16. Yet he added, “But such shall have tribulation of the flesh, but I spare you:”29    1 Cor. vii. 28 in this manner exhorting unto virginity, and continual continence, so as some little to alarm also from marriage, with all modesty, not as from a matter evil and unlawful, but as from one burdensome and troublesome. For it is one thing to incur dishonor of the flesh, and another to have tribulation of the flesh: the one is matter of crime to do, the other of labor to suffer, which for the most part men refuse not even for the most honorable duties. But for the having of marriage, now at this time, wherein there is no service done unto Christ about to come through descent of flesh by the begetting of the family itself, to take upon one to bear that tribulation of the flesh, which the Apostle foretells to such as shall be married, would be extremely foolish, did not incontinent persons fear, lest, through the temptation of Satan, they should fall into damnable sins. But whereas he says that he spares them, who he saith will have tribulation of the flesh, there suggests itself to me in the mean while no sounder interpretation, than that he was unwilling to open, and unfold in words, this self-same tribulation of the flesh which he fore-announced to those who choose marriage, in suspicions of jealousy of married life, in the begetting and nurture of children, in fears and sorrows of childlessness. For how very few, after they have bound themselves with the bonds of marriage, are not drawn and driven to and fro by these feelings? And this we ought not to exaggerate, lest we spare not the very persons, who the Apostle thought were to be spared.

CAPUT XVI.

16. Tribulatio carnis in conjugio, quae sit. Addidit tamen, Tribulationem autem carnis habebunt hujusmodi, ego autem vobis parco: hoc modo exhortans ad virginitatem continentiamque perpetuam, ut aliquantulum a nuptiis etiam deterreret, modeste sane, non tanquam a re mala et illicita, sed tanquam ab onerosa ac molesta. Aliud est enim admittere carnis turpitudinem, aliud habere carnis tribulationem: illud est criminis facere, hoc laboris est pati, quem plerumque homines etiam pro officiis honestissimis non recusant. Sed pro habendo conjugio jam hoc tempore, quo non per carnis propaginem venturo Christo ipsius prolis propagatione servitur, istam tribulationem carnis, quam nupturis praedicit Apostolus, suscipere tolerandam perstultum esset, nisi metueretur incontinentibus, ne tentante satana in peccata damnabilia laberentur. Quod autem se dicit eis parcere, quos ait tribulationem carnis habituros, nihil mihi interim sanius occurrit, quam eum noluisse 0404 aperire et explicare verbis eamdem ipsam carnis tribulationem, quam praenuntiavit eis qui eligunt nuptias, in suspicionibus zeli conjugalis, in procreandis filiis atque nutriendis, in timoribus et moeroribus orbitatis. Quotus enim quisque, cum se connubii vinculis alligaverit, non istis trahatur atque agitetur affectibus? Quos neque nos exaggerare debemus, ne ipsis non parcamus, quibus parcendum existimavit Apostolus.