Again, we see here, that ivhere the soul is sick of love, it stands not upon any tenns, hut it hnmhleth and ahaseth itself. We say that afiection stands not with mnjesty. Therefore Christ's love to us moved him to abase him- self in taking our natm-e, that he might be one with us. Love stood not upon terms of greatness. We see the church goes to those that were meaner proficients in religion than herself, to pour out her spirit to them, ' to the daughters of Jerusalem.' She abaseth herself to any ser\'ice, 1 Thess. ii. 3. Love endureth all things, 1 Cor. xiii, 7, anj'thing to attain to the thing loved ; as we see Hamor the son of Shechem,t he would endure painful circumcision for the love he bore to Dinah, Gen. xxxiv. 24. So, Acts V. 41, it is said they went away rejoicing, after they were whipped, because they loved Christ. The spirit of love made them rejoice, when they were most disgracefully used.
Sometimes where this afiection of heavenly love is prevalent, so that a
man is sick of it, the distempers thereof redounds to the body, and reflects
upon that, as we see in Da\ad : ' That his moisture became as the drought
of summer,' Ps. xxxii. 4 ; because there is a marriage and a sympathy
*■ Qu. ' straiter ?' — Ed. t ' Shechem the son of Hamor.' — Ed.
Cant, V. 8, 9. J ' o thou fairest among women.' 129
between the soul and the body, wherein the excessive affections of the one redound and reflect upon the other.
' Tell him that I am sick of love.' Here is a sickness, but not unto death, but unto Ufe ; a sickness that never ends but in comfort and satisfaction. Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after Chi-ist, they shall be satis- fied, Mat. v. G, as we shall see afterwards more at large.
Knowledge gives not the denomination, for we may know ill and be ffood, and we may know good and be evil; but it is the affection of the soul which cleaves to the things known. The truth of oui* love is that gives the deno- mination of a state to be good or ill. Love is the weight and wing of the soul, which carries it where it goes ; which, if it carry us to earth, we are base and earthly ; if to heaven, heavenly. We should have especial care how we fix this aSection ; for thereafter as it is, even so is our condition. ' Ask thy love of what city thou art, whether of Jerusalem or Babylon,' as Austin saith. Now the daughters of Jerusalem reply unto the church, wondering at her earnestness,
' WTiat is thy beloved more than another beloved, 0 thou fairest among women ? what is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us ?'
Instead of giving satisfaction to her, they reply with asking new questions, ' What is thy beloved mure than another beloved, 0 thou fairest among women? what is thy beloved,' &c. WTierein ye have a doubhng of the question, to shew the seriousness of it. Ofthis their answer there are two parts.
1. A loving and sweet compellation, ' 0 thou fairest among women.'
2. The question doubled, ' "What is thy beloved more than another beloved'?' And again, 'What is thy beloved,' &c., 'that thou dost so charge us ? ' As if they should say, ' Thou layest a serious charge upon us ; therefore there is some great matter surely in thy beloved that thou makest such inquiiy after him.' Thus the weaker Christians being stirred up by the example of the stronger, they make this question, and are thus inquisitive. But to speak of them in their order.
' 0 thou fairest among women.' Here is the compellation. The church is the fairest among women in the judgment of Christ. So he calls her, *0 thou fairest among women,' Cant. i. 8; and here the fellow- members of the church term her so too ; fair, and the fairest, incomparably fan*.
Quest. But how cometh she to be thus fair ?
Ans. 1. It is in ref/ard that she is clothed with Christ's robes. There is a woman mentioned clothed \\-ith the sun. Rev. xii. 1. We were all ennobled with the image of God at the fii'st, but after we had sinned we were bereft of that image. Therefore now all our beauty must be clothing, which is not natural to man, but artificial ; fetched from other things. Our beauty now is borrowed. It is not connatural with us. The beauty of the church now comes from the Head of the church, Christ. She shines in the beams of her husband, not only in justification, but in sanctification also.
2. The church is lovely and fair again, as from Christ's imputative right- eousness, so from his righteousness inherent in her, the graces she hathjrorn him. For of him we receive gi*ace for grace. There is never a gi'ace but it is beautiful and fair ; for what is grace but the beams of Christ, the Sun of righteousness ? So that all must be fair that comes from the first fiair, all beautiful that comes from the fii'st beauty.