The marriage of Christ is the mystery of the Church, and it belongs to the initiated. To those who stand in the outer circle of thought it is a word and a fable. To those who are within it is the simplest and the grandest of all possible realities.
I. Consider how this union, of which all marriage is the intended allegory, actually takes place between Him and us. The first mover is, as it ought to be, the Lord Jesus Christ. The wife does not seek her husband, but the husband seeks his wife. Gradually, by His own sweet constraints, and the outgoings of His Spirit to Us, we begin to love Him. And then come the early betrothals of a heart made willing the moving of holy desires and of sacred yearnings. And then the contract that indissoluble contract which is between Christ and the believer, strong as adamant.
II. Note the conditions of the union. In the presence of witnesses the covenant of marriage must be ratified. And so here angels and the Church look on when Christ, before the whole universe, confesses you, and will confess you, to be His for ever. And you, on your part, must confess Him before Christians, before the world, before angels, before all men. The mutual confession is the basis of the stipulation.
III. And with common consent it must be. Free as the wind was His choice of you; absolute and explicit must be your surrender to Him. No compulsion, no outside circumstances, no secondary motive will avail. It must be your own independent, unbiassed will, the full accord of your whole heart. It is a compact of perfect affection, absolute duty, untiring allegiance. The soul of all attachment to you is Christ. It is a relation of the most exquisite fondness, but it is a relation of the most unqualified obedience.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,9th series, p. 193.