John Cheap, the Chapman's Library. Vol. 2: Religious and Scriptural / The Scottish Chap Literature of Last Century, Classified

by Dougal Graham

Now, it is not good that man should be in a single condition on a threefold consideration.

1. In respect of sin, which would not else be prevented: Marriage is like water, to quench the sparks of lust’s fire, 1 Cor. vii. 2. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, &c. Man needed no such physic when he was in perfect health. Temptations may break nature’s best sense, and lay its Paradise waste; but a single life is a prison of unruly desires, which is daily attempted to be broken open. Some, indeed force themselves to a single life, merely to avoid the charges of a married state; they choose rather to live in their own sensuality, than to extinguish those flames with an allowed remedy: It is better to marry than to burn:—to be lawfully coupled, than to be lustfully scorched. It is best to feed these flames with ordinate fuel.

2. It is not good in respect of mankind, which then would not be propagated. The Roman historian, relating the ravishing of the Sabine women, excused them thus, ‘Without them mankind would fall from the earth, and perish.’ Marriages do turn mutability into the image of eternity: it springs up new buds when the old are withered. It is a great honour for a man to be the father of one son, than to be the master of many servants. Without a wife, children cannot be had lawfully; without a good wife, children cannot be had comfortably. Man and woman, as the flock and the scion, being grafted in marriage, are trees bearing fruit to the world. Augustine says, ‘They are the first link of human society, to which all the rest are joined.’ Mankind had long ago decayed, and been like a taper fallen into the socket, if those breaches which are made by mortality were not repaired by matrimony.

3. It is not good in regard of the church, which could not then have been expatiated. Where there is no generation, there can be no regeneration. Nature makes us creatures before grace makes us Christians. If the loins of men had been less fruitful, the death of Christ would have been less successful. It was a witty question that one put to him that said, “Marriage fills the earth, but virginity fills the heavens:” How can the heavens be full if the earth be empty? Had Adam lived in innocency without matrimony, there would have been no servants of God in the church militant, nor no saints with God in the church triumphant. But I will not sink this vessel by the over-burthen of it, nor press this truth to death by laying too great a load upon its shoulders. There is one knot which I must untie, before I make a farther progress, viz.

1 Cor. vii. 1. It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Do all the scriptures proceed out of the same mouth; and do they not all speak the same truth? The God of unity will not indite discord; and the God of verity cannot assert falsehood. If good and evil be contraries, how contrary then are these two scriptures? Either Moses mistakes God, or Paul mistakes Moses, about the point of marriage. To which I shall give a double answer.

1. There is a public and a private good. In respect of one man, it may be good not to touch a woman; but in respect of all men, It is not good that man should be alone.

2. Moses speaks of the state of man created; Paul of the state of man corrupted: Now, that which by institution was a mercy, by corruption may become a misery; as pure water is tainted by running through a miry channel, or as the sun-beams receive a tincture by shining through a coloured glass. There is no print of evil in the world, but sin was the stamp that made it. They that seek nothing but weal in its commission, will find nothing but woe in the conclusion. Which leads me from the solitariness of the condition, Man alone, to the suitableness of the provision, I will make an help-meet for him.

In which we have two parts, 1. The Agent, I will make. 2. The Object, An help.

1. The Agent, I will make. We cannot build a house without tools, but the Trinity is at liberty. To God’s omniscience there is nothing impossible. We work by hands, without; but he works without hands. He that made man meet for help, makes a meet-help for man. Marriages are consented above, but consumated below, Prov. xviii. 22. Though man wants supply, yet man cannot supply his wants, James i. 17. Every good and perfect gift comes from above, &c. A wife, though she be not a perfect gift, yet she is a good gift. These beams are darted from the Son of Righteousness. Hast thou a soft heart? It is of God’s breaking. Hast thou a sweet wife? She is of God’s making. Let me draw up this with double application.