Sermons on the Song of Songs

HOW MEDITATION ON THE SUFFERINGS AND THE PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST ENABLES THE BRIDE, THAT IS, THE FAITHFUL SOUL, TO PASS UNINJURED ALIKE THROUGH THE PROSPERITY AND THE ADVERSITY OF THIS WORLD.

A BUNDLE of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me: He shall lie between my breasts. Before He was called 1 the King,' now He is called 'well-beloved before he was in His royal banqueting-room, now He is abiding willingly with the Bride. Great is the virtue of humility, since the majesty of Godhead itself so easily condescends to it. A name of reverence is quickly changed into a term of friendship, and he who was afar off was in a brief time

brought near. A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me. Myrrh, which is bitter, signifies the hard and rigorous facts of trouble and sorrow. The Bride, foreseeing that she is about to endure these for the sake of her Beloved, says these words with a feeling of gladness, trusting that she will endure bravely all that is laid upon her. As it is said of the Apostles: They departed from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His Name (Acts v. 41). Wherefore, also, she speaks of Him, not as a great or weighty mass, but as a small bundle *} in order to convey that whatever labour and grief threatens her, she regards it as light for the sake of His love. She has well called it small and light, for He is a little Child who is born to us (Is. ix. 6). Again, it is a bundle small and light, since the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us (Rom. viii. 18). And the same Apostle says that our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory (2 Cor. iv. 17). That, then, which is now a little bundle of myrrh shall at some future period be to us a weight of glory exceeding great. Is it not a little bundle [we have to bear], since His yoke is easy and His burden is light 7 (Matt. xi. 30). It is not that it is light in itself, since the severity of suffering and the bitterness of death are not light, but that to the loving heart it seems a light thing to endure them. And for that reason the Bride does not say merely: My Beloved is a bundle of myrrh, but she adds unto me — that is to say, 'to me who love Him.' So, also, she calls.Him her 'wellbeloved/ meaning to declare that her love has force to overcome the bitterness of all troubles, and that it is strong as death (viii. 6). And that you may know that she does not glory in herself, but in the Lord, and relies, not upon her own strength and bravery, but upon the help of the Lord, she declares that He shall lie between my breasts, and on that account she can say to Him in a Psalm with the fullest confidence: Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me (Ps. xxiii. 4).

2. I remember that in one of my former Sermons2 I explained these as signifying sympathy in joy with others, and sympathy with them also in sorrow, according to the precept of St. Paul: Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep (Rom. xii. 15). But because, as she lives between prosperity and adversity, she is aware that there is danger upon either side, she desires to have her Beloved upon her breast and near her heart, so that by His protection she may be continually strengthened against both the one danger and the other, and neither be unduly lifted up in time of rejoicing nor cast down in time of sorrow. You, also, if you are wise, will imitate the wisdom of the Bride; you will not allow that bundle of myrrh, which you hold so dear, and which is the fellowship you have with the sufferings of your Master, to be torn away from your heart even for an hour; you will retain always in your memory all the bitter pains which He bore for you, and meditate upon them continually, so that you too may say with the Bride: A bundle of myrrh is my wellbeloved unto me: He shall lie between my breasts.

3. As regards myself, I, brethren, from the beginning of my conversion, set myself, in place of all the merits in which I knew that I was wanting, to bind up this little bundle of myrrh for my individual needs, collected from all the cares and bitter experiences of my Lord, and to keep it always close upon my breast; in the first place, of the privations of His infant years; then of the labours He underwent in preaching, His fatigues in journeying to and fro, His watchings in prayer, His fastings and temptations, His tears of compassion, the snares laid for Him in discourse; and, lastly, of His perils among false brethren, of insults, spitting, blows, abuse, scorn, piercing by nails, and other such things, which He suffered for the salvation of our race, which in the (Jospel history, as in a wood, may abundantly be gathered. And, among so many branches of that fragrant myrrh, I think that cannot be passed over, of which He tasted when upon the Cross, nor that wherewith He was embalmed in the sepulchre. In the first of these He applied to Himself the bitterness of my sins, in the second He pronounced the future incorruption of my body. As long as I live I will proclaim loudly the abundance of the graces which come from these; I will never forget those mercies, since it is by them that I have been restored to life.

