Dearly Beloved,We Are Gathered Here Today… – The Seventh Commandment  –

“Do not commit adultry…”

DEARELY beloved friends, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of his congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, 

    which is an honorable state, 

    instituted of God in Paradise, 

        in the time of manes innocence, 

    signiflyng unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church…

These immortal words, originally written in the 1550’s by Thomas Cranmer, but have their origin as far back as at least 800, are some of the most iconic words of all time. 

One Prayer Book scholar estimates that these words, or a slight variation, has been heard by over a billion people throughout history. 

This week we move to the seventh commandment. And the focus is on marriage. 

And like the other commands, we will see just how counter-cultural this one is. 

We like to think we live in an inclusive age. We celebrate our diversity, equality, and inclusivity. But we actually aren’t.

We live in a deeply segregated age, especially when it comes to all things surrounding marriage, sex, and gender. We have segregated and separated things that God has joined together. 

We have separated sex from marriage, sex from childbearing, and marriage from gender, to name a few. This week we will walk down an old path, and look at the forgotten wisdom from those beautiful words of Cranmer. And we will see: 

1. The Beauty of the Union 
2. The Joy of the Union 
3. The Fuel for the Union