A Wedding Sermon (also known as “A Bride-Bush,” 1617) is William Whately’s comprehensive Puritan guide to Christian marriage, delivered as a sermon on marital duties and later expanded into a substantial treatise addressing all aspects of married life.
We have updated the entirety of this classic into a modern, updated translation that is easy for anyone to read!
Written during the early Stuart period when Puritans sought to reform both doctrine and morals, this work provides detailed instruction on selecting spouses, conducting courtship, understanding marital roles, resolving conflicts, raising children, and maintaining godliness throughout married life, all grounded in scriptural teaching and practical wisdom.
Whately systematically addresses marriage from biblical and theological foundations through practical application, beginning with proper mate selection emphasizing spiritual compatibility and godly character over wealth or beauty, proceeding through courtship’s proper conduct avoiding fornication while establishing friendship, examining the marriage covenant’s nature as permanent union requiring mutual faithfulness, and exploring specific duties binding husbands and wives. His treatment demonstrates how Puritan theology shaped domestic life, with marriage serving both natural and spiritual purposes including companionship, procreation, and mutual sanctification.
What distinguishes this work is Whately’s combination of high ideals for Christian marriage with realistic acknowledgment of difficulties and practical counsel for navigating conflicts. Unlike purely idealistic treatments ignoring marital struggles or cynical perspectives emphasizing only marriage’s burdens, Whately presents marriage as both sacred covenant requiring serious commitment and natural relationship involving two sinful people needing grace and wisdom. His treatment is especially valuable for demonstrating Puritan emphasis on companionate marriage involving mutual love and respect alongside hierarchical structure with husbands’ headship and wives’ submission.
The work addresses specific marital duties including husbands’ obligations to love sacrificially, provide materially, lead spiritually, and avoid tyranny, alongside wives’ duties to reverence husbands, manage households efficiently, submit to legitimate authority, and maintain cheerful disposition. Whately emphasizes mutual responsibilities including faithfulness, patience, forgiveness, communication, joint prayer, and united child-rearing, showing how marriage requires both partners fulfilling distinct roles and sharing common obligations.
Author BiographyWilliam Whately (1583-1639) was an English Puritan minister known as the “Roaring Boy of Banbury” for his powerful preaching in that Oxfordshire town where he served throughout his ministry. Educated at Cambridge, Whately combined rigorous Calvinist theology with exceptional pastoral gifts, addressing practical Christian living through numerous published sermons and treatises on marriage, child-rearing, and domestic religion. His writings on family life, including “A Bride-Bush” and “A Care-Cloth” (on child-rearing), established him as leading Puritan authority on domestic duties, demonstrating how Reformed theology shaped everyday relationships and responsibilities. Beyond domestic topics, his works addressed prayer, repentance, and Christian conduct, establishing him as influential practical divine whose combination of doctrinal soundness with warm pastoral concern made biblical truth accessible to ordinary believers seeking to apply faith to daily life.
