Contrition

“ What did it profit a man to gain the whole world if he lost his soul? At last he had understood: and human life lay around him, a plain of peace whereon antlike men laboured in brotherhood, their dead sleeping under quiet mounds. The elbow of his companion touched him and his heart was touched: and when he spoke to answer a question of his master he heard his own voice full of the quietude of humility and contrition.
His soul sank back deeper into depths of contrite peace, no longer able to suffer the pain of dread, and sending forth, as he sank, a faint prayer. ”

“ Virgin Mary, my patroness! full of the bowels of mercy, help me, a wretched sinner, before a sudden and unforeseen death overtake me; that I may not pass out of this world suddenly and unprepared. Pray for me, blessed Virgin Mary, for the most bitter Passion and Death of thy only Son our Lord Jesus Christ, that I may pass out of this world reconciled to Him, in detestation of all sin, in the renunciation of the devil and all his works, with true contrition, with sincere and humble confession, penitence, and satisfaction, worthy of acceptance with God, and in full charity with my neighbour. ”

“ The ritual of the marriage is very simple: a prayer for the happiness and guidance of the young couple who are about to enter upon the troubled tide of life; a short exhortation upon the duties of the station which they are to undertake, and a benediction by the imposition of the hands of the minister, is all the ceremonial of the union, and announces to them that they are “no longer two, but one flesh.” ”

“ Did a learned body of priests get together in conference and, by their own wisdom, without any revelation from heaven, make up a certain form by which the male and the female should be joined in marriage? ”

“ To have you to a priest, and marry you,
And put you in an honourable state.
Rach. To marry me! O heaven! can it be?
That men should live with such unfeeling souls,
Without or touch or conscience of religion? ”

“ And if confidence and love shall so far embolden us, our soul may speak to God as the bride speaks to her spouse in several colloquies, with which the book of Canticles is replenished.
In all these ways we may speak to our Lord in prayer, clothing ourselves with the affections before mentioned, sometimes with one and sometimes with another; for all are fitting to us to use in treating with our God, who is our physician, our judge, our friend and the spouse of our souls. ”

“ O God! thou who hast consecrated marriage by so excellent a mystery that the nuptial alliance is the figure of the sacred union of Jesus Christ and his church; O God! by whom the woman is united to the man, and who givest to this intimate union thy blessing, the only one which has not been taken away, neither by the punishment of original sin nor the sentence of the Deluge ”

“ They have invented it themselves, as you can find by reading the disciplines, creeds and articles of faith, which almost every religious society possesses, and which some of them have possessed for a long period of time. If we go back for several hundred years, we shall find some of these forms in existence. In the Roman Catholic church the ritual of marriage has existed for many generations. ”

“ You will at once see, venerable brothers, that the doctrine and precepts in relation to Christian marriage, which We have thought good to communicate to you in this letter, tend no less to the preservation of civil society than to the everlasting salvation of souls. May God grant that, by reason of their gravity and importance, minds may everywhere be found docile and ready to obey them! ”

“ Says one, "Why is it that men in your society may have more than one wife? What is the policy of it?" The men of God who hold the Priesthood of heaven, and imbibe the light of the Holy Ghost, have the privilege and right. ”

“ And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is: this fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot ”

“ As soon as I had put on my first long dress, which gave me at once the right to think of marriage and speak of love, I had told all my friends that I loved, and would never love or marry any one but you—you or the convent. ”

“ Thoroughly convinced of the greatness of the Lord's power, as all men will be by the end of the Time of Trouble, they will be glad to entrust all their interests to His care.
[pg 291] 19:7. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him.—“Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power.”—Psa. 110:3.
For the Marriage of the Lamb is come.—The marriage of men and women is declared in the Scriptures to be a type of the marriage of Christ and His Church. (Eph. 5:22-23.) It is a recognized principle that the antitype is greater than the sum of all the types. ”

“ At your conversion, you are, as it were, betrothed to Him, or in ordinary language engaged to Him. At your entire sanctification, your engagement is consummated by the marriage union. Engagement must precede marriage, it is true, but, as a rule, engagements should not be long. Do not needlessly defer your nuptials, but rather hasten to the embraces of Everlasting Love. ”

“ For Christ our Lord added to marriage the dignity of a sacrament; but marriage is the contract itself, whenever that contract is lawfully concluded.
Marriage, moreover, is a sacrament, because it is a holy sign which gives grace, showing forth an image of the mystical nuptials of Christ with the Church. But the form and image of these nuptials is shown precisely by the very bond of that most close union in which man and woman are bound together in one; which bond is nothing else but the marriage itself. ”

“ Should you, after a mature deliberation, think that you to be called to the married state, prepare yourself for it by prayer, good works, and especially by a good General Confession, and be careful not to follow those who, by sin and vice draw the curse of God upon their heads. ”

“ Where there is a difference of religious faith and practice between the man and woman, there will not only be the marriage ceremony to arrange but there should be a clear, written agreement as to which faith any children that may be born are to be reared in. ”

“ The minister then says unto the woman:
M.⸻ wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband—to live together after God's ordinance, in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, serve him, honor him, love him and keep him, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live. The woman shall answer "I will." ”

“ The bride is the Church, and the marriage-feast is our Lord’s spiritual union with the Church: the invited guests are those who are called to believe. Those who accept the invitation are those who are spiritually united to our Lord, and who have a share in the treasures of His grace. ”

