1 obviously refers to church fellowship, and not to the marriage relation, as must be obvious to every person, who reads it in its connection. The second of them, where the christian widow is said to be at liberty to marry whom she will, "only in the Lord," does not mean that she must marry a christian man, or remain unmarried; but that, in using her liberty, she ought to act as a person "in the Lord," in a manner becoming a saint: just as when christian children are required to obey their parents, in the Lord, the meaning is, not that they obey their parents if they be Christians, but that they obey their parents as Christians are bound to do. It is quite a conceivable case, that it may be a Christian's duty to marry, where it may be impossible for him to obtain a christian partner; and it is to be recollected, that marriage is a secular, not a religious relation. At the same time, these cases are of very rare occurrence; and generally speaking, the Christian who does not marry a Christian, does not act like a Christian. In all ordinary circumstances, for a Christian to marry a person, with the distinct understanding that that person is not a Christian, or indeed without satisfactory evidence that he or she is a Christian, is equally criminal and unwise. The principles and the histories of Scripture are equally opposed to such connections; and I believe that there are few violations of christian duty that are more frequently, indeed all but uniformly, and severely, punished than this. The consideration which, in some cases, has blinded the eyes of individuals to the impropriety and folly of such conduct; the hope of becoming useful, in the highest sense of the word, to an object of affection, by becoming the means of conversion, is plainly most fallacious. We must not do evil that good may come and it should be remembered, that if there may be conversion on the one side, there may be perversion on the other; and in the whole circumstances of the case, the latter may be the more probable of the two events. The sad result of the marriages of the ante-diluvian sons of God with the daughters of men, is recorded in Scripture, as a beacon, to warn all succeeding generations against such unnatural and unhallowed connections. But a christian woman may, without fault on her part, find herself the wife of an unconverted man. It is a possible thing that she may have been deceived in her estimate of the character of him whom she has chosen for her companion through life; the mask of religion having been assumed to serve a purpose (and sometimes it has so much the appearance of reality, that it is not wonderful that mistakes, sad mistakes, are committed by the inexperienced); or, what is of much more frequent occurrence, and to which, in all probability, the apostle refers, both may have been in a state of unconversion when the marriage relation was formed, but a change in the wife may have taken place subsequently, she, under divine influence, having been led to embrace a vital christianity, while her husband remains destitute of, or opposed to it, "dead in trespasses and in sins;" she becoming a subject of Jesus Christ, while he continues a rebel. What probably would have prevented, what, in ordinary circumstances, ought to have prevented, marriage, does not dissolve it. The christian wife is not 1 1 Cor. vii. 39 warranted to withdraw from her unconverted husband on that ground. She must continue with him, and perform to him all the duties of an affectionate and respectful wife. She must be in subjection to her own husband, probably more in subjection than ever; for her conversion will probably have greatly widened her view of conjugal duty, and deepened her sense of its obligation. The situation referred to is a very trying one, and the apostle proposes a very powerful and encouraging motive to a discharge of its difficult duties. He holds out the hope of the christian wife becoming the means of the salvation of her husband. He supposes a very bad case: he supposes that the husband has not "obeyed the word," that is, "the word of the truth of the gospel;" he has resisted its claims on his attention, faith, and obedience. The christian wife, no doubt, has endeavored to bring him within the reach of the christian preacher's voice it may be, he refused to come; or he came, but departed unimpressed, unbelieving: it may be, scoffing and blaspheming. The christian wife, if she act in character, will use more private means to bring her husband under the influence of the word, by reading the Scriptures and other good books, if she can get him to listen to them; and by wisely and affectionately, with her own living voice, endeavoring to convey to him the saving truth; but all may be in vain, all often has been in vain, apparently worse than in vain; so that all direct attempts to effect a change have to be abandoned, as likely to do mischief rather than good, hardening prejudice, provoking resistance. Still the christian wife must not despair; especially she must not be weary in the well-doing of a conscientious performance of her conjugal duties; and the motive, the all-powerful, the sweetly constraining motive, so full of power over the principles of the Christian, and the affections of the wife, is: and "what knowest thou, O woman, whether thou shalt save thy husband?" Even without the word, which he will not obey, he may be gained