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 the means of rendering respectable the grossest lusts; that there is no Christian difference between lust _within_ and lust _without_ the forms of wedlock; that the individual who looks upon another with a lustful desire, when tried by the standard of Jesus, is an adulterer, whether sustaining the external marital relation or not. In speaking of the _abuses_ of this institution, I would not have them abate their zeal by ceasing to proclaim its infidelity to that inward purity of soul so essential to the true Christian union; but I would have them make a very different use of the fact. The use which many, and perhaps most of those who oppose the external institution of marriage make of its lustful abuses, is rather to palliate the conduct of those who are lustful outside of its license, by showing that, at heart, they do not differ from those who indulge in the same lustful desires and exercises _under_ its licentious permission; thus very naturally taking license, and, when censured by others, pleading the respectable guilt of others as their excuse. In speaking of the abuses of the marriage institution, I would not plead them in mitigation of lust; nor would I make them the occasion of license. I would refer to them for the purpose of condemning more strongly the foul practice of seeking gratification in that direction.