Celestial marriage

“ Because they have no fear of God before their eyes; because they have apostatized from the truth; because they have taken it upon themselves to destroy the revelations of the Most High, and to banish them from the face of the earth, and the Spirit of God withdraws from them. We have come here to these mountains, and have continued to practice the principle of Celestial Marriage from the day the revelation was given until the present time ”

“ And again, there are many widows, whose husbands die without embracing the gospel; these widows may never have the offer of marriage by single men. Shall they be left unprovided for in the eternal covenant of marriage? Would it not be a blessing for them to be placed at the head of a numerous offspring, by whom they would eternally be respected and reverenced in connection with their husbands? What faithful, virtuous woman would not prefer to stand as the sixth or seventh wife of a good and faithful man, rather than to have no husband at all throughout the endless ages of eternity? ”

“ It hardly seems necessary to attempt an explanation of the so-called Celestial marriages, or marriages for eternity, as distinguished from marriages made simply for life, and which have been the subject of much ridicule because of the peculiar situation that arises when the two relations are held successively by two different husbands. ”

“ After divers washings and anointings and rubbings, the acting of an historic drama, the taking of oaths and grips, and the giving of a new name, celestial wisdom and joy are supposed to descend and forever rest upon the favored soul. Secret marriage rites, which seal husband and wife for time and eternity, form part of the ceremony. ”

“ Point out to us a husband and wife that God has joined together, from the second century of the Christian era until the nineteenth, if any can. Such a phenomenon cannot be found among Christians or Jews, Mahometans or Pagans. All are without prophets or inspired men—all are without divine authority: none have had power to seal on earth the marriage covenant, that it might be sealed in heaven ”

“ The angels of the terrestrial and telestial orders, while possessing a degree of happiness and glory, are lower than those of the celestial order. We might inquire, have angels not also these affections which belong to the higher class of beings, inasmuch as they are resurrected beings? Yes, but herein they have lost, through disobedience, the privilege of attaining to the higher glory and exaltation. They have affections and desires that never can be gratified, and in this respect their glory is not full. ”

“ In the Revelation on Marriage, we are informed that there is never but one man on the earth at the same time who holds the keys to minister the ceremony of marriage fro time and for all eternity, and to seal the same on earth with authority, so that it may be acknowledged and sealed in heaven. ”

“ Because they have not proved themselves worthy of this great privilege. We might reason, of the eternal worlds, as some of the enemies of polygamy may reason of this state of existence, and say that there are just as many males as females there, some celestial, some terrestrial, and some telestial; and why not have all these paired off, two by two? Because God administers His gifts and His blessings to those who are most faithful, giving them more bountifully to the faithful, and taking away from the unfaithful that with which they had been entrusted, and which they had not improved upon. ”

“ Such seek new companions, and this is permitted without discredit to the individuals.
Many forms of marriage ceremonies are extant in the different societies and countries. Garlands of flowers and symphonies of divine music are bestowed upon the bride and groom. Bright bands of spirits from the celestial heavens attend them, for they represent in their love and in their wedded joy the harmonies of nature!
While they love, sin, sorrow, darkness, and all evils shrink from sight.
From these spiritual marriages are born soul attributes. Human beings are never generated in the second condition ”

“ It is impossible that this sacred and fatal festival should not give off a celestial radiance to the infinite. Love is the sublime crucible wherein the fusion of the man and the woman takes place; the being one, the being triple, the being final, the human trinity proceeds from it. This birth of two souls into one, ought to be an emotion for the gloom. The lover is the priest; the ravished virgin is terrified. Something of that joy ascends to God. Where true marriage is, that is to say, where there is love, the ideal enters in. A nuptial bed makes a nook of dawn amid the shadows. ”

“ We read in the revelations of God that there are various classes of beings in the eternal worlds. There are some who are kings, priests, and Gods, others that are angels; and also among them are the orders denominated celestial, terrestrial, and telestial. God, however, according to the faith of the Latter-day Saints, has ordained that the highest order and class of beings that should exist in the eternal worlds should exist in the capacity of husbands and wives, and that they alone should have the privilege of propagating their species—intelligent immortal beings. ”

“ Marriages which come about in any other manner whatsoever must be judged by looking to Venus, Mars, and Saturn. For if they are with the luminaries in familiarity, we must decide that the marriages also will be domestic and the relationship lawful. For the marriage relationship will follow the relation which Venus holds to each of the planets mentioned, toward Mars, that of persons of the same age, since they have their exaltations in signs that are in trine to one another; toward Saturn, that of the older person, since again they have their houses in signs which are in trine to each other. ”

“ Why is it that the hearts of married partners often grow cold and colder towards each other as the years roll by? Why does married life with many, at first so sweet and joyous, after a while prove to be so dull, insipid, almost wearisome? The reason is obvious. They do not understand or do not accept the heavenly doctrine concerning marriage, nor do they know the heavenly nature of conjugial love. ”

“ Wherefore, what greater absurdity can be affirmed or believed than that the position of the stars, which was the same for both of them at the time of conception, could not cause that the one child should not have been of a different sex from her brother, with whom she had a common constellation, whilst the position of the stars which existed at the hour of their birth could cause that she should be separated from him by the great distance between marriage and holy virginity? ”

“ The nature of the planet to which the luminary forms its aspect after birth ought also to be considered, for if it be that the luminary applies by a good aspect to a benefic planet, or to one that is well-placed and aspected, then there will be considerable happiness and fortune in marriage. On the other hand, if both the aspect and the planet be evil—as if the Moon were applying to the [Pg 77] opposition of Saturn or Uranus or Mars—then the fate in marriage will be extremely unhappy and disagreements will be frequent and even permanent. ”

