Page:The astral world, higher occult powers; (IA astralworldhighe00tiff).pdf/217

 are under the law, and must be continued under "tutors and governors."

External institutions, then, belong to the first dispensation, and will continue to be necessary so long as man continues to live under the dominion of his selfishness and lusts. When he shall be redeemed from such nature in himself, he will be redeemed from bondage to external institutions, and he can not properly be before. The evil, then, is not in the institution, but in that condition of the individual and society which makes the institution necessary; and the remedy is not in destroying the institution, but in elevating man, and thereby dispensing with its need; and until that is done, the law and the prophets must continue.

This brings me directly to the institution of Marriage, respecting which so much has been said of late. Like all other institutions, it belongs to the external and Mosaic, and looks to the external relations of the parties. Its necessity is based upon the same selfish and lustful principle in man, as is the necessity of all other external institutions.

Its office is protection, not purification. Hence all its laws look to legal security, but do not attempt to elevate and purify the affections. Those who have written and spoken against the external marriage institution have acted very unphilosophically in supposing that the fault of which they complain was in the institution and not in themselves. I will endeavor to make this apparent.

In the first place, I will do them the justice to say, that the external institution is in character but little, if any, better than they affirm of it; that it is made