Sermons on the Song of Songs

10. Believe, then, that the Bride, in beholding her Beloved, saw these and similar excellences in Him when she said: Behold, Thou art /air, my love; behold, Thou art fair. Nor is it these only, but without doubt some other wonder of the beauty of the higher nature which she had remarked, which transcends our capacity of knowledge, and lies altogether beyond our experience. That repetition points out, then, the perfection of Jesus in each of His two Natures. Hear also how, transported with the sight and at the words of her Beloved, she leaps, as it were, with joy, and sings before Him a nuptial song, full of tender and loving sentiments: Our bed is flourishing; the beams of our houses are of cedar, our rafters of cypress (i. 16, Douay). But let us reserve that song of the Bride for another beginning in a newer day; so that, being rendered more willing and active by repose, we may the more readily be glad and rejoice with her, to the praise and glory of her Bridegroom, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is above all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

of the state and composition of the whole church, also of the manner in which, by an active life spent under obedience, the life of contemplation may be attained.

' Our bed is flourishing; the beams of our houses are of cedar \ our rafters of cypress* — Cant. i. 16.

HIS is an Epithalamium she is singing; and she describes in graceful phrase the nuptial chamber and bed. She invites the Bridegroom to repose; for, indeed, it is better for her to rest and be with Christ. It is only for the sake of saving souls that it is necessary for her to go forth. But now, believing that she has found a suitable opportunity, she announces that the chamber is decked; she points out the couch, as it were, with the finger; she invites, as I have said, the beloved one to rest there; and, like the Apostles going to Emmaus, not being able to endure the fire of love burning within her heart, she constrains Him to accept the hospitality of mind and soul, to abide with her for the night (Luke xxiv. 29, 32), and says with Peter: Lord, it is good for us to be here (Matt. xvii. 4).

2. Let us now inquire what is the spiritual significance of all these things. First, it refers to the Church. And I consider that the 1 bed ' upon which rest is taken means the monasteries and cloisters in which a quiet and peaceable life is passed, exempt from the cares and inquietudes of the world. That bed is said to be decked or adorned, because the life and appointed course of the brethren is adorned and rendered bright by the examples and precepts of our fathers, as if bedecked with fragrant flowers. By ' houses ' we are to

understand the great masses of Christians, which those among them who are set in offices of power and dignity, such as Princes of the Church and of the State, bind together, and retain them each strongly in his place, as the beams and rafters of a house retain the walls, by the just and firm laws laid upon them; lest, if everyone lived in his own way and at his own pleasure, they should disunite from each other like walls that begin to bend and spread, and thus the entire structure of the edifice falls to pieces and is destroyed. As for the ' rafters/1 which are firmly attached to beams, and are a striking ornament to the mansions of the great, I take the term to signify the kindly and regular lives and characters of a clergy properly taught and ordained, and of the rites of the Church rightly performed and administered. For how shall the Orders of the clergy be able to subsist, or the charges of the Church be administered, if Princes did not, like strong and substantial beams, both protect them by their power, and maintain them by their munificence?

3. If the beams are said to be of cedar, and the crossing-rafters of cypress, it is, without doubt, because the nature of each of these kinds of wood has something which befits the meaning intended. The cedar being a tree of lofty height, and of which the wood is fragrant and incapable of decay, denotes with sufficient fitness the qualities needed in those men who are to hold, as it were, the place of beams in the Church. For those who are set over others need to be strong and steadfast, hopeful and patient, that their eyes and their mind should be lifted up to heavenly things; and that, spreading abroad everywhere the good odour of their faith and life, they should be able to say with the Apostle: We are unto God a stveet savour of Christ in every place (2 Cor. ii. 15). The cypress, also, being similarly a fragrant and incorruptible wood, signifies and declares that every person, whosoever he may be, that is in Holy Orders ought to be of right faith and of pure life, that he may be worthy to serve as the ornament of the house of God, and to be in it, as it were, as its panelled ceiling, enriched with colours and gold. For what saith the Psalmist: Holiness becometh Thine House, O Lord, for ever (Ps. xciii. 5). In which words are well expressed both the beauty of holiness, and the endurance of a never- failing grace. It is obviously necessary that the man who is chosen to be the ornament and decoration of that House should be himself adorned with goodness of life and character; and although he ought always to have the inward witness (that is, of his own conscience), yet he should also be such an one as has a good testimony from them who are without There are other qualities still in these woods, which have no little relation to those spiritual truths of which we are treating; but I pass them over for the sake of brevity.

