The opening sentence of The Order for the Service of Marriage is one of the most starkly beautiful in the English language:

Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the presence of these witnesses, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony; which is an honorable estate, instituted of God, and signifying unto us the mystical union which exists between Christ and his Church; which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence in Cana of Galilee.

What a lovely combination of words! How dynamic are their expression! How inclusive their compass! Surely Archbishop Cranmer, who in 1549 edited The Book of Common Prayer, from which these words derive, was not only a man of special sanctity but also of peculiar genius. Consider how th…