Page:Marriage Its Origin, Uses, and Duties.pdf/8

 so long triumphantly maintained, the opinion that, in a religious view, a state of celibacy is to be preferred to a state of wedlock, as being more chaste and spiritual, and therefore more agreeable to the mind of God, and more conducive to the salvation of man. This opinion is now indeed justly repudiated by a large portion of the Christian Church. But its root is far from being destroyed even in Protestant Christendom, where it is still an almost universally received opinion that marriage is an institution suited only to our grosser nature as inhabitants of the present world, and that the inclination which leads to it is of the flesh rather than of the spirit. Bishop Taylor, in his, in many respects, beautiful sermons upon marriage, remarks that, "of the two states, celibacy is the more pure, marriage the more useful;" which forces upon us the conclusion that in a divine institution purity and utility are at variance. Although, therefore, marriage is allowed to be a religious covenant, it is not believed to be a spiritual and eternal union. And when marriage is held to be only natural and temporary, there is reason to fear that all true spiritual love, from which it derives the whole of its purity and blessedness, is extinguished, and that nothing remains but the heat of the natural affections, which are admissive of no higher ends or purer enjoyments than those of the world and the flesh. It is much to be feared that, with, we trust, many honourable exceptions, the state of marriage in general is lamentably depreciated in its character and results.