4. As to the well being of the Church, it is happily expressed in a very few words: the authority of prelates, the good life and good report of the clergy, the disciplined obedience of the people, and the peaceful devotion of monks. When in each of these respects all is well, the holy Church, our mother, rejoices in the contemplation of them, and presents them to the sight of her Beloved; she refers all things to His goodness as their cause, knowing that He is the Author and Giver of all good things; nor does she attribute anything to herself. For she says: Our bed, and, The beams of our houses, and the rafters; this is a sign of her affection, not of her usurping the ownership of these things; the very abundance of her affection gives her such confidence, that she regards nothing which appertains to Him whom she so loves as unconnected with herself. She believes that she is not to be excluded from the companionship of her Spouse, or from the sharing of His repose; inasmuch as she is accustomed to seek, not her own interests, but His. And it is for that reason that she ventures to speak of, as common to both, the bed and the mansion which are His. She is bold to associate herself in the possession of those things which belong to Him, with whom she knows herself to be associated in love. It is not thus with that soul which has not yet given up her own will, but dwells amid her own possessions, and lies down by herself; or, I should say more accurately, not by herself, but who dwells and associates in disorder and shamelessness with harlots; I speak of the lusts of the flesh, with whom that soul squanders its good things, and wastes its portion of the Father's substance, for which it had made request (Luke xv. 12).

5. But is it the case with you, who hear or read these words of the Holy Spirit, that you think some of these things which are said capable of being applied to yourself; that you recognise in your own soul somewhat of the felicity of the Bride which is chanted in this song of love by the Holy Spirit Himself; and yet it is perhaps said to you also that you hear His Voice, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth (John iii. 8)? Perhaps you desire also the repose of contemplation; and in this you do well, provided that you do not forget the floivers with which, as you read, the couch of the Bride is strewed. Therefore do thou take great care similarly to wreathe around thine the blossoms of good works, and to make the exercise of virtues precede that sacred rest, as the flower goes before the fruit. Otherwise, it would be self-indulgent that you should so earnestly desire to rest before you have earned that rest by labour, and you would be neglecting the fruitfulness of Leah in desiring to enjoy only the society of Rachel. But it would be a reversing of the proper order to ask for the reward before having earned it, and to grasp at the mid-day meal before performing the labour, of which the Apostle says: If a man will not work, neither shall he eat (2 Thess. iii. 10). And what says the Psalmist? Through Thy precepts I get understanding (Ps. cxix. 104), so to teach you that the taste for contemplation is not due except to obedience to God s commandments. Do not, then, imagine that the love of your own repose is to be in any wise made a hindrance to works of holy obedience, or to the fulfilment of the traditions of the elders. Do not suppose that you will have the company of the Bridegroom for that bed, which you have strewed, not with the flowers of obedience, but with hemlock, and even with weeds and nettles, by your disobedient conduct. When it is thus with you, this is the reason that He will not hear and answer your prayers, and that when you call Him He will not come; for He who is so great a lover of obedience that He preferred to die rather than not to obey [His Father], will assuredly not bestow His gifts upon one who is disobedient. And how should He approve the inane idleness which you call contemplation? For He says by the prophet: / have laboured with patience (Jer. vi. n), referring to the time when, an exile from the heaven of perfect peace, which is His country, He accomplished salvation for us in the midst of the earth. But I fear the more lest that fearful judgment should involve you also which once thundered against the treachery of the Jews in these words: Your new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; and again: Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hateth; they are a trouble unto Me (Is. i. 13, 14). And the prophet will weep over you, and say: The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbat/is (Lam. i. 7). For why shall not an adversary mock at that which the Beloved rejects?

6. I am extremely surprised at the shamelessness of some among us who, after having troubled us all by their singularity, annoyed us by their impatience, and contemned us by their contumacy and rebellion,1 have, nevertheless, actually the boldness to invite, and that with importunate prayers, the Lord of all purity to come into the foul resting-place of their conscience. But what does the Lord say to such? When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear (Is. i. 15). And why? Because your bed, far from being strewed with flowers, is defiled with filth. And do you dare to invite the King of glory thither? Do you think that He will rest there for a moment, or are you doing this to ensure reproof to yourself? The centurion in the Gospel prayed that the Lord would not come under his roof, because of his un worthiness, and yet there was not found such faith as His even in all Israel (Matt. viii. 8, 10); and you would have the Lord to enter your soul, reeking as it is with the foul vestiges of your vices? The Prince of the Apostles cries out: Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord (Luke v. 8); and do you say: 4 Come to me, Lord, and enter into my heart, for I am holy?' Be ye all of one mind, says the same Apostle, love as brethren (i Peter iii. 8). And he who was ' a chosen vessel ' says: Lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting (i Tim. ii. 8). Do you see, then, how the Prince of the Apostles and the Apostle of the Gentiles agree and speak in the same spirit with regard to the peace and tran/quillity which the person who prays ought to possess? You may stretch out your hands to God all the day long, you who all the day long are engaged in distressing your brethren, destroying tranquillity, and separating yourself from unity [but it is to no purpose].