“ That marriage is a contract, and therefore from first to last the creature of the law, is the assumption on the one side; that marriage is a sacrament, and therefore determined by a higher authority than that of the State, is the assumption of the other. ”

“ Here we have a double paradox, two irreconcilable contradictions, which in due time produced their natural evil fruit. On the one hand, marriage is a sacrament, a holy mystery, yet it rests upon a mere human contract. ”

“ As We have elsewhere shown, (14) in marriage, according to the belief of almost every nation, there is something sacred and religious; and the law of God has determined that marriages shall not be dissolved. ”

“ There is no ground whatever for such slanders, unless the rejection of the ring, with the peculiar observances of the English church, and the insistence that marriage, as a divine ordinance, is a [316] matter between man and his own conscience, in which the priest shall have nothing to do, may be counted a justification. ”

“ Are you speaking, Mademoiselle, of the solemn union between man and woman? In this sense, marriage is a sacrament. But sometimes, alas! it is almost a sacrilege. As for civil marriage, it is a formality. The importance given to it in our society is an idiotic thing which would have made the women of other times laugh. ”

“ You must pardon the deception, dear sir, and you must perform the marriage ceremony without inconvenient scruples, or hesitation, or questions. Be thankful, for the sake of morality, we see the propriety of getting married at all. ”

“ Amen.’ They then take hold of each other’s right hand, and the woman says, ‘What God joins together let no man put asunder.’ Then the priest says, ‘Forasmuch as this man and this woman have come together by giving and receiving a ring, I therefore declare them to be man and wife before God and these witnesses, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. ”

“ All these perfections and dispositions of the soul the bride sets forth before her Beloved, the Son of God, longing at the same time to be translated by Him out of the spiritual marriage, to which God has been pleased to advance her in the Church militant, to the glorious marriage of the Church triumphant. ”

“ We will even condescend to ring at your weddings—because marriage is a sacrament—and at your baptisms. We will toll solemnly when your spirits pass from earth, and when your bodies are laid in the churchyard we have seen slowly raised with the dust of your dying generations. ”

“ So strictly are the laws of marriage carried out, that, should any sign of courtship or affection be observed between those 'of one flesh,' the brothers or male relatives of the woman beat her severely. ”

“ But perhaps most persons, especially when young and looking forward to a long future of connubial happiness, consider the act of marriage more as a religious rite than a civil contract, and hence the forms and ceremonies of the Church accord more agreeably with the sentiment of love and affection than the business-like and informal words of the magistrate, who, in response to their acknowledgment of intention to marry, simply pronounces them man and wife. ”

“ It is of faith that virginity is preferable to matrimony: "If anyone saith that the marriage state is to be preferred before the state of virginity, let him be anathema." COUNCIL OF TRENT. The religious state is a more usual and a safer way of preserving virginity than a life in the outer world.
3. The invitation to the counsels is general ; it may be accepted by anyone who is not prevented by some particular impediment, as marriage, sickness or home obligations. The three counsels - of poverty, chastity and obedience - constitute the substance of the religious state. ”

“ But there should be no frivolous tampering with the marriage rite, which is proclaimed as a sacrament by the church, and should be always esteemed as the most sacred act in the lives of those who thus make their covenants together. ”

“ Of all the treatises we have ever read on marriage, we have seen none so good as one here called a 'Marriage Sermon'; not that we would ask any couple to hear it all on their marriage day, but we commend it to all who are married, or intend to be. ”

“ The king then said to his servants, "The marriage is ready, but those whom I have thereto invited were not worthy of it. Go now to the outlets of the ways, and whomsoever ye find, invite to the marriage." Ways are the various deeds of men. Outlets of ways are the perishing of worldly works; and those very often come to God, who in earthly works but little prosper. Hereupon the king's messengers went through the ways, gathering all whom they found, both evil and good, and at length made the marriage. ”

“ The custom is for the husbands to buy the women whom they marry, of their fathers and relatives at a high price, and then to take them to a chief, who is considered to be a priest, to deflower them and see if she is a virgin ”

“ From these things is evident the exposition of the second proof from the parable of the marriage supper, in which are gathered by faith the good and the bad, who are mingled in holy church. But the bad are not true sons, just as those are not true friends, because they lack the marriage garment, which is predestinating love. ”

“ The girl has less voice than the young man, still her decision can not be entirely overlooked.
2. The Ceremony of Engagement. When the friends of the young man give their decision for a certain young woman, they send some friends or their priest to make the formal proposition and get the answer of "the other side." If they get a favorable reply a day is appointed for the ceremony of engagement, when the friends of the young man, associated with the priest, go to the home of the young woman to perform the ceremony of engagement. ”

“ Suffice it to say, that the history of conventual life affords abundant evidence on a very large scale, of the power of religious authority in directing and withstanding the tendencies of human nature towards freedom in marriage. ”

“ We here see that heaven itself is represented in the Word by marriage, and, in fact, is so called. Hence may be seen the essential holiness of true marriage. On this subject the Doctrine of the New Church thus further speaks: "Marriage in the heavens is the conjunction of two into one mind. ”

“ And in the meeting before the marriage I was moved to open to the people the state of our marriages, how the people of God took one another in the assemblies of the elders, and how God did join man and woman together before the fall, and man had joined in the fall, but it was God’s joining again in the restoration and never from Genesis to the Revelation did ever any priests marry any. ”