The Mystical Marriage, Chapter 3
CAP. III. The happinesse of the soule in her second Marriage.
NAbal being dead, David marries his wife: lusts name is Nabal; and folly is with him; and folly being dead, the Sonne of David, yea the Sonne of God, who is the highest wisdome, marriage. A right kindly and blessed marriage, wherein a spirit marries with a spirit, a derived spirit with the originall and and roote of spirits; yea with a spirit that hath abundance of spirit, and so can continually refresh and nourish her with a new supply of spirit. For being thus fed and supplied with a sap of her owne kinde, shee growing in being and well-being; she is more spirituall by receiving more juice and fatnesse of the spirit, and consequently more full of divine light, beauty, love, vertue, power, life, joy, and glory. Behold the highest knot of blessednesse on earth, and a preparation, yea a pledge of the highest happinesse in heaven. And though this inchoate marriage here on earth compared to the consummate marriage in heaven, seeme but like to a betrothing, yet even this betrothing compared to earthly marriages, casts a shadow of darknesse on them: for all the beauty, all the glory, all the joy in the world are but beames, & rayes, & flashes of this King of glory, beauty, and joy. By him were all things made that were made, and therfore the goodnesse of the things that are made by him, must be borrowed of him that made them; and then must the borrowed goodnesse needes be ashamed, to be compared with his goodnesse that gave or lent it. Christ Iesus is all lights in one light, all glories in one glory, all beauties in one beauty, all joyes in one joy. Whē he gave light, and glory, and beauty, and joy to the creature, he left the roote of light, and glory, and beauty, and joy in himselfe. So did he leave infinitely more in himselfe, than hee gave out of himselfe; for an internall, and infinite fountaine, hath infinitely more in it, than all the streames that ever issued from it: and hee is a fountaine, for largenes unlimited, and for spring without beginning and ending. The dew of his birth is of the wombe of the morning, even of that morning which hath an everlasting rising, and shall be free from setting, for all eternities. Thus the soule being united to him, is united to an eternall roote and fountaine of blessednes: she is lightened with the primitive light, she enjoyeth the primitive beauty, she is adorned with the primitive glory, shee tasteth the radicall, utmost, and uppermost sweetnesse. Being made one with him who is God, she hath the taste of God, and God being tasted, overfloweth, and steepeth, and drencheth the soule with overcomming and inebriating sweetnesse. For a high, and large, and mighty joy, poured into a low, and measured, and weake spirit, overcommeth her with quantity, and quality, and so carries her away into extasie and ravishment: she is too narrow and feeble to containe and beare a joy that is too large and strong for her; and therefore having filled her to the utmost capacity, it goes beyond, and runnes over. So is she blessed in that fulnesse which her measure containeth, yea she is more than blessed, even blessed in a kinde of excesse, by being overcome and overflowed with blessednesse. And if we will consider the quality of this joy as well as the quantity, there is no joy to the spirituall joy, the joyes of the body being base in comparison of it; the spirituall joy is pure, piercing, and full of activity, the joy of bodies is grosse, heavie, dull, and earthy. In the bodily wine it is the spirit of the wine, that rejoyceth the spirits of the body. But a wine that is all spirit, and spirit in the height and top of spiritualnes, and newly drawne and sucked from the prime and chiefest spirit, how doth that rejoyce, how doth that ravish the spirits that drinke it? when mans highest part doth tast the highest good. Man hath no higher part whereby to taste and receive happinesse, neither is there any higher happinesse to be tasted and received. Therefore the soule that tasteth this wine at her spirituall marriage, saith as the Master of the Feast at the earthly marriage; Lord, Thou hast kept the best wine untill the last. And this being best, the soule gives it the best place in her judgement and affection; she forgets that which is behinde, and indeavours to that which is before, she will not rest in the low and backward joyes of the bodie, but strives toward the high and forward joyes of the spirit: and having attained them, she rests in them, as in the best joyes, yet so rests in them, in this life of growth, that she desires to grow by them presently to a greater capacity of them, and finally to a full, large, and everlasting fruition of them, in a nearer accesse unto the very spring and fountaine of joyes.
