The divine threatening therefore in this passage where the Lord threatens Eve with the sure punishments of her sin, was indeed a heavy threatening. But out of the midst of those very punishments there beamed forth unspeakable mercy. And this mercy so revived and strengthened Eve that she rejoiced with a heart full of gladness, even in the midst of her sorrows. And as to ourselves we feel how necessary these punishments are to crucify and keep under the flesh. For how could we be humbled if our nature were not pressed down to the earth with burdens like these? Eve therefore experienced and every woman of her station and duty must experience these sure calamities. These sorrows must be multiplied unto all women. They must both conceive in sorrow and bring forth in sorrow.
It is moreover worthy of observation, that the Hebrew expression here used is RAB, which signifies both a continuous and distinct quantity; conveying to us the thought that these great and many and various sorrows, thus righteously inflicted on Eve, were such as she would not have had to endure, if she had not fallen by sin; and the expression also implies the sorrows and punishments inflicted particularly on conception and childbirth. This same expression signifies by its implied meaning the whole of that time, "conception," during which the child is borne in the womb, which time is afflicted with great and various weaknesses, pains and diseases. The head, the stomach, the general health and the appetites are variously and greatly affected. And after the child is matured and the birth is at hand, the greatest sorrow of all is endured; and the child is not born without great peril even of life.
When the heathen and those who have no knowledge of God or of his works see these things, they take such offence at them that they form the conclusion that, on account of these various troubles, it is not becoming a wise man to marry at all. And true it is that the female sex is far more deeply humbled and afflicted, and bears a punishment far more heavy and severe than men. For what sufferings of the body, equal to those we just described, does man endure? But by marriage the husband does take upon himself as it were a part of these punishments of original sin; for the husband cannot see his wife endure all this pain and sorrow without much distress in himself. So that many wicked men prefer living a life of profligacy to a life of marriage.
Against such wicked sentiments as these the godly will arm and console themselves; and by true wisdom will set against these evils the certain and far greater blessings which attend the married life. Hence the ancient heathen poet Pindar, in his Ode to Hiero, King of Syracuse, condemns this perverseness in ignorant men. Though God, says he, is ever wont so to dispense his benefits as to leave some evil intermingled with them, yet none but the wise and good can carry themselves aright under them. For they adorn their prosperity; and under its bright colors they hide the adversity which they endure, setting their prosperity ever foremost to be seen of men:
| "To one good thing, two evil things, The gods appoint. Fools Know not how to adorn their ills. But wise men do: making the Worst, to wear the best appearance." |
PIND. Pyth. Ode iii. 145-150.
And this is what the godly ought ever to do in this their solemn case. The punishments, to which women are subject on account of the sin of the fall, are indeed great. But is there not in marriage a blessing which infinitely surpasses all the punishments of original sin with which it is afflicted? Have not those who are married in the midst of their great troubles that sure hope of immortality and eternal life which comes to them through the Seed of the woman!
Nay, the troubles and trials themselves of marriage are not without their benefit. They all tend to break down and humble our nature, which cannot be humbled without the cross.
And in the third place there is left to be enjoyed in these great bodily afflictions the peculiar glory of motherhood: that high blessing of the womb! This was a blessing which even the wise among the heathen so greatly admired and so loudly lauded. And other good gifts of marriage also remain to us and are enjoyed by us. We are borne in the womb of our mothers, we suck their breasts, we are nursed, we are nourished, and by the devoted attention and care of our mothers we are preserved in infancy and childhood. To view the great and solemn matter of marriage thus, is "to set our blessings in their fairest light." This is not to look at our evils only, but to delight ourselves in the benefits and the great blessing of God in his holy ordinance of marriage; and under those benefits and that blessing, to sink out of sight the various punishments, corruptions, pains and afflictions by which it is compassed.
But the godly alone understand these things and do them. They alone view marriage aright. They alone give honor unto women, as unto the weaker vessel; because they see them to be their companions of immortality as well as of mortality, and as being heirs together with them of the inheritance in heaven. The godly moreover behold them highly honored of the Lord by the blessing and the glory of motherhood. By them we are conceived, from them we are born, by them we are nursed in infancy.