26. I suppose—"I consider."
this—namely, "for a man so to be," that is, in the same state in which he is (1Co 7:27).
for—by reason of.
the present distress—the distresses to which believers were then beginning to be subjected, making the married state less desirable than the single; and which would prevail throughout the world before the destruction of Jerusalem, according to Christ's prophecy (Mt 24:8-21; compare Ac 11:28).