Prayer and the Foundation of Marriage

 By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms:

Guiding Young Couples to Seek Jesus From the Very Beginning

Good Morning,

I don’t remember what I said last week about how many more of these we would do on marriage in the Christian life from the Directory of Public Worship, but this week I am testifying that it will be two more. Today we’ll look primarily at the nature of the prayers offered by the minister and next week the focus shall be on the vows that the man and woman take as they enter into this covenant blessing provided by our gracious Lord. One of the things we will note is how there is a call not just upon the individuals getting married, but like we saw the DPW encourage on baptism and the Lord’s Supper, that there is a word to the people already married that they would in their own station be blessed to remember their own covenant oath taken many years before.

It is something all believers should consider in all the events of the church. There is a goal in the mind of God that we constantly, in light of what we see more formalized in the fourth commandment, be in reminder to our souls of the mercies and grace of God to supply all our needs and wants as we serve Christ in every area of life. It is the kind of plea we should make regularly in our own devotional life. At this point let’s read what the DPW suggests to the pastor:

And because all relations are sanctified by the word and prayer, the minister is to pray for a blessing upon them, to this effect:

“Acknowledging our sins, whereby we have made ourselves less than the least of all the mercies of God, and provoked him to embitter all our comforts; earnestly, in the name of Christ, to entreat the Lord (whose presence and favour is the happiness of every condition, and sweetens every relation) to be their portion, and to own and accept them in Christ, who are now to be joined in the honourable estate of marriage, the covenant of their God: and that, as he hath brought them together by his providence, he would sanctify them by his Spirit, giving them a new frame of heart fit for their new estate; enriching them with all graces whereby they may perform the duties, enjoy the comforts, undergo the cares, and resist the temptations which accompany that condition, as becometh Christians.”

. . . and so conclude the action with prayer to this effect:

“That the Lord would be pleased to accompany his own ordinance with his blessing, beseeching him to enrich the persons now married, as with other pledges of his love, so particularly with the comforts and fruits of marriage, to the praise of his abundant mercy, in and through Christ Jesus.”

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