The fading of the flesh and flourishing of faith, or, One cast for eternity…

I come now to the Articles of this Marriage, ⟨p. 78⟩which truly are no more then thou requirest of thy own wife (if thou hast any) and therefore thou canst not but think them reasonable. I shall propound them to thee in these two Questions.

I come now to the Articles of this Marriage, ⟨p. 78⟩which truely are no more then thou requirest of thy own wife (if thou hast any) and therefore thou canst not but think them reasonable. I shall propound them to thee in these two Questions.

First, Art thou heartily willing to take Jesus Christ for thy Saviour and Sovereign? Canst thou love him with the hottest superlative love as thy Husband? (Its one thing to love a man as a Friend, and another thing to love him as thy Husband) canst thou give him the keys of thy heart, and keep thy affections as a fountain, sealed up from others, and opened only for him, and in subordination to him? Wilt thou honour him with the highest honour as thy Lord; submitting to his spirit as thy guide, and to his laws as thy rule? Is thy soul so ravished with the beauty of his person, the excellency of his promises, and the equity of his precepts, that thou darest promise through his strength to be a loving, faithful and obedient wife? Have the hot beams of that love which have been darted forth from this Sun of Righteousness (as the rays of the Sun united in a glass) turned thee into a flame, that thy heart is now ascending and mounting to Heaven, where thy Beloved is, and thou canst no more live without him, then thy body without thy soul? Art thou willing to be sanctified by his spirit, that thou mightest be prepared for his bosom and embraces, and to be saved alone by his merits, as the only procuring cause of all thy hopes and happiness? Wilt thou take him for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, with his cup of affliction, as well as his cup of consolation; with his shameful ⟨p. 79⟩