through faith. However, there is more. All of the Protestant writers that have been
examined in this chapter would recognize that by virtue of a person’s union with
Christ they would also share in all of the benefits of Christ’s life, death, resurrection,
and ascension. This leads to the second aspect of spiritual marriage within the
Protestant understanding that is limited in Bernard that of communion. While this
was certainly present and essential in Calvin, it became more significant in the
Puritans and, especially, Ambrose who clearly elevated the importance of communion
with Christ. Further, this must not be conceptualized as two stages to spiritual
marriage. Reformed theologians would insist that while union is the beginning a
person never loses that important connection of being engrafted into Christ.
However, what does vary is the person’s experiential sense of God’s love and
enjoyment of God. Therefore, the mutual and reciprocal nature of the Reformed
perspective of communion creates an experience that resembles Bernard’s stronger
love-based experiential focus.
Further, Bernard and the Puritans share a common bond in their use of the
Song of Songs. While it is often very difficult to trace influences, Ambrose was
deeply shaped by his knowledge of this premier biblical book that described a
person’s intimacy with Jesus the divine Bridegroom and also encouraged further
through his awareness of Bernard. While Ambrose never employed any of the
Canticles as his primary texts he frequently included numerous passages from them to
illustrate his writings. Significantly Calvin stands alone at this point. Instead of
relying upon the Song of Songs his major theological fulcrum was the Lord’s Supper.
While Calvin would appreciate the experiential dimension of piety held by Bernard
and the Puritans, his desire was to frame that more corporately in public worship, thus