It is not to be denied that marriage hath its proper inconveniences.
There are peculiar cares and hindrances belonging to it. For the new relations that are acquired by it, as those of husband and wife, father and mother, master and mistress, are attended with peculiar crosses and troubles. But then it is to be considered that there is no condition of life whatsoever without inconveniences, and particularly celibacy is a great trouble of itself; it is comfortless and unarmed, exposed to hazards, and beset with dangerous temptations. But the state of wedlock, if it be wisely entered into, hath a natural tendency to a happy way of living, as it is conducing to order and government, to industry and diligence, to frugality, to stability, and to a care for futurity. It is best for the good of mankind, for the uses of human life, for the interest of the universe, and the welfare of Christian societies. But there have been always some in the world that have remonstrated against this state of life, and these are of two sorts--the religious and the witty; that is, those who would be thought to be such. Saturnius, a professed gnostic, held that marriage was of the devil, as Iremeus relates, and most of that sect cried it down as a cursed and diabolical thing. The Marcionites, the Montanists, and the Manicheans declared it to be unlawful. The Hierachites held that marriage excluded from heaven, and they admitted none but single persons into their communion. But here by the way we are to note, that the gnostics and some others, who were very fierce against marrying, practised promiscuous lust. It is an honour then to this state that it is doomed by such. Some make use of the Holy Scripture to patronise this cause; and the chief place which they allege is 1Co_7:1. We are to know, then, that when the apostle lived the times were perilous, and persecution was the allotment of the faithful Christians; and therefore that was an unfit season for embracing a conjugal life. We see then that the authority of the apostle is made use of to no purpose, because it is wholly misunderstood. Of which we cannot but be convinced, when we find in this very chapter a positive license given to the Christians to change their condition, if they saw occasion for it, and were willing to venture on the dangers which attended matrimony. “But if thou marry,” saith he, “thou hast not sinned” (verse 28). There is no absolute unlawfulness in doing so. And he condemned those heretics that taught otherwise, forbidding to marry (1Ti_4:3). But the witty people are another sort of men, that affect to rally upon marriage; and that they may have a full shock at it, they except against the other sex itself.
The Jewish Rabbins think themselves great wits in jeering the sex for their restless tongues and false tears, as we frequently find in their writings. Nay, they are so virulent as to publish to the world, that the honestest woman on earth is a witch, and given to enchantment and sorcery. The Arabians vote all married persons to be fools in that proverb of theirs, “If all men were wise” (that is, if they would abstain from marriage) “the world would soon be at an end.” Even some men of gravity cannot abstain from inveighing against the sex, as such Cato often said that “if the world was without women, the gods would come down and converse with men; but whilst those are here, these will never visit us.” Yea, Chrysostom, the celebrated father of the Greek Church, the famous pulpit orator, made a sermon in the dispraise of all women, and tells us that matrimony in its own nature is a sin, only by Divine permission it is excusable. In brief, he is reckoned the wittiest man that is most dexterous in defaming of women, though at the same time he defames himself. Whatever prejudiced, fanciful men may suggest, we are sure the apostle is in the right, and utters an incontestible truth, “Marriage is honourable in all.” The married state is not only lawful, but noble, appointed by God, and of Divine institution. It was first ordained in Paradise, in the state of innocency (Gen_2:18). This gives repute and authority to wedlock, and renders it commendable. And it hath been always esteemed as such by those who have a reverence for God’s ordinance. It is observable that our Saviour Himself honoured marriage with His first miracle, gracing the solemnity by turning water into wine. Here I may take notice of the high esteem some nations have had of a married life, and how concerned they were that men should not always be single. Among the Lacedemonians there were actions brought against men for not marrying, and for marrying late; and those that lived unmarried were infamous among that people by the law. There were penalties among the Romans inflicted on those that refused to marry after such a term of years, as Tacitus and the Code testify. Every one is bound to embrace matrimony at twenty-five years of age by the Alcoran. The Tartars think this so good and excellent a thing, that they believe their god Matagai hath a wife and children. And if their sons and daughters die before they are at age, they celebrate a marriage between parties thus deceased, that they may be man and wife in the other world. Though this is very gross indeed, and is a sign they are unacquainted with what our Saviour said, “In heaven they neither marry, nor are given in marriage”; yet it shows what respect and esteem these people have for the state of wedlock, and how congruous it is to the natural reason and sentiments of mankind.