by thy chaste conversation, obviously based on and sustained by christian piety. It has been said justly, that "men who are prejudiced observe actions a great deal more than words." The cheerful, affectionate, constant performance of all conjugal duties, especially when it is made quite plain that this is the result of christian principle, is fitted to make impression even on unthinking and insensible men. The difference, for the better, which conversion has made on the relative conduct of the wife, almost necessarily leads the husband's mind to what has produced it, and gives birth to the thought, that cannot be a bad thing which produces such good effects." His prejudices are gradually weakened. By and by, he, it may be voluntarily, commences to talk on a subject on which formerly he had angrily forbidden all conversation, accompanies his wife to the christian assembly, and ultimately listens to, believes, and obeys the word which he had formerly reject ed. 6 "A life of undissembled holiness, and heavenliness, and self-denial, and meekness, and love, and mortification, is a powerful sermon, which, if you be constantly preaching before those who are near you, will hardly miss of a good effect. Works are more palpably significant than words alone.""2 This is the natural tendency of a quiet, 1 Αφωνον ἔργον κρεῖσσον ἀπάκτου λόγου.—ECUMENIUS. Baxter. cheerful, persevering performance of conjugal duty to unconverted husbands; "not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward;" and, by the accompanying blessing of the good Spirit, this has not unfrequently been its blessed effect. There is something very beautiful in the phraseology in which the conversion of the Jewish or heathen husband is described. He is said to be "won." He was lost; lost to true happiness; lost, continuing in his present state, for eternity; but when he is brought to the knowledge of the truth, he is won, gained, gained to himself, gained to the Saviour, "added," as Leighton says, "to His treasury, who thought not his own precious blood too dear to lay out for this gain." The motive here presented to a truly christian woman is certainly a very cogent one. Its force has been finely brought out by a great living preacher: "The salvation of a soul! the salvation of a husband's soul! O seek that you lose not him who is so dear to you, ‘in the valley of the shadow of death.' See that the parting at death be not a final parting. Let your friendship survive the desolations of time, and be renewed to infinite advantage beyond the grave. To the tie that nothing but death can sever, seek to add one which defies even his power to cut asunder. Think, O wife, of the happiness which will result from the success of your endeavors. What pleasure will attend the remainder of your days, now of one heart and of one mind. How sweet will be the counsel you can now take together. How delightful to go to the house of God in company. How enlivening to add the our Father of the family altar to the my Father of the closet, which witnessed your wrestling with God, that he whom you loved might also be led to say my Father. And what will be your joy and crown of rejoicing in that day when, before assembled men and angels, he will say: 'Blessed be the providence which attached us in yonder world, and has still more united us in this. The woman thou gavest me to be with me," led me not to "the tree of knowledge of good and evil;" but to "the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God."" The practical effect which the pressing of this motive should have on the christian wife is excellently expressed by one of the fathers of the church: "Let a prudent woman first of all endeavor to persuade her husband to become a partaker with her in those things which lead to blessedness; but if he prove impracticable, let her still apply with all diligence to a virtuous life, in everything yielding obedience to her husband, and doing nothing contrary to his will, except in such things as are reckoned essential to virtue and salvation. "2 66 § 2. The example of holy women in former ages. The second motive presented by the apostle to christian wives to stimulate and encourage them in the performance of their conjugal duties is, that in doing so they would follow the example of holy women in former ages: "For after this manner, in the old time, the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves. Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters ye are as 1 Jay. 2 Clem. Alex. long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement." There is a natural tendency in the human mind to regard with veneration the characters of those distinguished for sanctity who lived in distant ages; and it is an additional recommendation to any course of conduct urged on us, that it was followed by those to whom we have been accustomed to look up as models. The good women whose names are recorded in the book of God, such as Sarah and Hannah, were with the pious Hebrews objects of affectionate admiration. They deserve to be so. Their sanctity and purity of manners, for they were "holy," joined to their piety, for they "trusted in God," made them objects of the love, and fit models for the imitation, of their descendants. They were in "subjection to their own husbands," and had a "chaste conversation, coupled with fear." They adorned less the seen man of the body than the