I was first breathed from heaven, and I came from God in my creation. I am divine and heavenly in my origin, in my essence, and in my character. Therefore, my happiness must also be divine and heavenly. For to a divine and heavenly essence can belong no other than a divine and heavenly happiness.
I am a spirit, though a low one, and God is a Spirit — the highest Spirit. And God, who is a Spirit, is the fountain of this spirit. Where should a low spirit find happiness but in the Highest Spirit? And where should a created spirit seek happiness but in the Spirit that created it?
Therefore, being a spirit, I will fasten myself upon a spiritual happiness, and I will look for this spiritual happiness in no one but the First and Best Spirit — beyond whom there is neither good nor being.
Then what business have you, O my soul, to remain any longer among these gross, thick, bodily things here below — to cast your love on them or to seek happiness in them? What are they to you? What agreement is there between your purity and their grossness?
A body that lives by breathing the thin element of air might as well try to live at the bottom of thick waters, as you can live — or even maintain, much less better, your being — by drawing on these gross and bodily creatures. Your being is of a higher and purer nature, and therefore your well-being must be drawn from something higher and purer than they.
The main use of these things is to serve the body, which is somewhat akin to their grossness. But remember, the body itself was created to serve the soul. How base, then, must that happiness be, which the soul should find in the servant of her servant?
Far more reasonable it is for the soul to fetch her well-being from some Being higher and better than herself — for only such a Being can truly better her — and then to lift up the body into participation of the soul’s high and spiritual happiness (for there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body), rather than allowing the body to drag the soul downward to gross and passing things meant merely to serve the body in its service to the soul.
And thus man may be perfectly happy — the soul, as a spirit, by union with the Highest Spirit, and the body, by union with the soul that is united to that Spirit.
And now the soul is resolved in her choice, for she has fixed her love upon that Spirit who is the true object of the love of spirits. But even that excellence which draws her love awakens her fear. Beholding such admirable purity and majesty, together with her own impurity and lowliness, she is moved at once both to run toward happiness and to shrink from it.
She stands torn between these impulses and in her distraction asks: “Will God indeed dwell with men? Will the Highest Spirit, who inhabits eternity and cannot abide iniquity, dwell with low spirits who are defiled and full of impurity? Who shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”
But the Lord Himself speaks to her and says: “Fear not, for your Maker is your Husband” (Isaiah 54). “The Lord of hosts is His name — your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth.”
It is the glory of the greatest Spirit to bless the lesser spirits, as it is the happiness of the lesser spirits to be blessed by the greatest. Fullness is most glorified by filling the greatest emptiness, and majesty by helping the greatest weakness.
As for your impurity — true it is that you are indeed too unclean to touch God in immediate union. But there is a pure counterpart of your nature, and that pure humanity is immediately united to the purest Deity. By that immediate union, you may come to a mediated union. For Deity and humanity being united make one Savior, one Head, and one Husband of souls.
And you, being married to Him who is God, are in Him also one with God. He is one with God by personal union; you are one with Him by mystical union. Being thus united and married to Him, His Spirit flows into your spirit, and the sap of Deity pours itself into your soul.
For as man and wife in a bodily marriage are one flesh, so in this spiritual and mystical marriage Christ and His spouse are one spirit. The Spirit of Christ, entering into our spirits, lays within them an immortal seed, and from that moment those whom He found impure He makes pure — pure in heart, so that they may see God.
The Son of God so loved the souls of men that He would make them His wife and marry them. And that He might make this wife fit to be brought into His Father’s house, He left His Father to come to her — to cleanse her from spots and blemishes and present her pure and glorious before the Father.
By His precious blood, He purges her from her guilt, and by His Spirit, He purifies her from her uncleanness. And both of these He bestows on her in His marriage with her.
Then the soul, thus washed, has boldness to approach God through her Husband, the Son of God, who loved her, gave Himself for her, and gave Himself to her. God beholds her — and she beholds God — as one with His Son, even as His Son’s wife.
Draw near then, O my soul, to this Husband of souls. The Lord is the Spirit who marries spirits and makes them one spirit with Himself in a bond of eternal blessedness.
Clear your eye and fix it upon Him as the fairest among men, the perfection of spiritual beauty, the treasure of heavenly joy, the true object of fervent love and inflamed affection. Fix on Him not only your eye but your strongest love and hottest affections.
Look on Him until you long for Him — for here it is sin not to look so as to long, and not to long having looked. For the Spirit has His desire also: it desires against that which is contrary to it, and it desires that which is its true nature. Accordingly, it lusts against the flesh, but it longs after spiritual objects — of which Christ Jesus is the chief.
Let your spirit then look and long and desire this Lord who is the Spirit, the chiefest Spirit. Cleave to Him, hang upon Him, and never let Him go until He is brought into the chambers of your soul. Say to Him resolutely that you will not leave Him until you hear a voice in your soul saying, “My Beloved is mine, and I am my Beloved’s.”
To this end, keep your gaze fixed upon Him and continue to call upon Him: “Kiss me with the kisses of Your mouth — yes, kiss my soul with the kiss of Your Spirit, that we may no longer be two but one spirit.” Say to Him, “Whom have I in heaven but You? And whom have I desired on earth besides You? My soul thirsts and pants for You, the living God.”
Tell Him that you are sick with love. Press Him with importunity and give Him no rest — as the widow pressed the judge — until He satisfies your desire. This is the true voice of the Spirit: “I found Him whom my soul loves. I held Him and would not let Him go” (Song of Solomon 3:4).
If you have found Him with your eye, hold Him with your heart, and wind your affections around Him. If He sees you aflame with love and persevering in holy importunity, He — who is Love — cannot deny the cry of love.
The depths of His love melt at the sound of love in you, as one string vibrates at the sound of another in harmony with it. He was already great with love before you loved Him, and He was only waiting for a love that might draw His love forth.
He was great with His Spirit, waiting only for spirits that by love would draw His Spirit into them. And now, when His love meets your love, His love joins with yours. When His Spirit meets your spirit, His Spirit pours Himself into yours. He is joined to you, and you are one spirit with Him — His Spirit and yours united and mingled in a blessed communion.
