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Marriage is honourable in all: the next duty charged on the subjects of Christ’s kingdom, is chastity; the commendation of it is a precept to it. Marriage is that state which God instituted at the beginning, after the creation of Adam and Eve, which was by his law the making of them two to become one flesh, Gen_2:24; confirmed by Christ, Mat_19:5. On this state God, the fountain of all honour, hath stamped his own name and excellence, and hath made it, by an irreversible law, a glorious and honourable state. The connection is present, real, and necessary; God saith it, therefore it is so, and must be so; and this after God’s institution in all its concomitants every where, and in all times; but especially in all persons in the kingdom of Christ, true Christians of all sorts and degrees, of what state or calling soever, qualified for and called to it, whether magistrates, ministers, or church members; God by it preventing sin, preserving holy and pure communion between the married, propagating his church, and accomplishing the number of his chosen by it, Psa_111:3 Mal_2:15 1Co_7:9 1Th_4:3,4 1Pe_3:1,7.
And the bed undefiled; a good, moral use of the marriage bed, the natural and lawful use of the wife by the husband, and of the husband by the wife, according to the law of God; which is so far from being unclean, filthy, and inconsistent with the purity of Christ, as papists, apostates from the faith, assert, 1Ti_4:1-4, that it is holy, pure, and chaste in itself, and a most excellent means of preserving chastity among the subjects of Christ’s kingdom, 1Th_4:4 Tit_2:5 1Pe_3:2; by this they are kept in their bodies from being polluted or dishonoured by fornication or adultery. Marriage is thus honourable in all husbands and wives, of what degree or order soever, whilst they are such; and must be undefiled in all, because their bodies are the members of Christ, and temples of the Holy Ghost, 1Co_6:15,17-20.
But whoremongers and adulterers God will judge; but God hates unclean societies of all men and women, but especially of Christians; and as he will certainly judge, and inflict eternal punishment upon, all kind of unclean persons, so especially upon whoremongers and adulterers who profess themselves subjects of Christ’s pure kingdom, 2Pe_2:6 Jud_1:4,7 Re 2:21.