hidden man of the heart; and their ornaments were not so much golden jewels or costly apparel, as the meek and humble spirit, which is, in the sight of God, of great price. No one who is not thus characterized can share the honor which belongs to these illustrious females. Every one who is thus characterized does share their honor. However inferior in her talents, however obscure in her situation, however poor in her circumstances; every such woman, every such wife, is recognized as a daughter of Sarah, a sister of Hannah, and the other holy women who "built the house of Jacob, and did worthily in the families of Israel." Sarah is particularly noticed as having obeyed Abraham, and as having shown her respect for him, by calling him lord. The particular instances in which Sarah obeyed Abraham, are not distinctly specified by the apostle. It has been supposed that the reference may be to her obeying Abraham's voice, when he obeyed Jehovah in leaving the land of their nativity, where they had many relations and probably abundant possessions, to go forth into a land of which they knew no more than that Jehovah should afterwards tell them of it; and to her yielding up Isaac, her only son, the son of the promise, the son of her old age, to the disposal of his father, when he received the strange command to take him and offer him up for a burnt-offering. If in these two trying cases Sarah did yield a ready obedience to her husband's expressed will, she well deserves to be represented as a model to wives in succeeding ages. The reference, however, does not seem so much to particular instances as to the habit of obedience. Indeed, in one instance at least, she seems to have carried her disposition to obey her husband to an extreme; for when he instructed her to equivocate in Egypt, and represent herself as his sister, she would have done well respectfully to have replied, "I must obey God rather than my husband." Her exemplary character as a wife was manifested also in the manner in which she was accustomed to address her husband; she called him lord. Though of the same rank with her husband, a member of the same family, and distinguished by peculiar honors as the mother of the son of the promise, she never thought herself above the humblest duties of her station, but habitually reverenced her husband. 1. Ruth iv. 11. It deserves notice as a proof how ready God is to approve of, and to testify approbation of, what is good in the conduct of his people, that the speech of which this compellation was a part, was in substance an expression of unbelief respecting the promise of God, for which at the time she was severely reprimanded; yet here, after the lapse of so many ages, she is spoken honorably of, for the only good thing in that unhappy speech, a becoming expression of respectful regard for her husband. How readily does God pardon the sins of the upright in heart! And how highly does he estimate, how graciously does he accept, their poorest services! He does "not forget" them.1 Sarah was highly honored among the pious Jews as the wife of Abraham, the father of the faithful and the mother of Isaac, the son of the promise. A daughter of Sarah was to the Jewish women an appellation of similar desirableness and dignity, as to a Jewish man, a son of Abraham. All truly christian women were daughters of Sarah, as all truly christian men were sons of Abraham: "Children, according to the promise; not of the bondwoman, but of the free." There is more true honor connected with this spiritual lineage than springs from deriving our birth "From loins enthron'd, or sovereigns of the earth.”3 66 Now this honor belongs to all christian wives "so long as they do well." While they discharge the duties of their station from proper motives, and in a proper manner, they will be reckoned the heirs of her faith, sharers in her honors; they will be blessed with obedient Sarah and faithful Abraham. The apostle's declaration goes on the same principle as our Lord's, "If ye were the children of Abraham, would do the works of Abraham." 4 ye Doing the works of Sarah, ye prove yourselves to be her daughters.' The apostle adds, And are not afraid with any amazement." There is some difficulty in fixing the precise meaning and reference of these words. I will state to you in a very few words what I consider as the most probable interpretation that has been given them. The best principles may be carried to extremes. The duties we owe to superiors are not likely to be performed with propriety and regularity, if we have not a respect for their persons and a fear of their displeasure; but this may easily become excessive. This fear of man in all its forms brings a snare. It was the duty of the christian wives. of heathen husbands to respect and fear them; and to show this by a ready obedience to their lawful commands, a ready compliance with their lawful appointments; but they must not allow their fear of their husbands to lead them to neglect their duty as Christians, or to violate the law of their Lord and Master. This was a strong temptation, for heathen husbands were often very arbitrary; and the existing laws, as well as customs, put the happiness of their wives in their power to a degree of which, from the state of things which the progress of religion, and civilization, and law has produced in this 1 Gen. xviii. 12. Heb. vi. 10. Cowper. Gal. iii. 29; iv. 31. |