MARRYING “ONLY IN THE LORD.”
By A. C. Spicer
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” 2 Cor. 6:14. That the apostle had reference to the intermarriage of believers with unbelievers, in 2 Cor. 6:14-18, I think there can be no doubt; though perhaps not exclusive reference to marriage; for the injunction is quite as applicable to many social and business relations in life. Previous letters of Paul to these Corinthians, 1 Cor. 5:9; 7:25-39, sustain this conclusion. The reasons for objecting to the intermarriage of believers with unbelievers are very forcibly indicated by the questions asked in this and the following verses. Under the former dispensation such marriages were imperatively forbidden (Deut. 7:2, 3; Joshua 23:12), for which prohibition God gave this reason: “For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods.” Deut. 7:4. Paul, in this chapter, suggests the same reasons, employing very strong language. The sympathy, interest, communion, and fellowship of the marriage relation, are naturally and rightfully stronger than in any other human relation; and so strong are these that, unless the heart be very strongly fortified by grace and sanctified, and very firmly rooted, settled, and established in religious convictions, sentiments, and habits, and in divine truth, they are quite likely, in the course of time, to overpower those of all religious relations. Paul saw this fact (as God did, as above quoted), and hence he says, “Only in the Lord.” 1 Cor. 7:39. Read carefully Paul’s reasoning in these chapters, especially in verses, 33, 34, and reflect well upon the inevitable and universal tendency to assimilation of thought, feeling, and character in all human associations, and it will be discovered that the apostle Paul reasoned philosophically, and spoke from an enlightened view, if not wholly by inspiration. Observation and experience fully attest that these texts referred to, and Paul’s entire conclusions, were spoken in wisdom. The hundreds of the sons and daughters of Sabbath-keepers and others who have once kept the Sabbath, not to mention the great number more who have at some time seen God’s truth in respect to the Sabbath, who are now living in violation of God’s law simply because of unfavorable marriage alliances, affirm the above truth. The same is confirmed by scores, if not hundreds, of wives distributed through the States, who are making an almost inevitable failure properly to keep God’s Sabbath, many of them groaning and sighing each recurring Sabbath day, because they must labor more or less, entertain company, and pass much of their time in the confusion of secular labor and business transactions, on the day appointed for sacred, holy, and sanctified rest, simply because in a thoughtless hour they contracted unfortunate marriage alliances with unbelievers in God’s Sabbath. Other scores of mothers who respect and honor the Sabbath as best they may in their circumstances, pass the long years of motherhood in sadness and anguish, because they cannot rear up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and to reverence and keep holy his sanctified day of rest, because the surroundings are all so opposed to the truth, or because the children must follow the predilections of an unbelieving or non-sabbatising husband and father, presenting a sad and admonishing verification of this doctrine. Very many hopeful and very promising young men and young women—some of the best talents, of rarest gifts, and of high expectations and hopes of usefulness in the world, have thrown themselves and all their bright and promising hopes and prospects away in an unfortunate hour upon the altar of an alliance with an unbeliever, and, as time has developed, all after life has been one of blight, and dearth, and non-fruitage in good, and unsatisfying. Said a fond mother to the writer of this, not long ago, as the tears rolled down her face in grief because her children whom she almost idolized had forsaken her faith in respect to the Sabbath and become generally skeptical, “So much for marrying an unbeliever! He’s a good, kind husband to me and a too indulgent father to the children; but oh! my children! my children! I cannot bear the thought that my children will choose the ways of death! Better for me had they never been born!” Said another Sabbath-loving, sorrowing one, as she spoke of her children, within the year past, “My husband is all that a husband without grace could be, but, alas! it was an evil angel that guided to my present destiny.” It is very common, indeed, that believing Sabbath-keeping wives of unbelieving husbands, notwithstanding all the fair prospects and fair previous promises and pledges ever in the best of faith, after awhile, some sooner, and some later, have to yield, or do yield, to the unfavorable influences, and give up their practice in faith if not the faith itself. And it is almost universal experience and observation that children of believing, Sabbath-keeping mothers with unbelieving husbands, are led by force of the more natural example and the stronger surrounding influences to ignore the religion of the mother. The above indicated facts in observation and experience, and facts they are, together with concurrent facts of universal observation in all past religious history, attest in strong terms that the quoted scriptures were spoken in wisdom and truth; and appeal to all the young believers to be thoughtful, careful, and prayerful, and never thoughtless, prayerless, or hasty, in forming marriage alliances. There is but one condition of even comparative, presumptive safety for the believer (especially for a Sabbath-keeping lady), in marriage with an unbeliever, or non-Sabbath-keeper, and that is that such Sabbath-keeping believers be the stronger of the two allied, and be of very intense, firm, and decided religious conviction, and of very positive conscientious character. A. C. SPICER.