LETTER III. TO MISS E. MORTON.
Dear Madam, . . . Hitherto you have had your share of my faithful dealings and fervent prayers; and I trust I can say, that the desire of my soul is to see your heart immutably fixed on the Rock of Israel; and then you will bless God for sending the instrument, and willingly mingle your petitions with mine, in my calamities.
Whether I construed your meaning right or wrong, according to your judgment I know not; but it is clear to me that God owned and blessed it, by the convincing ray that attended it.
Your first letter was not “without partiality, nor without hypocrisy”; for in favour of legal works you say “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” and excluded the power of God annexed to the sentence, which is expressed thus: “For it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his own good pleasure” (Phil. ii. 12, 13). To plunder a divine sentence of a relative verb, and leave out God the grand agent, is handling the Word of God craftily, deceitfully, and hypocritically. All Scripture is to lead the awakened sinner to God. All Scripture came from God, and must be resolved unto Him. To leave Him out, therefore, where He is principally concerned, is to deify one’s self, and to dishonour God. . . .
Your going into a convent to keep both body and soul pure for Christ I well understood—nor did I mistake your meaning. You style yourself “a rigid Papist,” and, you know forbidding to marry is a Popish doctrine; now, if you did not intend a monastic life in order to escape marriage, and with the doctrine of celibacy in your judgment as an essential article of faith, you can by no means be a real nor a rigid Catholic and, if celibacy is keeping the body pure as you affirm, then the natural consequences is that marriage is impure. This conclusion appears to me to be fairly drawn from your letter, for “of the two states a single life is purer,” say you. . . .
I should never have mentioned marriage if you had not mentioned celibacy. I asserted from God’s Word that it is one of the doctrines of devils (I. Tim. iv. 1-3).
I shall now discover to you some of your partiality and hypocrisy in this letter: “He that giveth her in marriage doeth well,” say you, “but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better” (I. Cor. vii. 38), and again verse 4, “but she is happier if she so abide, after my judgments,” and he adds, “I think also that I have the Spirit of God.” By this mode of arguing from Scripture you might say that Adam was God’s son (Luke iii. 38) and that Eve was God’s daughter (Acts xvii. 29) and that when God brought her to Adam He did well; but if He had withheld her it would have been better. So when He told “Joseph to take Mary his wife” He did well; but if He had withheld her it would have been better.
So when God draws souls to close in with the blessed Bridegroom of the Church He does well; but to withhold them is doing better. Madam, marriage includes all these things; and they are all ordained of God; and to cast a slur, or any reflection of impurity on them is to condemn the council of the Most High, for the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make an helpmeet for him” (Genesis ii. 18), and of women God says, “I will that the younger women marry (I. Tim. v. 14, 15). You will allow this to be doing well; but for younger women to abide single, despise fruitfulness, disdain the guidance of an house, give occasion to the adversary to reproach religion, turn aside after Satan, and adhere to the doctrine of devils, which is, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God has commanded to be received with thanksgiving of them that know the truth—is doing better?
By such arguments you would make the Apostle contradict the divine institution, and positive command of God, and make him the author of celibacy, which he himself declares is a doctrine of devils. “Ye do greatly err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.”
Let is be observed: the Apostle declares that his doctrines did not contradict any ordinance, command or promise of God that had gone before, as it is written, “Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come” (Acts xxvi. 22). Paul’s ministry, you find, consisted in saying no other things than what had been commanded and predicted before his time; therefore he could not, as you suppose, be an advancer or maintainer of the devil’s doctrine of celibacy.
The Corinthians had written to Paul about keeping their virgins single, which the Bible was silent about. Paul therefore owns, “Now concerning virgins . . .” (I. Cor. vii. 25). The Church at that time was in a suffering state, many were daily suffering or dying for the Cause of God and Truth; at which times they were like Jerusalem in her calamity, who shall say, “Blessed are the barren . . .” (Luke xxiii. 29).
In such suffering times a wife and family are a heavy burden. Hence the Apostle fixes his supposition to that distressing time: “I suppose, therefore, that this (counsel) is good for the present distress” (I. Cor. vii. 26). By this the Apostle does not contradict what he asserts of celibacy, when he calls it a doctrine of devils, and a snare; but he gave his advice for their good, and not with any intention to oppose God’s appointment of marriage: “And this I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely and that you may attend upon the Lord without distraction” (I. Cor. vii. 35).
I am determined to chase you out of every refuge of lies that you take shelter under, though I have one of the “worst of storms” to run through in my pursuits, “for a continued dropping in a rainy day and a contentious woman are both alike; whoso hideth her hideth the wind”; for in errors she is just as wavering; and whoso dealeth unfaithfully with her grieves the Holy Ghost, “and hideth the ointment of his right hand, which bewrayeth itself” (Prov. xxvii. 15, 16).
All my efforts will be in vain unless God accompany my letters with His own power and blessing; for although you are one of the weaker sex, or, as Peter says, the weaker vessel, yet it can only be spoken of bodily and intellectual weakness, for in the head you are full as strong, if not stronger, than the masculine gender. . . .
We may say of Popery as Peter does of the legal covenant, it is “a yoke that neither we nor our fathers were able to bear.” And I am sure it is no part of “the ministration of the Spirit,” because it is “after the doctrines and commandments of men, and not after Christ.” Pardon and peace, brought home to the heart by the Holy Ghost, will purge the conscience, subdue sin, purify the heart, and make the mind spiritual and heavenly. Then the knees will bow, the hands work, the feet move, the eyes see, the ears hear, and the mouth will speak for God. All purity short of this is only the name, not the thing. . . .
I might add—but in reality I both pity thee and spare thee. God Almighty pardon thee and bless thee. Confess thy faults to Him against Whom only thou hast sinned, and I hope He will both hear thee and heal thee. He has revealed Himself rich in mercy, and abundant in goodness and in truth, therefore persevere in humble confession and prayer, and expect super-abounding grace from Him; while I remain, dear madam, your faithful servant, affectionate friend, and should be glad to be your tender nurse.
Let me know how you go on; and expect a part in the poor prayers of him who, in the ties of the gospel, seeks the honour of Christ, and the welfare of your soul.
WM. HUNTINGTON.