Preached to a Society of Young Women, in Fetter-Lane

This psalm is called the song of loves, the most pure and spiritual, the most ear and delightful loves; namely, those which are between Christ the beloved, and his church, which is his spouse; wherein is set forth, first, the Lord Jesus Christ in regard of his majesty, power, and divinity, his truth, meekness and equity:

Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. . . . Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!

I felt condemned for being divorced. Well-meaning comments from acquaintances like, "Divorce is a sin, but God forgives," and "When there is a divorce, both parties are at fault." trivialized the endless agony that goes into the divorce of a Christian.

Instruction from the pulpit on the topic of divorce is either nonexistent or inconsistent.

A short video on the purpose of marriage by RC Sproul, Jr. recorded at the Highlands Study Center. (4:35)

And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helpmeet for him. Gen. 2:18.

Here Moses explains God’s purpose in creating woman. God wished the earth to be populated by men who would live together and create a society. Some may question whether God’s purpose included offspring; for the words say only that since it is not well for a man to be alone, a woman had to be created to be his helpmate.

If you are familiar with Pride and Predjudice, either the book or one of the better films, you remember Mrs. Bennet. Her preoccupation with finding husbands for her daughters was a shame to the sensible members of her family. Her chief interest in life was in finding out what new men were in the neighborhood and whether they were unattached. In the book, Mrs. Bennet is a humorous and somewhat harmless character. But in real life, a woman like Mrs. Bennet can not only make people feel uncomfortable and awkward with her meddling, but she can bring about real harm.
 

Years ago, when I lived in Lethbridge and was still unmarried, I frequented Brewster’s, a microbrewery and pub.  One of the regulars was a man — I think he taught at the college or university, I think his last name was “English,” and I know he himself was English — who used to alternate years in which he allowed himself to drink beer and years in which he didn’t.  There were exceptions, of course.  For instance, if he was &ldq

Because of how God made the world, with the marriage of His Son to the Church central to the story He was going to tell, and His determination to picture this in every human marriage, the fact is settled that courtships are therefore interesting. But we are sometimes too interested, or, in another way of saying the same thing, we are interested in the wrong way. And because of this, we rush ahead.

Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy is A wonderful book, but it has one of those tragic Sabbath scenes common to so many historical children's stories:

Tradition is not a dry and dusty and antiquated affair. Tradition is as vital and dramatic as treason, which is the same word. The silent passing of a scrap of history from father to son is as personal and passionate as the silent passing of a scrap of paper from traitor to spy.
G.K. Chesterton

Those who blindly follow traditions and those who blindly throw traditions overboard share at least ignorance in common. One keeps what he does not know, another throws away what he does not know. An area where many traditions have been lost or mindlessly kept has been that of the wedding. So in the sixties, we all began to do our own thing--write our own vows, invent our own little ceremonies, and generally march around in our own little circle. Since then we have settled down somewhat, but we still have the idea that the wedding belongs to the couple, and not to a culture. We have come to believe that each wedding should be shaped by the personality of the couple, and not that our culture should bestow recognition on a couple according to the custom of our people.