The Mystical Marriage, Chapter 2
II. The soule hath but one husband at once.
THere is a law in heaven, that the heavenly Bride may at one time have but one Husband. The first marriage on earth was a patterne of this Law, for then God gave one woman to one man: God that made this first marriage, gave not two women to one man, nor two men to one woman, but he gave one to one, that two (not three or foure) may be one flesh. Accordingly the heavenly marriage-makers espouse the Church to one husband, and that they may doe so,2 Cor. 12.2 they doe teach, that the former husband must be dead, before the soule can marry with another. No soule can marry with Christ Iesus, but a widow; for she must be freed from the law of her old husband by his death, before shee can come to be subject to the law of the new. Her olde husband was concupiscence, to who she was married in carnall generation, and this husband must be slaine, and put off by death, if Christ Iesus the new and true husband of the soule shall be put on in regeneration. And indeede if the soule will give her consent, this new and true husband will kill the old, not so much an husband, as a thiefe and adulterer: A theefe he is, for he hath stollen the foule, from her first Lord and husband, even the Lord that made her; and an adulterer he is, for he lives with her that belongs to another, and while hee lives with her, he keeps her not for love, but lust: wherefore let the soule give her consent to his death, that thereby her true husband may recover his right in her, and that she may receive her true husband, and in him, life, liberty, and felicity.
And indeed she may well be weary of the old, for her living with him is most unreasonable, most slavish, and most miserable. It is most unreasonable, for there is no sense in the mariage of a soule with lust. What good can lust do to a soule? there being no likenesse, but a meere contrariety betweene them: and wee know that things are cherished and augmented by their like, but they are destroyed by their contraries. The soule is light, and lust is darknesse, and can darknesse give any increase of being or wellbeing to light? Yea doth not darknesse goe about to lessen, to quench and kill light? Againe, lust hath in it a venome contrary to goodnesse, and can evill give any accesse or addition of goodnesse to the soule? Yea this venome hath in it a force and power to draw the wil and affections from that soveraigne good, which is the true and onelyonly beatificall object of the soule, and to glue and fasten her to objects of vanity, yea of death and misery. Againe, the soule in her substance is a spirit, and what kindly or naturall pleasure or profit can a spiritual essence receive from grosse and fleshly lust? The soule hath no savour in the ranke and grosse pleasures of the flesh, but they are to her as the onions and garlike of Egypt to a dainty & delicate taste. Surely so well may the earth lighten the Sunne, and a tempest give rest to the sea, as lust can give light, or life, or rest or happinesse to the soule: but darknesse and death, and misery it can and doth give, and so under the shape of an husband it is a cruell enemy and a very murtherer of the soule. And surely hee could be no other but a mortall enemy of the soule, that made such a marriage betweene the soule and her mortall enemy: And hee had neede to be as cunning as malicious, to put a shew of reason upon a match so absurd and unreasonable.
And if in a second place wee beholde the slavery of the soule in this marriage with lust, the teares that bewailed the virginity of Iephthahs daughter, are not sufficient to bewaile this slavish marriage. The body commands the soule, earth heaven, and dust that noble and divine essence which was breathed into man, even from Gods owne mouth, and had his owne image imprinted on it. Neither is it the body of dust onelyonly that commands the heavenly soule, but the body it selfe being commanded by lust, doth command the soule; so is lust the chiefe lord both of body and soule; even a certaine venome, itch and fury dwelling in this earth of man. There may be some proportion betweene the dust which God turned into a body, and that soule which God made with his breath, though in a large and remote distance and difference. But betweene the soule which God made according to his owne image, and this blinde and wilde lust which God made not in man, there is no portion or part of proportion, whereupon any right or power of command may be grounded. Yet in this base and wretched marriage, vile and odious lust spurs up the soule with his commands, and makes her to trudge up and down in businesses of darknesse, filthinesse and wretchednes: The soule is set on work in things that are no kin to her, no good to her, yea that are contrary to her being and well-being: For contrary they are to that image of God which is in her, and consequently contrary to that God whose image this is, and to whō this image points and leades her as to her soveraigne good. And thus have wee a third mischiefe of this marriage; even misery annexed to slavery. For as the image of God in the soule turnes the eye and heart of the soule to looke unto God her chiefe happinesse, so lust turnes about the eye and heart of the soule from her happinesse; and what can her prospect and object be then but misery? And if the eye of the soule happen to cast up some glances to heaven and happinesse, yet the heart, even the will and affections are hurried away by this lust to objects and workes of vanity and misery; so that the soule can onelyonly say, I see the better things, and follow the worse; I see happines, and runne after misery. Thus by slavery shee buyeth misery, and slavery it selfe being misery, by misery she earneth misery. And indeed is it not the true misery of an Egyptian bondage, that the soule should bee still set on worke by lust in a fiery fornace, yea be beaten and tormented when shee doth not worke, though her worke concerne her selfe nothing, but onelyonly to strengthen her owne bondage, and to increase her owne misery? And indeede therefore is she kept so hard at this worke, that she may hauehave no leisure to thinke beyond bondage and misery. Accordingly if the soule at any time doe but lift up her eyes above her present bondage, to that Lord of life, liberty, and happinesse, which would once have married her, and still makes new offers unto her, this tyrannous husband like a Taske-master, strikes in deepe lashes into her side, and tells her she is idle, though she thinkes on her nearest businesse, and dearest happinesse. If it be in the morning, there is a bargaine of profit imposed on her, and this lot of bricke must be made that day, and about it must the soule goe, being pierced throgh with the thorns of covetousnesse, by the violent hand of her false husband, that she may have no leisure, respiration or rest. And if at night the soule be weary of this dayes worke, and would faine goe to bed with the body, the night is lusts day, as it is the Owles, (for both are blinde) and then there is a wife whose husband is from home, and the poore soule being a spirit must crafficke in this errand for the flesh, to make a wary but a wicked meeting betweene her owne lewd husband, and another mans wife: and while she plots it, she doth a worke of slavery, and when she hath done it, she shall have no other but the wages of misery But endlesse were it to set forth the whole story of this Aegyptian bondage: Let the carnall man reade over the story of his owne life, and he may see the one in the other. And all being summed together amounts to this; that the marriage betweene the soule and lust is monstrous, as betweene a woman and a beast; slavish, as betweene a woman and a tyrant; mischievous and mortall, as betweene a woman and a serpent.