1. Marriage must be with great deliberation. There is no undertaking of man’s life that doth more require freedom of thought and choice than this doth. Plato would have no man marry before thirty, nor Aristotle before thirty-five years of age, designing thereby not peremptorily to confine persons to that computation, but to warn them against a precipitant changing of their state, and to put them in mind of acting very cautiously in this affair. Nor should they only weigh and consider the matter themselves, but apply to their friends, but especially their parents, for their advice and counsel.
2. Marry not merely for money or estate. This is the prevailing fault of men, as well as women, they court the estate rather than the person who hath it; they may be said to wed the lands and money, not the possessor. A wife is put to sale, and marriage is a mere bargain.
3. Let not the man marry the woman merely for beauty, or finery, for feature, for dress, which latter is the body’s artificial beauty.
4. Marry not a woman merely on the account of her wit, learning, or parts. Arts and sciences are not the proper talent of that sex.
5. Though you are not to marry merely for money, beauty, or wit, yet never marry one that is poor, or deformed, or a fool. A single life with indigency may be endured, but that and wedlock together are a double misery. If you be not able with your own estate and way of living to maintain a wife, never take one that hath none. Again, choose not one whose deformity is very conspicuous and remarkable, unless some extraordinary qualities and perfections compound for it, lest you should be tempted afterwards to change the object of your sight, and look upon others as more acceptable. Wherefore make choice of one who hath competent comeliness, or who by modesty mends her countenance, and gives it a beauty by blushes. Mate such a one as we know is mistress of those accomplishments and graces which are not liable to be impaired by any accidents whatsoever, that so we may ever find that in her which deserves our love. Lastly, methinks that there should be no need of advising a man or woman not to marry one that is noted for folly and weakness, for this too plainly shows that they themselves are liable to the same imputation.
6. Above all things make choice of a virtuous person, one that fears God, one whose mind is endued with a deep sense of religion, and whose conversation is regular and upright. All the aforesaid qualifications must give place to this, and without this they are mean and inconsiderable, and of no real value.
7. Next to religion good nature is to be prized most. This contains in it a peaceable and quiet temper, a sweet disposition, an obliging and winning carriage, free from all extravagant passion, wrath, and bitterness. Else a man, in a worse sense than the Duke of Venice, marries the Adriatic, is espoused to waves and storms.
8. Be careful to marry one suitable to you; suitable in age, birth, and humour. Such a one will be truly a meet-help.
9. Be well satisfied of one another’s love, chastity, and faithfulness, and increase and nourish them by all means. A wife, as Sir Thomas Overbury rightly saith, is an abbreviature of all the rest of the sex: to her husband she must be (as Eve was) all the world of womankind.
10. Let it never be known which of them is superior. Always divide and share your power.
11. Begin and proceed in the conjugal state with prayer and great devotion, and all acts of religion and piety. (J. Edwards, D. D.)
Marriage honourable
I. DIVINE INSTITUTION IS SUFFICIENT TO RENDER ANY STATE OR CONDITION OF LIFE HONOURABLE.
II. THE MORE USEFUL ANY STATE OF LIFE IS, THE MORE HONOURABLE IT IS. The honour of marriage arises much from its usefulness.
III. THAT WHICH IS HONOURABLE BY DIVINE INSTITUTION, AND USEFUL IN ITS OWN NATURE, MAY BE ABUSED AND RENDERED VILE BY THE MISCARRIAGES OF MEN; as marriage may be.
IV. IT IS A BOLD USURPATION OF AUTHORITY OVER THE CONSCIENCES OF MEN, AND A CONTEMPT OF THE AUTHORITY OF GOD, TO FORBID THAT STATE UNTO ANY, WHICH GOD HATH DECLARED HONOURABLE AMONG ALL.
V. MEANS FOR PURITY AND CHASTITY, NOT ORDAINED, BLESSED, NOR SANCTIFIED UNTO THAT END, WILL PROVE FURTHERANCES OF IMPURITY AND UNCLEANNESS, OR OF WORSE EVILS.
VI. The state of marriage being honourable in the sight of God Himself, IT IS THE DUTY OF THEM THAT ENTER THEREUNTO DULY TO CONSIDER HOW THEY MAY APPROVE THEIR CONSCIENCES UNTO GOD IN WHAT THEY DO.
VII. IN THE STATE OF MARRIAGE THERE IS REQUIRED OF MEN A DUE CONSIDERATION OF THEIR CALL UNTO IT, OF THEIR ENDS IN IT, THAT THEY ARE THOSE OF GOD’S APPOINTMENT; prayer for, and expectation of His blessing on it; reverence of Him as the great witness of the marriage covenant; with wisdom to undergo the trials and temptations inseparable from this state of life.