But when all is said of this marriage-happinesse, one taste of it wil tell thee more, than all that is or can be said. The true knowledge of the sweetnes of God is gotten by tasting, and therefore taste first, and then see how sweet and gracious the Lord is. The taste of it will truly tell him that tasteth it, how sweet it is; but hee that knoweth this sweetnes by tasting, cannot deliver over the full and perfect image of this sweetnes to him that hath not tasted it. For this sweetnes surmounts all knowne sweetnesse of the creatures, and by that which is knowne must that which is unknowne be made knowne. But if that which is knowne be lesse and lower than that which is unknown, that which is knowne may teach and tell us what the unknowne is not, but not what it is. So the joy of love and union in an earthly marriage, cannot expresse a heavenly joy that is spiritually pure, and purely active. Only these and the like comparisons may serve for staires, whereby to ascend, even above these comparisons, and to set our foot on something beyond them. For if the soule rests on these, she rests short of the knowledge of the sweetnesse which is beyond these; shee is still in the sweetnesse of the creature, and hath not attained the sweetnesse of the Creatour. Therefore when she hath gone as farre as she may in the sweetnesse of the creature, let her advance one step more into that spirituall union, wherein is to be tasted, and seene by tasting, the sweetnes of the Creatour; and ther shall shee see more by tasting, than all the creatures could shew her by resembling: she hath met with that joy, which onelyonly can truly teach it selfe,1 Pet. 1.8. and therefore it is called unspeakable. And whereas before it was tasted the being of it was doubted, and much more the manner and shape of it was unknowne, now it is both knowne to be, and the shape and manner of it is also known. And being knowne, all other sweetnesses which before were alone knowne and esteemed, are now despised, & as it were unknown. For this is that blessed estate of spirituall love and union, whereof the spouse of Christ truely saith: If a man would give all the substance of his house for louelove, Cant. 8.7.it would utterly bee contemned. And indeed the spouse having Christs love, she hath that which is better than all things; and having Christ with his love, how can she with him but have all things also?Rom. 8.32 Christ is the heire of all things,Heb. 1. and the soule having married this heire, is a joynt-heire annexed with Christ. She hath him by whom the worlds were made,1 Cor. 3.22. and therefore she hath also the worlds made by him: yet he that made the worlds, being Infinitely better than the worlds made by him, she despiseth the worlds in respect of him that made them: she quencheth her thirst in the fountaine onelyonly, and she accounts it a folly, and a losse to leave the fountaine, and to run after the streames. Therefore setting her mouth to this fountaine, she is filled with the waters of life, with the oyle of gladnesse, with the new wine of the kingdome of God, with the joy of the holy Ghost, even a joy unspeakable and glorious. In Christ Iesus she hath all-sufficiency, all safety, all supply: shee receives from Christ that spirituall oyntment, which gives her spiritual light power, goodnesse, love, and life; yea it adorneth the soule with the most excellent beauty, even the likenesse and image of God himselfe. And being thus lovely, the bridegroom kisseth and embraceth her with spirituall visitations, he tells her his counsailes, and his eyes are ever toward her, even when hee seemes to be turned from her: For she is set as a signet upon his heart, and much water cannot quench his love: & she also looketh on him, and is changed from glory to glory, as the Moon when with more open face shee beholdeth the Sunne. But of the particular benefits ane advantages of this blessed Marriage more hereafter.Cap. 4, 5, 6.
Thus happy, and thus growing in happinesse, shee walkes on in this life of marriage inchoate, untill she come to the eternall life of marriage consummate. She is happy now in her union with happinesse, and she shall be happy hereafter in a full fruition of happinesse. She is happy now in the earnests and peeces of that happinesse which shall be full hereafter; yea daily more and more happy here, by a daily enlarging of those earnests and peeces: and shee shall be the more happy hereafter, by how much more these earnests and peeces of happinesse have beene here enlarged. And thus shall she walke by happines unto happines, and by the increase of happines to the increase of happines, since the more happy shee is in time, the greater shall her happinesse be in eternity.