A big thank you to everyone who replied to my request for help. It's steered me along the right path, I'm fairly sure. With the aid of Google Translate, it would appear that "The third", "The fourth" etc. are conditions that needed to be met before the marriage could take place. For example, "The third" condition is that the groom has been baptised; "The fourth" is that the Certificate of Baptism has been produced; "The fifth" is that the groom has been granted permission by his Military Commanding Officer etc. I wondered if anyone else has come across similar wording on a Dutch Marriage Certificate?