Some persons have supposed, (we hardly know upon what grounds,) that in the approaching and perfected period of the church, which is conveniently denominated the millennial period the family institution, admitted by these persons to be necessary until that time, will then be dispensed with. If this view were correct, it would be of but little importance to contend against those erroneous efforts for the immediate reorganization of society, to which we have just now referred.
Perhaps the idea of the millennial extinction of the family has arisen from the imperfections, the sorrows and the sins, which now attend it. But, it is hardly necessary to say, it is unsound reasoning, which condemns a good thing, especially if it be a great good, on account of the perversions to which it is sometimes liable. Undoubtedly the imperfections and perversions, with which the family is now surrounded, are all destined to cease in that better period; — but it seems to us, that nature, reason, and the Scriptures, all point to the conclusion, that the thing itself, the substance of the institution, will remain. Any other view would, of course, deprive the mind of a center of love and of spiritual rest in its appropriate sphere of life; and leave it under the necessity of wandering from object to object gratifying momentary impulses, of seeking rest and finding none. Such a view presents to us a state of things made worse, instead of being improved; — a reduction from a higher and holier state to one less perfect; — in other words, a millennium
retrograde.
We admit that sin has obscured the ideal of the family, as it existed and as it still exists in the mind of God. We know, very well, that the family does not now present its true aspect. But if it is true that the divine beauty of the original conception is greatly marred, it is also true that its brightness will be restored with the extinction of the sin which has obscured it.
— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 6.
