But ordinarily among men in
general, in every age, the state of single life has been looked down
upon and contemned. And then there comes to the parties who are so
circumstanced a certain sense of shame, and along with this a
disposition towards calumny and slander. Let us endeavour to
understand the wise, inspired decision which the Apostle Paul
pronounced upon this subject. He does not decide, as we might have
been led to suppose he would, from his own peculiarity of disposition,
upon one side only; but raises into relief the advantages and
excellencies of both. He say that neither state has in itself any
_intrinsic_ merit--neither is in itself superior to the other. "I
suppose, then," he says, "that this is good for the present distress.
Art thou bound unto a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed
from a wife? Seek not a wife. But and if thou marry, thou hast not
sinned: and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless, such
shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you." That is, I will
spare you this trouble, in recommending a single, solitary life. You
will observe that in these words he attributes no intrinsic merit or
dignity to either celibacy or marriage. The comparative advantages of
these two states he decides with reference to two considerations;
first of all with respect to their comparative power in raising the
character of the individual, and afterwards with reference to the
opportunities which each respectively gives for the service of God.

I. With respect to the single life, he tells us that he had his own
proper gift from God; in other words, he was one of those rare
characters who have the power of living without personal sympathy. The
feelings and affections of the Apostle Paul were of a strange and rare
character--tending to expansiveness rather than concentration. Those
sympathies which ordinary men expend upon a few, he extended to many.
The members of the churches which he had founded at Corinth, and
Ephesus, and Colosse, and Philippi, were to him as children; and he
threw upon them all that sympathy and affection which other men throw
upon their own domestic circle. To a man so trained and educated, the
single life gave opportunities of serving God which the marriage state
could not give. St. Paul had risen at once to that philanthropy--that
expansive benevolence, which most other men only attain by slow
degrees, and this was made, by God'