Jeremy
Taylor
EPH. 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 and empty, and able to provide
for a more numerous posterity than it had. . . .
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 grandchildren 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 consequent 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 grand- mother 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.
But when the Messias was come, and the doctrine 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 to 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 declaring the advantages of
single life, not by any commandment of the Lord, but by the spirit of
prudence. . . and in order to the advantages which did accrue to the
public ministries and private piety. "There are some," said our blessed
Lord,99 "who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of
heaven," that is, for the advantages and the ministry of the gospel;
non ad vita' bona' meritum, as St. Austin in the like case;
100
not that it is a better service 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. . . "is apt to spiritual and
ecclesiastical employments": first HAGIOS, and then HAGIAZOMENOS,
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,101 "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, "I do this to spare you," and,
THELO
HYMAS AMERIMNOYS EINAI102: 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";103
in very many persons it was wholly changed, and not the married but the
unmarried had "trouble in the flesh"; and the state of marriage returned
to its first blessing, et non erat bonum homini esse solitarium,104
"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 unbelievers. 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.105
St. Thecla106 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. Iphigenia107 denied to marry king
Hyrtacus, and it is said to be done by the advice of St. Matthew. And
Susanna108 the niece of Dioclesian refused the love of
Maximianus the emperor; and these all had been betrothed; and so did St.
Agnes,109 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."110 Upon this occasion it grew necessary
for the apostle to state the question right, and to do honour to the
holy rite of marriage, and to snatch the mystery from the hands of zeal
and folly, and to place it in Christ's right hand, that all its beauties
might appear, and a present convenience might not bring in a false
doctrine and a perpetual sin and an intolerable mischief. The apostle
therefore, who himself had been a married man, but was now a widower,
does explicate the mysteriousness of it, and describes its honours, and
adorns it with rules and provisions of religion, that as it begins with
honour, so it may proceed with piety and end with glory.
For although single life hath in it privacy and simplicity of affairs,
such solitariness and sorrow, such leisure and unactive circumstances of
living, that there are more spaces for religion if men would use them to
these purposes; and because it may have in it much religion and prayers,
and must have in it a perfect mortification of our strongest appetites,
it is therefore a state of great excellency; yet concerning the state of
marriage we are taught from scripture and the sayings of wise men great
things and honourable. "Marriage is honourable in all men";111
so is not single life; for in some it is a snare and a PYROSIS, "a trouble in the flesh," a prison of unruly desires which is attempted
daily to be broken. Celibate or single life is never commanded, but in
some cases marriage is, and he that burns sins often if he marries not;
he that cannot contain must marry, and he that can contain is not tied
to a single life, but may marry and not sin. Marriage was ordained by
God, instituted in paradise, was the relief of a natural necessity and
the first blessing from the Lord; He gave to man not a friend, but a
wife, that is, a friend and a wife too; for a good woman is in her soul
the same that a man is, and she is a woman only in her body; that she
may have the excellency of the one, and the usefulness of the other, and
become amiable in both. It is the seminary of the church, and daily
brings forth sons and daughters unto God; it was ministered to by
angels, and Raphael112 waited upon a young man that he might
have a blessed marriage, and that that marriage might repair two sad
families, and bless all their relatives. Our blessed Lord though He was
born of a maiden, yet she was veiled under the cover of marriage, and
she was married to a widower: for Joseph the supposed father of our Lord
had children by a former wife. The first miracle that ever Jesus did was
to do honour to a wedding. Marriage was in the world before sin, and is
in all ages of the world the greatest and most effective antidote
against sin, in which all the world had perished if God had not made a
remedy: and although sin hath soured marriage, and stuck the man's head
with cares, and the woman's bed with sorrows in the production of
children; yet these are but throes of life and glory, and "she shall be
saved in child-bearing, if she be found in faith and righteousness."113
