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Show CELESTIAL MAEEIAGE. 277 concubines, which he had, from whom he raised up many sons. Here, then, was a foundation laid for the fulfillment of the great and grand promise concerning the multiplicity of his seed. It would have been rather a slow process, if Abraham had been confined to one wife, like some of those narrow, contracted nations of modern Christianity. I think there is only about one-fifth of the population of the globe, that believe in the one-wife system; the other four-fifths believe in the doctrine of a plurality of wives. They have had it handed down from time immemorial, and are not half so narrow and contracted in their minds as some of the nations of Europe and America, who have done away with the promises, and deprived themselves of the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The nations do not know anything about the blessings of Abraham; and even those who have only one wife, cannot get rid of their covetousness, and get their little hearts large enough to share their property with a numerous family ; they are so penurio"us, and so narrow and contracted in their feelings, that they take every possible care not to have their families large; they do not know what is in the future, nor what blessings they are depriving themselves of, because of the traditions of their fathers; they do not know that a man's posterity, in the eternal worlds, are to constitute his glory, his kingdom, and dominion. Here, then, we perceive, just from this one principle, reasoning from the blessings of Abraham alone, the necessity-if we would partake of the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-of doing their works; and he that will not do the works of Abraham, and walk in his footsteps, will be deprived of his blessings. |