spect to this world and its laws, and religious as it respects heaven and a future state. The happiness of the married state, chiefly, if not solely, arises from two similarly constituted minds feeling a warm mutual love each for the other, and thus tending to such a union as that described in Scripture by the twain becoming one flesh (Matt. xix. 5), and by the two that God joins together. Marriage is, therefore, altogether distinct from worldly or mercenary considerations, it being the union of two, and only two, similarly constituted minds; for although a tender regard may be felt for all, yet it is impossible to love but one. The union between husband and wife is so pure and holy, that it excludes entirely a third person; it only exists with one man and one woman—the twain are one flesh. Hence the apostle takes a true marriage as a just representation of the mystical union or marriage of Christ with his church. (Eph. v. 29.) This holy union of Christ with his church, is heaven, because from it flow the purest pleasures. It is on this ground that heaven is, in Scripture, compared to a marriage; and that the first miracle the Saviour wrought was at a marriage in Cana of Galilee, where water was turned into wine. (John ii. 1-11.)
The term marriage conveys much more to the reflecting of our race than to the unreflecting; the one views it as a divine, the other but as a human, institution. Marriage is grounded in the eternal law of creation; for man, created in the image and likeness of God, is possessed of two faculties—will and understanding—the one the seat of love, the other of truth. Into these the life of love and wisdom from God, called in Scripture the breath of Lives, breathed
