Should Believers Marry Unbelievers?
By R. F. Cottrell
It would be entirely unnecessary to tell the truly virtuous that they should not choose to associate with the most vicious and abandoned. They would have no disposition to do so. Those who voluntarily choose to associate with the low and degraded, are certainly, to say the least, tending downward to the lowest level. There is as marked a difference between the Christian and the unbeliever, as there is between the upper and lower classes of unbelievers. All our voluntary associations with them should be for the express purpose of recommending to them the faith of the gospel, to induce them to believe and obey. Faith and unbelief are opposites. There is no more concord between them than there is between virtue and vice. If all who profess the faith of the gospel were fully imbued with its spirit, no one would need to be cautioned against marrying an unbeliever. They would feel no inclination to do so. Those whose supreme love is fixed on God will not choose to set their highest earthly affection upon an enemy of God. If we really love God, we shall love what he loves. If we choose to love what he hates, we cannot love him with undivided affection. To make a marriage happy there must be congeniality. And I think Lorenzo Dow was right when he said that “a happy marriage is the greatest blessing this side of Heaven, next to the love of God shed abroad in the heart; and an unhappy marriage the greatest curse this side of hell, next to the horrors of a guilty conscience.” The relation of husband and wife is the most powerful for good or evil that can be. A truly believing and pious companion is the greatest help in the Christian life possible. If this is so, a companion the reverse of this, is the greatest possible hindrance. Who is so strong as to desire the greatest possible hindrance to his salvation? Let such a one marry an unbeliever, or equally bad, if not worse, a false professor of religion, or, rather, a zealous professor of a spurious or counterfeit religion. Those who at their conversion find themselves bound in such a relation, may hope for divine grace suited to their condition; but those who are free from such shackles when converted, ought certainly to know that they imperil their own salvation, if they connect themselves thus intimately with one who still possesses the carnal mind, which is enmity against God, is not subject to his law, nor can be. One who undertakes to serve two masters whose requirements are directly opposed to each other, does not act wisely. The experiment of voluntarily going into temptation is a hazardous one. Yet some imagine they have strength to resist temptation and get safely out of it, when they have not power of resistance sufficient to keep out of it. If they would carefully examine themselves on this point, they might discover the fallacy of their position, and know that such logic is deceptive. God specially warned his ancient people against intermarrying with the surrounding nations. He told them that such marriages would be a snare to them, seducing them from their allegiance to himself. Ex. xxxiv, 12-16; Deut. vii, 3, 4; 1 Kings xi, 1-4. And it was no better for them to marry idolaters, who would lead them to the worship of their false gods, than to marry infidels, who profess no faith in any God. So it is now. To marry one who makes no profession of religion at all, is no more objectionable than to choose one who is bound up in a religious profession at variance with the truth. One that has no God and no Sabbath is a no more powerful opponent of God and his Sabbath than one that has a false god and false Sabbath to oppose to the true. The former seems the more hopeful case of the two. False religion is ever the most violent opponent of the true. In the New Testament, we find an apostle giving the largest liberty in respect to the choice of a companion in marriage, with this restriction: “Only in the Lord.” 1 Cor. vii, 39. Again he says, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols,” &c. 2 Cor. vi, 14-16. This is the true state of the question. If any one can harmonize things so totally inharmonious, then may they hope for an agreeable union between a believer and an unbeliever. Those who disregard this apostolic representation of the case, venture upon a dangerous experiment, and one that has generally proved disastrous, and often ruinous. This writing is not to add grief and affliction to such as have already involved themselves in this terrible difficulty. May God forgive and save them. But my object is to warn others against a step that is sure to bring trouble, and, more probably than otherwise, eternal ruin. Those who choose to set an idolatrous affection on one that is not of God, but of the world, undertake a task which this very act proves they have not the adequate power to perform. Nothing but deep repentance, and the obtaining of the pardoning love of God, and help from his grace, can enable them to overcome. “A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished.”