7. * What, then/ you ask, * would you have me to do?' In the first place, I would have you cleanse your conscience from every defilement of anger, and murmuring, and envy, and dispute; and that you should hasten to banish from the hiding-place of your heart all that evidently conflicts with the peace which ought to reign among brethren, and the obedience due to your elders. In the next place, I should wish you to adorn yourself with the flowers of good works and laudable studies of every kind, and seek the sweet perfumes of all virtues; or, in other words, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, ivhatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report \ if there be any virtue, if there be any praise of discipline, think on these things (Phil. iv. 8, Vulg.), and endeavour to employ yourself in them. To that end you shall call upon the Bridegroom, and then with confidence, because when you shall bring Him into your soul you, too, shall be able to declare truthfully, our bed is adorned; because your conscience shall everywhere be fragrant with the perfumes of piety, of peace, of gentleness, of justice, of obedience, of cheerfulness, of humility. Let this suffice as regards the bed.

8. As to the house. Each person, provided that he walks, not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, ought to regard himself as spiritually a house of God. The Temple of God is holy, says the Apostle St. Paul, which Temple ye are (1 Cor. iii. 17). Take careful heed, then, brethren, of that spiritual building, which is no other than your own selves, lest, perhaps, when it begins to rise to a loftier height, if the beams of it be not strong, firmly fixed, and well bound and braced together, it should totter and fall; take careful heed, I say, that the beams you use are such as are sound and will not decay, such as are massive and will not bend — that is to say, use the fear of the Lord, which is clean, and endureth for ever (Ps. xix. 9); and patience, of which it is written, the patience of the poor shall not perish for ever (Ps. ix. 18); long-suffering, also, which perseveres without bending under the weight of the structure laid upon it, whatever it be, and is extended even unto the unending ages of the life of blessedness, according to the saying of our Saviour in the Gospel: Whosoever endureth unto the end, the same shall be saved (Matt. x. 22); and, above all, use charity, which never faileth (1 Cor. xiii. 8), because, as is said in this Song, it is as strong as death (Cant. viii. 6), though jealousy be cruel as the grave. Lastly, take careful heed to underprop and brace firmly together these, the great beams of the structure, with other timbers equally precious and beautiful, if you have it in your power so to do; they will serve to form the panelled and fretted ceiling, and to render the house beautiful; I mean the utterance and teaching of wisdom or knowledge, prophecy, the gift of healing, interpretation of the Scriptures, and other such gifts, which are known to serve rather to the beautifying and perfecting of the character than to be necessary to the salvation of the soul. Concerning these I have no precept to give you; I have only this advice: that since, as it is abundantly evident, timbers (so to speak) of this kind must be sought with much labour, are found with difficulty, and, if found, are not made fit for use without considerable risk, for our earth, especially in these times, is found to produce but few such; for these reasons my counsel and warning to you is, that such as these should not be too eagerly sought for, but that you should make use of other and humbler woods for the panelling of your roofs, which, though they be less splendid in appearance, are shown by experience to be not less useful and strong, and, moreover, are to be obtained with far greater safety and ease.

9. I earnestly desire, also, that I may be possessed of an abundance of those other woods which grow so freely in the garden of the Bridegroom — that is, the Church — I mean peace, goodness, gentleness, joy in the Holy Ghost, the showing mercy with cheerfulness, the giving with simplicity, the rejoicing with them that do rejoice, and weeping with them that weep. Do you not think that a house is (as far as regards the ceiling) sufficiently well adorned when you perceive that it is panelled with such woods as these, skilfully arranged, and in sufficient quantity? Lord, I have loved the honour of Thy House (Ps. xxvi. &). Bestow upon me always, I entreat, the materials wherewith to adorn the chamber of my own conscience, and of that of others, so that it may be made ready for Thy searching view. With these I shall be content. There will be those also who, following my judgment in this matter, will be content also, because they believe that Thou wilt be so; the other [and higher endowments] I relinquish to holy Apostles and apostolic men. But do you also, my beloved, even though you are without those more precious woods, yet if these others are yours, have no fear; approach with confidence to that chief corner-stone, elect and precious, and be ye also built up, as living stones, upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, into a spiritual house, so that you are [made to be] a holy Priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God, by Jesus Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom of the Church, who is above all, God blessed