A Biblical Inspiration for Marriage

This week in my Evangelical Spirituality class, we listened to a lecture on the Puritan’s view of marriage. The past few weeks, we have been following the Puritan model of spirituality (reading intensively J.I. Packer’s A Quest for Godliness, The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life), and in this short time, I already feels its impacts on my own personal spiritual walk with God. This week’s lecture, in particular, in discussing the beauty and sanctifying process of marriage, touched me greatly. So much so that I urged Lee to read the lecture too, which is why the big booklet is presently lying on his nightstand next to the bed.

In shedding light on the Puritan view of marriage, Richard Baxter was our model in the most recent class. The professor presented passages from Baxter’s A Christian Directory [or A Sum of Practical Theology, and Cases of Conscience, The Practical Works of the Rev. Richard Baxter (London: James Duncan, 1830), IV, 30]; being married, his words offered me much inspiration regarding me and Lee’s relationship, spiritually. Here were his words regarding the friendship between husband and wife:

“It is a mercy to have a faithful friend, that loveth you entirely, and is as true to you as yourself, to whom you may open your mind and communicate your affairs, and who would be ready to strengthen you, and divide the cares of your affairs and family with you, and help you to bear your burdens, and comfort you in your sorrows, and be the daily companion of your lives, and partaker of your joys and sorrows. And it is a mercy to have so near a friend to be a helper to your soul; to join with you in prayer and other holy exercises; to watch over you and tell you of your sins and dangers, and to stir up in you the grace of God, and remember to you of the life to come, and cheerfully accompany you in the ways of holiness.”

My heart was moved to tears in hearing these words read in lecture (my immediate thought was that this passage should be quoted at all marriage ceremonies!). Much of it owing to the experiences I had with Lee, and how much we have grown in the past two years—day by day, God teaching us more about how to trust in Him and how to live in obedience to Him—using our marriage as a way to give greater glory to His name (we’re still learning). He and I had known each other for almost ten years prior to our marriage, but it wasn’t until we were married, and the various obstacles we’ve had to face in our marriage, that we have truly grown—but how wonderful it is to know that God is gracious, and it is never too late to venture back onto the rightful path of obedience.

How beautifully Baxter portrays marriage: your husband or wife is someone who cares as much about your soul as yourself—who does not allow you to stay on that path of sinfulness, who voices to you, honestly and lovingly, the error of your ways, because it pains him or her to watch you lose yourself in the distorted and crooked ways of the world. And then to “stir up in you the grace of God”—how brilliantly articulated—as if he or she is fanning the flame of grace so that his or her Beloved would return once again to the warmth of being in the holy and forgiving presence of God. How much closer can two lovers be than that?

Before I go off to catch up on my Hermeneutics readings, I can’t help but list the instructions Baxter provides in the same book regarding maintaining love in marriage [IV, 117-119]. Those who are going to get married or are married, I encourage you to reflect deeply on Baxter’s points:

1. Choose one at first that is truly amiable.

2. Marry not till you are sure that you can love entirely.

3. Be not too hasty, but know beforehand all the imperfections, which may tempt you afterwards to loathing.

4. Remember that justice commandeth you to love…until death.

5. Remember that woman are ordinarily affectionate, passionate creatures, and as they love much themselves, so they expect much love from you.

6. Remember that you are under God’s command; and to deny conjugal love to your wives, is to deny a duty which God hath urgently imposed on you.

7. Remember that you are relatively, as it were, one flesh.

8. Take more notice of the good, that is in your wives, than of the evil. Let not the observation of their faults make you forget or overlook their virtues.

9. Make not infirmities to seem odious faults, by considering the frailty of the sex, and of their tempers, and considering also your own infirmities, and how much your wives must bear with you.

10. Stir up that most in them into exercise which is best, and stir not up that which is evil; and then the good will most appear, and the evil will be as buried, and you will easilier maintain your love. There is some uncleanness in the best on earth; yet if you will be daily stirring in the filth, no wonder if you have the annoyance; and for that you may thank yourselves: draw out the fragrancy of that which is good and delectable in them, and do not by your own imprudence or peevishness stirrup the worst, and then you shall find that even your faulty wives will appear more amiable to you.

11. Overcome them with love; and then whatever they are in themselves, they will be loving to you, and consequently lovely. Love will cause love, as fire kindleth fire. A good husband is the best means to make a good and loving wife. Make them not forward by your frorward carriage, and then say, we cannot love them.

12. Give them examples of amiableness in yourselves; set them the pattern of a prudent, lowly, loving, meek, self-denying, patient, harmless, holy, heavenly life. Try this a while, and see whether it will not shame them from their faults, and make them walk more amiably themselves.

Several hundred years later, such teachings on marriage from Baxter are still imperative for a loving, and holy marriage. The Bible is living… and speaks to us even in the present day; and for that, I look at Lee, my husband, and consider all the possible obstacles that shall present themselves in the future, and feel assurance, rest, and hope. For that, I say, Amen.