And I wish all this were sufficient to perswade the soule to give consent to the divorce and death of this usurping and bloudy husband, without whose death there can be no marriage betweene her & happines: for though all reason and right doe joyne for his removal, yet power and possession, and union worke mightily for him. The friends of the Bridegroome cry aloud, Put off the olde man corrupt throgh deceiuable lusts, Eph. 4.& put on the new created in righteousnes and holines. And, If ye live after the flesh ye shall die, Rom. 8.13.but if ye mortifie the deedes of the flesh by the spirit, ye shall live. And, Abstaine from fleshly lusts which fight against the soule. 1 Pet. 2.11The authority, love, and reasons of these voices, deserve to be heard, perswading the soule to no other, but a separation from a deadly enemy, who can give her no dower but death eternall. And I wish that thus yet the soule may be perswaded.
And when the soule is come even to the point of perswasion, even then will lust come weeping after the soule, like the false husband of Michal: hee will raise up in her remembrance the images of grosse and filthy pleasures, to awake the old unhappy love, and to cause a cruell and unmercifull pitty. For a cruell pitty it is, when the soule pitties her owne murtherer, and not her owne murther. But rather put on a mercifull cruelty, being mercifull to thy selfe, by killing him that would kill thee. It is better he should endure one death, who is not worthy to live, than that a soule should be ever dying, which should live for ever. If thou kill not lust now, hee must shortly die with the death of the body, and this short life of his will cost thee everlasting death: but if thou kill him presently, who must die shortly, by this small oddes of death, thou preservest to thy selfe everlasting life. Wherefore that which shall shortly be necessary, make it presently voluntary, and so shalt thou turne necessity, into a sacrifice, (even a freewill offering,) and by his death thou shalt change thy owne death into life eternall. And know that they are but false teares which lust doth shed, and his cryes are lyes: for there is no such happinesse in his union, as his teares would tell thee, but thy happines is then most, when thou art gotten free from lust; even when lust is dead, and the soule new maried to her Saviour. For the first soule was happy before she was maried to lust, and miserable onelyonly after that accursed mariage. To bee without lust is a true Paradise; for man had not this lust when hee was first placed in Paradise, neither could Paradise endure man, when this lust was placed in him. Therefore the true way to returne to Paradise, (or the state of happines, wherof it was a type) is to put off this lust, wherewith began our misery. And lust being put off frō the soule by death, and she new maried to the Lord of life, then will she say that she was never happy till then, and that her former imaginary happinesse, was but painted and glittering misery. She will looke on dead lust as on a loathsome carkasse; and shee will loath the remembrance of her former not loves but adulteries: she will be like one awaked from a foolish dreame, or an inchanted love, and shee will wonder that shee hath so long beene bewitched with vanity, folly, sinne and misery. But withall in her new mariage, having tasted how sweete her Lord is, shee will wonder and lament, that shee hath so long lacked this sweetnesse. Excesse of joy will be to her a cause of sorrow, for her joy is now so great, that she is sorry shee was no sooner partaker of this joy. And in this joyfull sorrow shee will kisse the feete of her Lord, and weepe on them while she kisseth them. The feete of her Lord are now more precious to her than the head and top of lust; for therefore she kisseth them, because she loveth thē, and therefore she weepeth, because she hath loved lust so long a time, and her Lord so little. For lust that once falsly appeared to her as her greatest joy, now truly appeares to her as her greatest sorrow; and her now Lord in whom before she tooke no delight, now appeares to be her chiefest and truest joy: And both these her teares doe tell us.