Marriage is a school and exercise of virtue; and though marriage hath
cares, yet the single life hath desires which are more troublesome and
more dangerous, and often end in sin, while the cares are but instances
of duty and exercises of piety; and therefore if single life hath more
privacy of devotion, yet marriage hath more necessities and more variety
of it, and is an exercise of more graces. In two virtues celibate or
single life may have the advantage of degrees ordinarily and commonly,
that is, in chastity and devotion; but as in some persons this may fail,
and it does in very many, and a married man may spend as much time in
devotion as any virgins or widows do; yet as in marriage even those
virtues of chastity and devotion are exercised, so in other instances
this state hath proper exercises and trials for those graces for which
single life can never be crowned. Here is the proper scene of piety and
patience, of the duty of parents and the charity of relatives; here
kindness is spread abroad, and love is united and made firm as a centre:
marriage is the nursery of heaven; the virgin sends prayers to God, but
she carries but one soul to Him; but the state of marriage fills up the
numbers of the elect, and hath in it the labour of love, and the
delicacies of friendship, the blessing of society, and the union of
hands and hearts;114 it hath in it less of beauty, but more of
safety, than the single life; it hath more care, but less danger; it is
more merry, and more sad; is fuller of sorrows, and fuller of joys; it
lies under more burdens, but it is supported by all the strengths of
love and charity, and those burdens are delightful. Marriage is the
mother of the world, and preserves kingdoms, and fills cities, and
churches, and heaven itself. Celibate, like the fly in the heart of an
apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined
and dies in singularity; but marriage, like the useful bee, builds a
house and gathers sweetness from every flower, and labours and unites
into societies and republics, and sends out colonies, and feeds the
world with delicacies, and obeys their king, and keeps order, and
exercises many virtues, and promotes the interest of mankind, and is
that state of good things to which God hath designed the present
constitution of the world.
Single life makes men in one instance to be like angels, but marriage in
very many things makes the chaste pair to be like to Christ. "This is a
great mystery," but it is the symbolical and sacramental representment
of the greatest mysteries of our religion. Christ descended from His
Father's bosom, and contracted His divinity with flesh and blood, and
married our nature, and we became a church, the spouse of the
Bridegroom, which He cleansed with His blood, and gave her His holy
spirit for a dowry, and heaven for a jointure, begetting children unto
God by the gospel. This spouse He hath joined to Him- self by an
excellent charity, He feeds her at His own table, and lodges her nigh
His own heart, provides for all her necessities, relieves her sorrows,
determines her doubts, guides her wanderings; He is become her head, and
she as a signet upon His right hand; He first indeed was betrothed to
the synagogue and had many children by her, but she forsook His love,
and then He married the church of the gentiles, and by her as by a
second venter had a more numerous issue, atque una domus est omnium
fi/iorum ejus, "all the children dwell in the same house," and are
heirs of the same promises, entitled to the same inheritance. Here is
the eternal conjunction, the indissoluble knot, the exceeding love of
Christ, the obedience of the spouse, the communicating of goods, the
uniting of interests, the fruit of marriage, a celestial generation, a
new creature: Sacramentum hoc magnum est, "this is the
sacramental mystery" represented by the holy rite of marriage; so that
marriage is divine in its institution, sacred in its union, holy in the
mystery, sacramental in its signification, honourable in its
appellative, religious in its employments; it is advantage to the
societies of men, and it is "holiness to the Lord."
Dico autem in Christo et ecclesia,
it must be "in Christ and the church." If this be not observed, marriage
loses its mysteriousness; but because it is to effect much of that which it signifies, it concerns all that enter into those golden
fetters to see that Christ and His church be in at every of its
periods, and that it be entirely conducted and overruled by religion;
for so the apostle passes from the sacramental rite to the real
duty; "Nevertheless," that is, although the former discourse were wholly
to explicate the conjunction of Christ and His church by this
similitude, yet it hath in it this real duty, "that the man love his
wife, and the wife reverence her husband. . . ."
98. Works
4:207ff.
99. Matt. 19:12.
100. Augustine,
The Good Spouse, PL 40. 587.
101. 1 Cor. 7:28.
102. 1 Cor. 7:32.
103. Ps. 14:4.
104. Gen. 2:18.
105. D. Attwater,
The Legends of the Saints (New York, 1962), p.
230.
106. Ibid.
107. Ibid.
108. Ibid.
109. Ibid.
110. Ibid. cr. 1 Tim. 4:3.
111. Heb.13:4.
112. Tob.5:1ff.
113. I Tim. 2:15.
114. Plato,
The Laws, LCL, vol. 9, pp. 459ff.
