Puritans Prohibit Church Weddings ..... So Now You Know!

    

 In 1647 the New England Puritans did something which might seem odd in the view of their professed and very real piety: they outlawed the preaching of wedding sermons. Even before that year they had mandated that all marriage ceremonies be conducted by a civil magistrate.
     Why? The Puritans believed that marriage was a fundamentally secular institution, of no direct concern to the church. It was, as Martin Luther wrote, not a sacrament, but "a secular and outward thing, having to do with wife and children, house and home, and with other matters that belong to the realm of government, all of which have been completely subjected to reason." By the end of the century the Puritans relaxed their restrictions on church involvement in wedding and allowed marriages ceremonies to be performed by ministers as well as by justices of the peace.

So Now You Know ..... !