Matthew Poole and continuators on 1 Corinthians 7:26

26 I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress , I say, that it is good for a man so to be.

Good here signifieth convenient (as before) if other circumstances of particular persons make it not sinful: or better with respect

to the present distress or necessity, by which, without doubt, the Apostle meaneth, not the common necessities of all men that are born once to dye, (which is the more easie the fewer relations we have to part from) nor yet of family-troubles and concerns; for there is none who hath a family in this world to look after, but will have trouble in the flesh, but the continual troubles with which the Church of God was disquieted, as the Ark upon the waters, and the more special troubles of the Primitive Church; for though their great Persecutions from the Heathen were not possibly at that time begun, yet Christ had foretold them, and the Apostles had them in a very near prospect (Paul is thought to have dyed the tenth or eleventh year of Nero.) For this present necessity or distress, the Apostle gives his opinion, That it was convenient and better for those that could honestly abstain from marriage, to keep themselves in their single and unmarried condition.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word], necessity.