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THE MARRIAGE RING;

OR,

THE MYSTERIOUSNESS AND DUTIES OF MARRIAGE.

[BISHOP TAYLOR.]

PART I.

EPHES. V. 32, 33.

This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

THE first blessing God gave to man was society, and that society was a marriage, and that marriage was confederate by God himself, and hallowed by a blessing; and at the same time, and for very many descending ages, not only by the instinct of nature, but by a superadded forwardness (God himself inspiring the desire), the world was most desirous of children, impatient of barrenness, accounting single life a curse, and a childless person hated by God. The world was rich

a

a "Quemlibet hominem cui non est uxor, minimè esse hominem; cum etiam in scriptura dicatur, Masculum et fœminam creavit eos, et vocavit nomen eorum Adam seu hominem. R. Eliezer dixit in Gen. Bab.: Quicunque negligit præceptum de multiplicatione humani generis, habendum esse veluti homicidam."

and empty, and able to provide for a more numerous posterity than it had.

Εξεις, Νουμηνίε, τέκνα,

Χάλκον ἔχων· πτωχὸς δ ̓ οὐδὲ τὰ τέκνα φιλεῖ.

You that are rich, Numenius, you may multiply your family; poor men are not so fond of children: but when a family could drive their herds, and set their children upon camels, and lead them till they saw a fat soil watered with rivers, and there sit down without paying rent, they thought of nothing but to have great families, that their own relations might swell up to a patriarchate, and their children be enough to possess all the regions that they saw, and their grand-children become princes, and themselves build cities and call them by the name of a child, and become the fountain of a nation. This was the consequence of the first blessing, "Increase and multiply." The next blessing was the promise of the Messias; and that also increased in men and women a wonderful desire of marriage: for as soon as God had chosen the family of Abraham to be the blessed line, from whence the world's Redeemer should descend, according to the flesh, every of his daughters hoped to have the honour to be his mother, or his grandmother, or something of his kindred and to be "childless in Israel," was a sorrow to the Hebrew women great as the slavery of Egypt, or their dishonours in the land of their captivity.a

:

But when the Messias was come, and the doctrine

a Christiani et apud Athenas, τὰς τοῦ ἀγαμίου καὶ ὀψιγαμίου δικὰς refert Julius Pollux, 1. 3., πepì åɣáμwv. Idem etiam Lacedæmoniæ et Romæ. Vide Festum, verb. Uxorium, atque ibi Jos. Scal.

was published, and his ministers but few, and his disciples were to suffer persecution, and to be of an unsettled dwelling, and the nation of the Jews, in the bosom and society of which the Church especially did dwell, were to be scattered and broken all in pieces with fierce calamities, and the world was apt to calumniate and suspect and dishonour Christians upon pretences and unreasonable jealousies, and that to all these purposes the state of marriage brought many inconveniences; it pleased God, in this new creation, to inspire into the hearts of his servants a disposition and strong desires to live a single life, lest the state of marriage should in that conjunction of things become an accidental impediment to the dissemination of the Gospel, which called men from a confinement in their domestic charges, to travel, and flight, and poverty, and difficulty, and martyrdom. Upon this necessity, the Apostles and apostolical men published doctrines, delaring the advantages of single life, not by any commandment of the Lord, but by the spirit of prudence, διὰ τὴν ἐνεστῶσαν ἀνάγκην, for the present and then incumbent necessities, and in order to the advantages which did accrue to the public ministries and private piety. "There are some," said our blessed Lord, who make themselves "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven "," that is, for the advantages and the ministry of the Gospel, non ad vitæ bona meritum, as St. Augustin in the like case; not that it is a better service

a

a "Etiam Judæi, qui præceptum esse viris Tadowoleîv aiunt, uno ore concedunt, tamen dispensatum esse cum iis qui assiduo legis studio vacare volunt, aliàs etiam immunibus ab acriori carnis stimulo." Maimon. 15. Halach. Ishoth.

of God in itself, but that it is useful to the first circumstances of the Gospel and the infancy of the kingdom, because the unmarried person does μɛpivậv тà TоU KUρíov, is apt to spiritual and ecclesiastical improvements: first, ayos, and then, aylalóμevos, holy in his own person, and then sanctified to public ministries; and it was also of ease to the Christians themselves, because, as then it was, when they were to flee, and to flee for aught they knew, in winter, and they were persecuted to the four winds of heaven; and the nurses and the women with child were to suffer a heavier load of sorrow because of the imminent persecutions; and, above all, because of the great fatality of ruin upon the whole nation of the Jews, well it might be said by St. Paul, θλίψιν τῇ σαρκὶ ἕξουσιν οἱ TOLOÛTOL, "Such shall have trouble in the flesh," that is, they that are married shall; and so at that time they had and therefore it was an act of charity to the Christians to give that counsel, ἐγὼ δὲ ὑμῖν φείδομαι, " I do this to spare you,” and θέλω ὑμᾶς ἀμερίμνους siva: for when the case was altered, and that storm was over, and the first necessities of the Gospel served, and "the sound was gone out into all nations; " in very many persons it was wholly changed, and not the married but the unmarried had θλίψιν ἐν σαρκὶ, trouble in the flesh; and the state of marriage returned to its first blessing, et non erat bonum homini

2 Οὐ ψέγω δὲ τοὺς λοιποὺς μακαρίους, ὅτι γάμοις προσωμίλησαν ὧν ἐμε νήσθην ἀρτί. εὐχομαι γὰρ ἄξιος θεοῦ εὑρηθεὶς πρὸς τοῖς ἴχνεσιν αὐτῶν εύρηθῆναι ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ, ὡς ̓Αβραὰμ, καὶ Ἰσαάκ, καὶ Ἰακώβ, ὡς Ἰωσηφ, καὶ Ιεσαίου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων προφητῶν, ὡς Πέτρου και Παύλον, καὶ τῶν ἄλλων άTUσTóλwv, &c. Epist. ad Philadelph.

esse solitarium, and it was not good for man to be alone.

But, in this first interval, the public necessity and the private zeal mingling together did sometimes overact their love of single life, even to the disparagement of marriage, and to the scandal of religion; which was increased by the occasion of some pious persons renouncing their contract of marriage, not consummate, with believers. For when Flavia Domitilla, being converted by Nereus and Achilleus the eunuchs, refused to marry Aurelianus, to whom she was contracted; if there were not some little envy and too sharp hostility in the eunuchs to a married state, yet Aurelianus thought himself an injured person, and caused St. Clemens who veiled her and his spouse both to die in the quarrel. St. Thecla, being converted by St. Paul, grew so in love with virginity, that she leaped back from the marriage of Tamyris, where she was lately engaged. St. Iphigenia denied to marry King Hirtacus, and it is said to be done by the advice of St. Matthew. And Susanna the niece of Diocletian refused the love of Maximianus the emperor; and these all had been betrothed; and so did St. Agnes, and St. Felicula, and divers others then and afterwards; insomuch, that it was reported among the Gentiles, that the Christians did not only hate all that were not of their persuasion, but were enemies of the chaste laws of marriage; and, indeed, some that were called Christians were so; "forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats." Upon this occasion it grew necessary for the Apostle