“ Some day, darling, we will protect others. There is lots of work to do in our Master’s vineyard. We will love to work together; all angels do. In Heaven and all other stars where true soul-mates are united in holy marriage, they are called angels. In Mars we almost always see the two together. Sweetheart, our souls were living and shining in space together for centuries. All others are the same. God loves us more than we love Him. Our souls are very dear and can never, never be lost—that is an impossibility. ”

“ The married couple who intend to love each other during their whole life have no notion of a honeymoon; for them it has no existence, or rather its existence is perennial; they are like the immortals who do not understand death. But the consideration of this happiness is not germane to our book; and for our readers marriage is under the influence of two moons, the honeymoon and the Red-moon. This last terminates its course by a revolution, which changes it to a crescent; and when once it rises upon a home its light there is eternal. ”

“ We see that marriages in heaven result necessarily from the nature, constitution and wants of the soul, and from the obvious fact that each one preserves his own identity in the Hereafter, and takes with him into the other world all that appertains to his immortal part—all his dominant thoughts, inclinations, dispositions and feelings. For marriage is a necessity of our human nature in its highest and most perfect state. It is one of the deepest wants both of man and woman—one that is woven, as it were, into the very fibres of our spiritual as well as natural being. ”

“ Now if it had been possible for them to have resisted that temptation, they would have been living now, just as fresh, and as full of vigor, life and animation, after six thousand years, as they were on the morning in which this ceremony of marriage took place; and if you should reflect upon millions and millions of ages in the future, they would still be considered husband and wife, while eternity should last. ”

“ You will remember that you never got into the celestial kingdom without the aid of your husband. If you did, it was because your husband was away, and some one had to act proxy for him. No woman will get into the celestial kingdom, except her husband receives her, if she is worthy to have a husband ”

“ Let married partners here on earth accept and adopt these heavenly views of marriage, let them be ever mindful of its spiritual design and uses, and never forget or turn away from Him who is the source of all love truly conjugial, and they will experience, in the internal wedding of their souls, a bliss which the world can neither give nor take away. And the pains, disappointments, bereavements, and manifold ills of life, instead of weakening their attachment, will serve to bind their hearts more closely together, and to augment instead of lessening the sweet comfort of love. ”

“ A scornful smile played round my lady's lips.
"I see a ring," she said, "but not a wedding-ring. There can be no wedding-ring where there is no marriage."
"Do you believe that marriages are known in Heaven?" Leone asked. "Do you believe that if a marriage had been contracted in the presence of Heaven, witnessed by the angels, do you suppose that a mere legal quibble can set it aside?" ”

“ Should Venus [Pg 127] and Saturn be found in signs common to each other, that is to say, in Capricorn and Libra, [242] marriage will be contracted between persons kindred by blood: and, when the said position may happen in the ascendant, or in the mid-heaven, provided the Moon also should present herself there, men will become connected with their mothers, or maternal aunts, or with their mothers-in-law; and women with their own sons, or the sons of their brothers, or with their daughters’ husbands. ”

“ In men's nativities the Moon must be chiefly considered in regard to marriage. Should she be in her first or third quarter at birth, the man will marry under thirty, or if older his wife will be a very young woman.
If the Moon be configurated with Saturn, she entirely denies marriage. If she should be in a sign of single form, such as Libra or Taurus, the native will marry only once, but if she should be placed in a double-bodied sign, such as Pisces or Sagittarius, the man will marry more than once. ”

“ Marriage in the heavens being the conjunction of two minds into one, can exist only between one man and one woman. And so completely are their souls wedded, that their thoughts and affections never wander from each other. The husband never thinks of any female but his own wife with other feelings than those of charity and mutual love. ”

“ No wonder that we read such things of human beings, when heathen error also invented the virgin goddesses Minerva and Diana, and placed the Virgin among the twelve signs of the Zodiac, by means of which, as they suppose, the world revolves. It is a proof of the little esteem in which they held marriage that they did not even among the scorpions, centaurs, crabs, fishes, and capricorn, thrust in a husband and wife. ”

“ But if Mars also is present the marriage will be unstable, harmful and full of jealousy. And if she is in the same aspect to them, she brings about marriages with equals in age; but if she is further to the east than they, marriages with younger men or women, and if she is further to the west, with older women or men. ”

“ Leaving the marriage service, her thoughts brooded in a radiant stillness on the life of love which would begin for her on the day of her wedding. A strange light—the light that quivered like a golden wing over the autumn fields—shone, also, into the secret chambers of her soul, and illumined the things which had appeared merely dull and commonplace until to-day. Those innumerable little cares which fill the lives of most women were steeped in the magic glow of this miraculous charm. ”

“ Men’s aspirations for communion with their gods could find no final satisfaction save in marriage. To the few, we may suppose—men of refined and reflective mind, capable of imagining spiritual joys—this marriage of men and gods was but a mystic, figurative expression for the union of man’s soul with the soul of God, a thought as chastened and innocent of all sensuous connotation as the thought of many a woman who in a later era, withdrawn from the world, has comforted her loneliness with the hope of being the bride of Christ. ”

“ And beholding in many souls the traits of the divine beauty, and separating in each soul that which is divine from the taint which it has contracted in the world, the lover ascends to the highest beauty, to the love and knowledge of the Divinity, by steps on this ladder of created souls."
And this all means that when the thought of the sex-relation constitutes in the mind of either the idea of marriage, then the wedding ceremony will be supposed to remove all restrictions, and the only limit of gratification will be the limit of desire. ”