Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
The Spirit plainly warns that false teachers will come, placing all holiness in outward ceremonies while they shadow the true spiritual worship of God. Men love hypocrisy by nature, and Satan finds it easy work to persuade them that God is honored by ceremonies rather than by the heart.
AI summary
Commenting on 1 Timothy 4:1-16
We have here a prophecy of the apostasy of the latter times, which he had spoken of as a thing expected and taken for granted among Christians, 2 Th. 2. I. In the close of the foregoing chapter, we had the mystery of godliness summed up; and therefore very fitly, in the beginning of this chapter, we have the mystery of iniquity summed up: The...
Commenting on 1 Timothy 4:1-5
Forbidding to marry,.... Which points out not the Encratites, Montanists, and Manichees, who spoke against marriage; but the Papists, who forbid it to their priests under a pretence of purity and holiness, and at the same time allow them to live in all manner of debauchery and uncleanness; for these are the persons that forbid marriage in an authoritative way, and in hypocrisy: for that...