Nabal being dead, David marries his wife. Lust’s name is Nabal, and folly is with him; and when folly is dead, then the Son of David—yes, the Son of God, who is the highest Wisdom—marries. This is a right, kindly, and blessed marriage, wherein a spirit is married to a Spirit—a derived spirit to the Original and Root of spirits—yes, to a Spirit who has 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 own kind, she grows both in being and in well-being; she becomes more spiritual by receiving more of the juice and fatness of the Spirit, and consequently becomes more full of divine light, beauty, love, virtue, power, life, joy, and glory. Behold the highest bond of blessedness on earth—a preparation and even a pledge of the highest happiness in heaven.
And though this inchoate marriage here on earth, when compared to the consummate marriage in heaven, seems but like a betrothal, yet even this betrothal, when compared to earthly marriages, casts a shadow of darkness upon them. For all the beauty, all the glory, and all the joy in the world are but beams, rays, and flashes of this King of glory, beauty, and joy. By Him were all things made that were made, and therefore the goodness of the things that are made must be borrowed from Him who made them. And so, the borrowed goodness must needs be ashamed to be compared with His goodness who gave or lent it.
Christ Jesus is all lights in one Light, all glories in one Glory, all beauties in one Beauty, all joys in one Joy. When He gave light, glory, beauty, and joy to the creature, He left the root of light, glory, beauty, and joy in Himself. Indeed, He left infinitely more in Himself than He gave out of Himself; for an internal and infinite fountain has infinitely more in it than all the streams that ever issued from it. And He is a Fountain—unlimited in largeness, and a Spring without beginning or ending.
The dew of His birth is of the womb of the morning—yes, of that morning which has an everlasting rising and shall never see a setting, for all eternity. Thus, the soul, being united to Him, is united to an eternal Root and Fountain of blessedness: she is enlightened with the primal Light, she enjoys the primal Beauty, she is adorned with the primal Glory, and she tastes the radical, utmost, and uppermost sweetness.
Being made one with Him who is God, she has the taste of God—and God being tasted, overflows, steeping and drenching the soul with an overcoming and inebriating sweetness. For a high, large, and mighty joy poured into a low, measured, and weak spirit overwhelms her with both its quantity and quality, carrying her away into ecstasy and ravishment. She is too narrow and too feeble to contain and bear a joy that is too large and too strong for her; and therefore, having filled her to the utmost capacity, it goes beyond her and runs over.
So is she blessed in that fulness which her measure can contain—yes, she is more than blessed, even blessed in a kind of excess, by being overcome and overflowed with blessedness. And if we will consider the quality of this joy as well as the quantity, there is no joy comparable to spiritual joy. The joys of the body are base in comparison with it. Spiritual joy is pure, piercing, and full of activity; but the joy of the body is gross, heavy, dull, and earthly.
In bodily wine, it is the spirit of the wine that rejoices the spirits of the body. But a wine that is all spirit—spirit in the height and summit of spiritualness, newly drawn and sucked from the prime and chiefest Spirit—how does that rejoice! How does it ravish the spirits that drink it—when man’s highest part tastes the highest Good! Man has no higher faculty by which to taste and receive happiness, neither is there any higher happiness to be tasted or received.
Therefore, the soul that tastes this wine at her spiritual marriage says, as the master of the feast said at the earthly marriage: “Lord, Thou hast kept the best wine until now.” And this being the best, the soul gives it the best place in her judgment and affection. She forgets what is behind and presses toward what is before. She will not rest in the low and backward joys of the body but strives toward the high and forward joys of the spirit.
And having attained them, she rests in them as in the best joys—yet even so, she does not rest in them as though she had reached the end, but desires to grow by them into a greater capacity for them, and finally to a full, large, and everlasting fruition of them in a nearer access to the very spring and fountain of joys.
But when all is said of this marriage-happiness, one taste of it will tell you more than all that is or can be said. The true knowledge of the sweetness of God is gained by tasting; therefore, taste first, and then see how sweet and gracious the Lord is. The taste of it will truly tell the one who tastes it how sweet it is; but he who knows this sweetness by tasting cannot deliver over the full and perfect image of this sweetness to him who has not tasted it.
For this sweetness surpasses all known sweetness of the creatures; and by that which is known must that which is unknown be made known. But if that which is known is lower and less than that which is unknown, then what is known may teach us what the unknown is not, but not what it is.
So, the joy of love and union in earthly marriage cannot express a heavenly joy that is spiritually pure and purely active. Only these and similar comparisons may serve as stairs by which to ascend beyond them, to set our foot on something higher. For if the soul rests in these, she rests short of the knowledge of the sweetness that is beyond them. She is still tasting the sweetness of the creature and has not yet attained the sweetness of the Creator.
Therefore, when she has gone as far as she may in the sweetness of the creature, let her advance one step more into that spiritual union where is to be tasted—and seen by tasting—the sweetness of the Creator. There she will see more by tasting than all creatures could show her by resemblance. She has met with that joy which alone can truly teach itself; and therefore it is called unspeakable (1 Pet. 1:8).
And whereas before it was tasted its very being was doubted—and much more its manner and shape were unknown—now it is both known to be, and the shape and manner of it are known as well. And being known, all other sweetnesses, which before were alone known and esteemed, are now despised and, as it were, unknown.
For this is that blessed estate of spiritual love and union of which the spouse of Christ truly says, “If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned” (Song of Songs 8:7). Indeed, the spouse, having Christ’s love, possesses that which is better than all things; and having Christ with His love, how can she but have all things also? (Rom. 8:32).
Christ is the heir of all things (Heb. 1), and the soul, having married this Heir, is a joint-heir with Christ. She has Him by whom the worlds were made (1 Cor. 3:22), and therefore she has also the worlds made by Him. Yet He who made the worlds, being infinitely better than the worlds He made, she despises the worlds in comparison with Him. She quenches her thirst only at the Fountain and counts it folly and loss to leave the Fountain and run after the streams.
Therefore, setting her mouth to this Fountain, she is filled with the waters of life, with the oil of gladness, with the new wine of the kingdom of God, with the joy of the Holy Ghost—even a joy unspeakable and full of glory. In Christ Jesus she has all-sufficiency, all safety, all supply. She receives from Christ that spiritual anointing which gives her spiritual light, power, goodness, love, and life—yes, it adorns the soul with the most excellent beauty, even the likeness and image of God Himself.
And being thus lovely, the Bridegroom kisses and embraces her with spiritual visitations. He tells her His counsels, and His eyes are ever toward her—even when He seems to be turned away from her. For she is set as a signet upon His heart, and many waters cannot quench His love. And she also looks upon Him and is changed from glory to glory, as the moon when she beholds the sun with more open face.
But of the particular benefits and advantages of this blessed marriage we will speak more hereafter (Chapters IV, V, VI). Thus happy, and thus growing in happiness, she walks on in this life of inchoate marriage until she comes to the eternal life of consummate marriage.
She is happy now in her union with happiness, and she shall be happy hereafter in a full fruition of happiness. She is happy now in the earnest and foretaste of that happiness which shall be complete hereafter—yes, daily more and more happy here by a daily enlarging of those earnests and foretastes. And she shall be the more happy hereafter by how much more these earnests and foretastes have been enlarged here.
Thus she shall walk by happiness unto happiness, and by the increase of happiness to the increase of happiness; for the more happy she is in time, the greater shall her happiness be in eternity.
