RUYSBROEK

THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL NUPTIALS

BOOK I





PREFACE

"SEE the Bridegroom cometh: go forth to meet Him." St Matthew the
evangelist wrote these words, and Christ said them to His disciples
and to all men, in the Parable of the Ten Virgins. The Bridegroom is
our Lord Jesus Christ, and human nature is the bride, whom God has
made in His own image and likeness. He placed her at first in the
most exalted, the most beautiful, the richest and most fertile place
on earth--in paradise. He subjected to her all the creatures; He
adorned her with graces; and He laid a prohibition upon her, in
order that by obedience she might deserve to be established in an
eternal union with her Bridegroom, and never more fall into any
affliction, trouble, or guilt. Then came a deceiver--the infernal,
envious foe, under the guise of a cunning serpent. He deceived the
woman, and the two together deceived the man, who possessed the
essence of human nature. So the enemy despoiled human nature, the
bride of God, by his deceitful counsels, and she was driven into a
strange country; poor and miserable, a prisoner and oppressed,
persecuted by her enemies, as if she could never more return to her
country and the grace of reconciliation. But when God saw that the