But this universal church is a virgin, the bride of Christ—who is a virgin—from whom as from a true mother we are spiritually born. A virgin, I say, all beautiful and in whom there is no spot [Cant. 4:7.], "having neither spot nor wrinkle" Eph. 5:27], holy and immaculate, and so most chaste even as she is in the heavenly country. Nevertheless by fornicating with the adulterant devil and with many of his children she is partially corrupt by wrong-doing. However, she is never received as the bride to be embraced, beatifically at the right hand and in the bed of the bridegroom, until she has become a pure virgin, altogether without wrinkle. For Christ is the bridegroom of virginity, who, as he lives forever, can not allow the bride to desert him and fornicate spiritually. Thus it is said of the multitude of the heavenly denizens that they are virgins and follow the Lamb wheresoever he goeth [Rev. 14:4]. But in the very first moment of the world Christ was predestinated to be the bridegroom of the church, and by establishing the angels [in glory] he gave a dowry to one part of the bride. And so also by establishing righteous Abel and other saints, up to the time of the incarnation, the church remained continually in her espousals. At the incarnation he made his second marriage by creating to be a queen a part of the whole church, which by a certain fitness is called the Christian church. For then our leader and legislator familiarly addressed his bride, as the apostle says, Heb. 1. By assuming human nature he put on our armor and as a giant overcame the enemies of the church and taught how a part of the church, as a jealous bride, ought to follow him.
Therefore, the whole of Christian doctrine is involved in that prayer of the church in which we pray the bridegroom, by his coming into the flesh, that he may teach us to despise earthly things and love heavenly things—to despise, that is, to subordinate, terrestrial things in our affections and to love Christ the bridegroom above all things.
