Matthew Poole and continuators on 1 Corinthians 7:5
Annotations upon the Holy Bible. Browse this work.
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1 Corinthians7:5
5 Defraud not one another , except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give your selves to fasting and prayer , and come together again k, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency .
That is, withhold not your selves one from another, which he rightly calls defrauding one another, because he had before declared it a debt; and further declared, that neither the husband nor the wife had a power over their own bodies, but the power of either of their bodies was in their correlate.
He adds, except it be with consent, mutual consent, and then it is indeed no defrauding.
And for a time, for a religious end, that they might give themselves to Fasting and Prayer, not that this abstinence is necessary to us by any Divine precept, to prepare us for solemn Prayer, (for such only is here spoken of) for then the Apostle would not have made consent necessary in this case, but the Jews were commanded it, Exod. 19.15. as a preparation to their hearing of the Law, and it was a plece of the legal purification, as appeareth from 1 Sam. 21.4. as to which Christians were at liberty, and might observe or not observe it, as they agreed.
Then he requires, that they should return to their former course, not defrauding one another, lest the Devil observing their abstinence, should tempt them to unlawful mixtures, seeing their inability to contain themselves within the bounds of temperance and chastity.
Marginal references: Joel 2.16.
Matthew Poole and continuators, Annotations upon the Holy Bible, 1 Corinthians 7:5. Public domain.
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