4. It was these mercies of which holy David formerly entreated with tears: Let Thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live (Ps. cxix. 77). Of them, too, another saint recalled the remembrance, with weeping: Great are the mercies of the Lord. How many kings and prophets have desired to see the things which I see, and have not seen them! They have laboured, and I have entered into their labours; I have reaped the harvest of myrrh which they have planted; it is for me that this salutary bundle has been reserved. No one shall take it from me; it shall lie between my breasts. To meditate on these things I have called wisdom; in these I have placed the perfection of righteousness for me, the fulness of knowledge, the abundance of merits, the riches of salvation. There is among them for me sometimes a draught of salutary bitterness; sometimes, again, a sweet unction of consolation. In adversities they raise me up, and in prosperity repress my exuberant delight, and among the joys on the one hand, and the sorrows of the other, of this present life, they enable me to walk in safety along the royal road which leads to life by defending me from the perils on either hand. These conciliate on my behalf the Judge of all the world, showing to me Him who is so greatly to be feared, as one who is gentle and humble, and not only making Him willing to receive and to pardon, but even more, in giving roe Him who is far above all powers, and terrible among the kings of the earth, as a model for me to imitate. It is for these reasons that 1 have these [sufferings of Jesus] frequently in my mouth, as you know, and always in my heart, as God knows. These are familiar themes in all my writings, as is well known. In a word, my philosophy is this, and it is the loftiest in the world: to know Jesus, and Him crucified. I do not ask, as does the Bride in this passage, ' where reposes at noon ' Him who I embrace with joy and gladness, for He dwells ever upon my breast and in my heart. I do not ask 4 where He feeds His flock,' for I behold Him as my Saviour, upon His Cross. The one object is loftier, the other has more of sweetness; the one is bread, the other milk; the one the children's food, the other the nourishment which infants find at their mothers' breasts, and therefore He shall lie betwixt my breasts.

5. My dearest brethren, do you also gather for yourselves each a bundle so precious and beloved, give it a place in the depths of your heart, fortify with it the portal of your breast, that it may abide between your breasts also. Let [Jesus] be borne, not behind you and on your shoulders as a burden, but in front of you and before your eyes,1 lest if you bear Him and do not perceive His sweetness, you should be oppressed by His weight, without being refreshed by His fragrance rising up before you. Remember how Simeon took Him up in his arms (S. Luke ii. 28), how Mary bore Him in her womb, nursed Him on her bosom, how He who is the Bridegroom was laid upon her breast, and, not to pass over anything, how the word [of prophecy of Him] was spoken by the aged Zacharias (i. 67), and, indeed, by others also. I suppose that Joseph, too, the husband of Mary, must frequently have taken the Child upon his knees to smile upon and to please Him. All these bore Him before them, and by no means behind. Let them be for an example to you. Do ye do likewise; for if you have Him whom you are bearing, always before your eyes, it is certain that, beholding the pains and troubles which the Lord endured, you will more easily and willingly bear your own, by His help, who is the Bridegroom of the Church, above all, God blessed for ever.

CORRECTION OUGHT TO BE ADAPTED TO THE CHARACTER OF OFFENDERS, SO THAT THOSE OF HUMBLE AND COMPLYING DIS- POSITION SHOULD BE GENTLY DEALT WITH, BUT THE STUBBORN AND OBSTINATE SEVERELY CHASTENED TO OBLIGE THEM TO REFORM.

