Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/293

 are only nuptial connections (connubia) which are tied and parted." (C. L. n. 192.)

Now it was simply of these connubia that the Sadducees were thinking, when they propounded to our Lord the question about the woman that had been married or tied to seven brethren. And the answer He gave them was the answer to the thought in their understanding; and it was the truth. It was as if He had said: "That of which you are thinking is not marriage, but only an external or nuptial connection. And as this is what you think is marriage, it is therefore what you inquire about. And in reply, I tell you there are no such marriages in the great Hereafter. Then and there, or in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, according to your idea of this relation; but are as the angels of God in heaven—constitutionally and organically adapted each to the other, as parts of one and the same whole."'

The Lord's reply to the Sadducees, therefore, considered as an answer to the thought in their minds, was true even in its literal sense. But his words all have a meaning deeper than that of the letter. "The words that I speak unto you," He says, "are spirit and are life." (John vi. 63.)

A slight examination of the passage in Matthew, together with the context, will show us that reference is here had more especially to spiritual marriage, or the union of good and truth in human minds, and the consequent conjunction of such minds with the Lord. This is the spiritual or heavenly meaning of marriage, and the meaning which those attach to the term when it oc-