and in heaven, understood and testified, that, "The man is not without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord."
All persons who attain to the resurrection, and to salvation, without these eternal ordinances, or sealing covenants, will remain in a _single state_, in their saved condition, to all eternity, without the joys of eternal union with the other s.e.x, and consequently without a crown, without a kingdom, without the power to increase.
Hence, they are angels, and are not G.o.ds; and are ministering spirits, or servants, in the employ and under the direction of THE ROYAL FAMILY OF HEAVEN--THE PRINCES, KINGS, AND PRIESTS OF ETERNITY.