1 My beloved is to me as a cluster of camphire 1 in the vineyards of Engedi* — Cant i. 14-

IF the Bridegroom were beloved in the bitter myrrh, much more will He be so in the sweetness of the grape. Therefore my Lord Jesus Christ is to me in His Death myrrh, in His Resurrection a cluster of grapes; and thus He has given Himself to me as a most salutary draught, though commingled with tears. For our sins He died, for our justification He was raised again from the dead (Rom. iv. 25), so that we, being dead unto sins, should live unto righteousness (1 Peter ii. 24). If, then, you have mourned for sins past, you have tasted the bitterness of the draught; but if you have now entered upon a holier life, and are beginning to breathe in more and more the hope of eternal life, the bitterness of the myrrh is changed for you into wine, which maketh glad the heart of man. And, perhaps, when there was offered to the Saviour upon the Cross wine2 mingled with myrrh, and He would not drink it, this was signified, that He thirsted only for the former. You, then, after experiencing, as I have said, the bitternesses of the myrrh, and then tasting the wine of gladness, may yourself say without rashness: My Beloved is to me as a cluster of camphire [grapes] in the vineyards of EngedL Engedi has a twofold meaning, and each sense tends to teach the same lesson, for it means ' the fountain of the kid ' and ' the washing of the nations '; and both the one sense and the other point to the tears of sinners. It signifies also 1 the eye of temptation/ which also pours forth tears, and looks onward to temptations, which are never wanting to the life of man upon the earth. But the people of the Gentiles, who walked in darkness, were never able to discover by themselves, nor, on this account, to escape, the snares of temptations, until, by His grace who gives light to the blind, they received the eyes of faith, until they came to the Church which has an eye to discover temptation, until they gave themselves to the instructions of spiritual men, who, having been enlightened by the Spirit of Wisdom, and rendered learned also by their own experience, are able to say truly that 7U€ are not ignorant of the snares of the devil nor of his devices (2 Cor. ii. 11).

2. It is said that in Engedi grow aromatic shrubs, which the people of the country train in the manner of vines; and thence, perhaps, it is that they are here called vineyards. For otherwise, what would the cluster of camphire do in the vineyards of Engedi? Whoever carried clusters [of grapes] from one vineyard to another? For wine is usually carried to places where there is none, and not whither there is a store of it already. He calls, then, by the name of the vineyards of Engedi the peoples of the Church, which possesses a liquid balm, that is, a spirit of gentle kindness, in which she tenderly cherishes the weakness of those who are still babes in Christ, and consoles the sorrows of penitents. If any brother, then, shall have fallen into some fault, the minister of the Church, who has already received of that Spirit, will at once take measures to restore him, and that in the same spirit of gentleness, considering himself lest he also be tempted (Gal. vi. 1). That material oil, with which the Church is accustomed to anoint all those who are baptized, is a type of this.

3. But as the wounds of that traveller who fell among thieves, and whom the charitable Samaritan took up and carried on his own beast to a hostelry, that is, to the Church, were not healed with oil alone, but with wine and oil together (Luke x. 30-34), so the spiritual physician needs to mix the wine of fervid zeal with the oil of gentleness, since it behoves him not only to console the weak, but also to restrain the unruly. For if he perceives that the wounded man, that is, the sinner, is not at all amended by the gentle and kindly reprimands which he has first employed, but, on the contrary, abuses his forbearance, becomes more negligent by his patience, and sleeps the more securely in his sin, then, the oil of his gentle remonstrances being shown to be of no use, it behoves him to employ more powerful remedies, and so to pour in the wine of penitence — that is, to have recourse to stern accusations and reproofs, and if need be, and the stubbornness of the offender be so great, to smite him with the staff of ecclesiastical censure. But whence shall he obtain that wine? It is not wine, but oil, that is found in the vineyards of Engedi. Let him seek it in the isle of Cyprus, for that isle is fertile in producing wine, and that of the best; let him gather there of those weighty clusters, which the spies of Israel formerly bore upon a strong pole (Numb. xiii. 23) between two, [in which they typified] the prophets who went before, and the Apostles who followed after, and in the midst Jesus in His beauty; let him take unto himself this cluster, and say: My Beloved is to me a cluster of the grape of Cyprus.

4. We have spoken, then, of this cluster; let us now see how the wine of fervent zeal is expressed from it. For if a man, being himself