VirginiaHuguenot
Puritanboard Librarian
As far as I know it's not online, but I highly recommend Henry Smith's sermon A Preparative to Marriage (found in the Works of Henry Smith, Vol. I) for both the married and the unmarried. Here are a few gems:
Therefore one saith, that marriage doth signify merry-age, because a play-fellow is come to make our age merry, as Isaac and Rebekah sported together. (p. 8)
Beasts are ordained for food, and clothes for warmth, and flowers for pleasure, but the wife is ordained for man; like little Zoar, a city of refuge to fly to in all his troubles, Gen. xix.20; and there is no peace comparable unto her but the peace of conscience. (p. 8)
To honour marriage more yet, or rather to teach the married how to honour one another, it is said that the wife was made of the husband's rib, Gen. ii.22; not of his head, for Paul calleth the husband the wife's head, Ephes. v. 23; not of the foot, for he must not set her at his foot. The servant is appointed to serve, and the wife to help. If she must not match with the head, nor stoop at the foot, where shall he set her then? He must set her at his heart, therefore she which should lie in his bosom was made in his bosom, and should be as close to him as his rib, of which she was fashioned. (p. 8)
In every state there is some one virtue which belongeth to that calling more than other; as justice unto magistrates, and knowledge unto preachers, and fortitude unto soldiers; so love is the marriage virtue which sings music to their whole life. (p. 22)
...the best policy in marriage is to begin well....To begin this concord well, it is necessary to learn one another's natures, and one another's affections, and one another's infirmities, because ye must be helpers, and ye cannot help unless you know the disease. (p. 23)
To her silence and patience she must add the acceptable obedience which makes a woman rule while she is ruled. (p. 30)