This is the mystery of the Divine Bridegroom. All human tales or fables fall short of this, let the imagination that wrought them up be as fervent as it may. This is the mystery of a love that passes knowledge between Christ and the Church. She must love Him for the service He has shown her; He must love her for the cost she has put Him to. She will find herself for ever by the side of One who so loved her as to die for her. He will see one by His side who so engaged Him that He was willing to go through with His affection, though the cost of loving her would take (to speak after the manner of men) all that He was worth. He cannot but prize her supremely, and so she Him. This only difference may be observed--that His love was proved ere she became His, for He had beforehand counted the cost of loving her--her love, later and more backward, and only in the second place, began on her knowing His love for her. For Christ, as the Bridegroom (as in everything else, whether of grace or glory, Col. i.), is to have "the pre-eminence." In the character of His love He entirely outshines the love of the bride, and leaves hers, as it were, no love at all, by reason of the love that excelleth. But having thus looked at the Bridegroom, I would, in like manner, see the Bride for a moment or two. But I must limit myself, and will, therefore, only trace her as reflected in the Book of Genesis. _Eve_ is, of course, the earliest type. In her we see the personal characteristics of the bride: she is formed by the Lord for Adam. Adam’s joy in a helpmeet was what the Lord proposed to Himself when He began to form Eve. He had respect to Adam’s need and joy in this work. And when Adam receives Eve from the hand of the Lord, his words express his satisfaction in her, vindicating the Lord’s workmanship, that His hand had accomplished the design which His love had undertaken. Eve was fitted to Adam. This was her full personal beauty. He owned her bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. _All in her was attractiveness._ She entirely answered the expectations, and satisfied the heart, of him for whom she had been formed. He took her and clave to her (Gen. ii.); and this, we know, is a type of Christ and the Church. Eph. v. _Sarah_ is the next distinguished female in that book; and she is a mystic person also. But it is not the Bride whom she expresses, but the Mother. So that I will not particularly notice her. For Abraham is "the father of all them that believe"--and Sarah is "the free woman" or, in an allegory, "the mother of us all" (Gal. iv.), linked with the family of God in the place of the mother, rather than with the Lord as His Bride. So that I pass her by.