(An excerpt from longer article entitled "The Marriage In Cana Of Galilee.)
"God has ordained that there should be perfect love and harmony between those who enter into the marriage relation."
Christ’s Love Never Destroys Human Love The divine love emanating from Christ never destroys human love, but includes it. By it human love is refined and purified, elevated and ennobled. Human love can never bear its precious fruit until it is united with the divine nature, and trained to go heavenward. Jesus wants to see happy marriages, happy firesides. The warmth of true friendship and the pure love that bind the hearts of husband and wife are a foretaste of heaven. {ST September 6, 1899, par. 8}
God has ordained that there should be perfect love and harmony between those who enter into the marriage relation. Let bride and bridegroom, in the presence of the heavenly universe, pledge themselves to love each other as God has ordained they should. Let no draught of unkindness chill the atmosphere of love which should surround them. The wife is to respect and reverence her husband, and the husband is to love and cherish his wife. As the priest of the household, the husband and father should bind his wife and children to his heart. The wife should feel that the large affections of her husband sustain her before her children are born, and after their birth he should co-operate with her in the management of the little ones, who should be wisely, firmly, tenderly, lovingly educated. {ST September 6, 1899, par. 9}
The family relationship should be sanctifying in its influence. Christian homes, established and conducted in accordance with God’s plan, are a wonderful help in forming Christian character. Families here should be a symbol of the great family above. Parents and children should unite in offering loving service to Him who alone can keep human love pure and noble. {ST September 6, 1899, par. 10}
"All who enter the matrimonial life with a holy purpose, the husband to obtain the pure affection of a woman’s heart, the wife to soften and improve her husband’s character, and give it completeness, fulfil God’s purpose for them."
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church; and He is the Saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church; for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.” [Eph. 5:22-31] If this instruction were heeded by those who enter into the marriage relation, the home life would be pure and elevated, garrisoned by holy love. {ST September 6, 1899, par. 11}
God made from man a woman, to be a companion and helpmeet for him, to be one with him, to cheer, encourage, and bless him. And he in his turn is to be her strong helper. All who enter the matrimonial life with a holy purpose, the husband to obtain the pure affection of a woman’s heart, the wife to soften and improve her husband’s character, and give it completeness, fulfil God’s purpose for them. Christ came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil its every specification. He came to pull down and destroy the works of oppression that the enemy had raised up everywhere. It was in perfect harmony with His character and work to make known the fact that marriage is a holy institution. He came not to destroy this institution, but to restore it to its original sanctity. He came to restore the moral image of God in man, and He began His work by sanctioning the marriage relation. Thus He who made the first holy pair, and who created for them a paradise, put His seal upon the institution first celebrated in Eden, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. {ST September 6, 1899, par. 12}
Signs of the Times, September 6, 1899