Page:Marriage Its Origin, Uses, and Duties.pdf/28

 whatever. But such a change in the constitution and state of man is in the nature of things impossible. It may be safely affirmed, that no affection which God has implanted in our nature can ever be destroyed. Regeneration and death effect, it is true, important changes in the state and condition of the human being, but neither of them can eradicate a single affection of his nature. Regeneration purifies and regulates all the affections, but destroys none; and death, though it appears to extinguish life, only severs the connection between soul and body, when the soul, which is the real man, enters the eternal world in full possession of all the affections and powers which he ever enjoyed in this life, and therefore capable of all the attachments and relationships which had been formed from them.

But the present question is supposed to have been placed beyond all reasoning, and set entirely at rest by the declaration of the Lord himself, that in heaven they neither marry, nor are given in marriage. A brief examination of this passage may therefore be necessary. The Lord's words are these—"The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage; but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." (Luke, xx., 34-36.) In refuting his adversaries, the Lord, in using their own