VIII. WHATEVER LIGHT THOUGHTS MEN MAY HAVE OF SIN, OF ANY SIN, THE JUDGMENT OF GOD CONCERNING ALL SIN, WHICH IS ACCORDING TO TRUTH, MUST STAND FOR EVER. TO have slight thoughts of sin will prove no relief unto sinners.
IX. FORNICATION AND ADULTERY ARE SINS IN THEIR OWN NATURE, DESERVING ETERNAL DAMNATION. If the due wages of all sin be death, much more is it so of so great abomination.
X. ALL OCCASIONS OF, ALL TEMPTATIONS LEADING UNTO THESE SINS, ARE TO BE AVOIDED, AS WE TAKE CARE OF OUR SOULS. (Joliet Owen, D. D.)
Whoremongers and adulterers
Whoremongers and adulterers
I. WHO ARE COMPREHENDED UNDER THIS CHARACTER. Every person will at once perceive that all who live in common fornication, or who defile the marriage-bed, are evidently comprehended in this description. Let those then tremble, and know that this is their true state and name, who, though they disdain the open and more notorious commerce, yet secretly beguile the innocent and unwary, and become the agents of Satan in the ruin of others. Neither let those deceive themselves who, though they may not traverse the ranges of unbounded lust, yet keep up a cursed league with some particular person with whom they live in a state of fornication or adultery; let them not flatter themselves with an idea that this is a small matter, or shelter themselves under the fashion or the opinion of the times; God is not ruled by caprice or fashion, nor does His eternal standard of rectitude and good vary with human desires or modes of action.
II. THE TESTIMONY OF THE WORD OF GOD AGAINST THIS SIN.
1. God has directly and expressly forbidden it in His Divine law. “Thou shalt not commit adultery” is the seventh of those commandments which stand in the sacred decalogue, as the injunctions of God to mankind. And that every avenue to this sin may be stopped, and His holy displeasure against it plainly testified, He has again enforced it by taking a part of it into the tenth commandment: “Thou shalt not so much as covet thy neighbour’s wife.” Nor is this law any matter of Jewish obligation only, but equally incumbent upon us; for our Lord Himself in Mat_5:1-48. enjoins this command in a very peculiar manner, and through the whole of the New Testament it is abundantly charged and enforced (1Co_6:9; 1Th_4:2-8; Eph_4:19-20; Eph_5:3-5).
2. We may learn God’s hatred and displeasure against these sins from the odious and alarming description given of them in the Scriptures. The author of the Book of Proverbs is peculiarly diligent in endeavouring to lay before the thoughtless sinner the snares and delusive temptations which draw men into these evils, as well as the miserable and fatal consequences which attend them. The sixth and seventh chapters are almost entirely taken up with this subject, and part of the second and ninth is employed to the same purpose. Now we must remember that it is the intention of the sacred writers in setting these things thus before us to imprint the same odious image of them on our hearts, that we may know their nature, and flee their practice. Happy if it might but thus succeed!
3. I shall, in the next place, call your attention to the dreadful threatenings which the Word of God denounces against impure sinners. This sin is declared in the Scriptures as the cause of God’s controversy with nations and with individuals (Hos_4:1-3). And Jeremiah (chap. 5.) represents God as ready to give His people up, and to forbid His prophets to reprove them any more. His mercy and forgiveness seem to put, as it were, to a stand. And in 1Co_3:1-23., when the apostle had represented this sin as a defilement of the body, which is the Temple of God, he adds this awful word, “If any man defile the temple of God, him will God destroy, for the temple of God is (or ought to be) holy,” and not made a nest of unclean lusts. St. John, in the Book of the Revelation, declares the doom of whoremongers to be with the rest of notorious sinners, in that lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. How impiously bold then are those sinners who dare all these terrors for the gratification of a base lust! To such as have been entangled with this sin, and have a real desire to be delivered from it (as well as to those who are anxious to secure their modesty and virtue), I would suggest a few considerations.
(1) Seek for a spirit of true and hearty repentance for all the uncleanness of which you have been guilty before God; rest not in a mere wishing you had been more wise, or a dislike of your conduct from prudential maxims; but seek to God to give you true repentance by the grace of His Holy Spirit.
(2) Be ever upon your guard against the first appearance of this evil. Keep at a distance from the tempter. If you would be kept from harm, keep out of harm’s way. And this caution must be observed, not only respecting any particular person, but also the places and other occasions which may tempt you to sin.
(3) Let sinners of this kind think much of death and hell.
(4) Apply daily to the mercy-seat for the Divine aid. In the blood of Christ there is virtue to wash away the foulest guilt; in His grace there is sufficiency of power to subdue the most raging sins. (J. King, B. A.)
