Secondly, of the person desired, ' Let him.'
Many make love to the spouse ; as the devil, the world, and the flesh. The devil and carnal persons make love to the soul, to draw her away from Christ, but she looks to Christ still. ' Let him kiss me.' She goes not as the papists do, to Peter and Paul, but to Christ and to Christ alone. He ' is my well-beloved, and I am his,' Cant. ii. 16 ; he is my peculiar, and I am his peculiar ; none have ' I in heaven but him, and there is none that I desire in comparison of him,' Ps. Ixxiii. 25. He hath singled out me, and I have singled out him, ' Let him kiss me.'
Thirdly, of the thing desired, ' Let him kiss me,' &c.
The thing desired, it is a kiss. There are divers sorts of kisses spoken of in Scripture. There is a kiss of superiors to inferiors, and of inferiors to superiors. There is an holy kiss, Rom. xvi. 16, 1 Cor. xvi. 20, and an hypocritical kiss, as Joab to Amasa, 2 Sam. xx. 9, and as Judas to Christ, Mat. xxvi. 49. There are kisses of love ; so Jonathan kissed David, 1 Sam. XX. 41. There are kisses also of subjection, as. Kiss ye the Son, &c., Ps. ii. 12. But here is the kiss of a superior to an inferior. * Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,' that is, let him shew me farther testimony of his love by his presence ; let me enjoy further commimion with him still ; let him further assure me of his love. Consider what the church meant ; howsoever she had interest in this spiritual contract and covenant at the first, yet the church, according to the difierent degrees of time, had difierent degrees of desires to be further and fmrther as- sured of his love. As in Solomon's time, so before from the beginning, there was a desire in the church of the kisses of Christ, that is, that he would come in our nature, and that he would manifest by little
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and little, clearer and clearer, his coming in the flesh ; and accordingly he did by degrees reveal himself, as first in paradise, ' The seed of the woman shall break the serpent's head, Gen. iii. 15 ; then to Abraham, ' In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed,' Gen. xii. 3. After that to one tribe, Gen. xlix. 10, the tribe of Judah, Heb. vii. 14 ; then to one family of that tribe, the house of David, Luke i. 27 ; then a virgin shall conceive, Isa. vii. 14 ; and after that pointed out by the finger of John the Baptist, ' Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world,' John i. 29. So you see how Christ did reveal himself more and more by degrees unto his church. Answerable to these degrees were the desires of the church for the coming of Christ, as the prophet Isaiah saith, * Come down and break the heavens,' Isa. Ixiv. 1. ; and then prophesied of by those that waited for the consummation of Israel. So that before Christ came in the flesh the church had a longing desire after his incarnation, as here, ' Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.' But that is not aU. For she knew this should not be till the last days, and therefore desireth some further means of acquaintance and knowledge of him, desiring that he would manifest himself more and more by his word, by his grace, and by his Spirit ; and therefore as then the desire of the church was for the coming of Christ, so now that which Chiistians desire and long after is, to go to him that they may remain with him in glory. They love his appear- ance, but because this shall not be yet, though the church be still in ex- pectation of it, therefore she desireth to hear his words, and to have him kiss her with his mouth in his word. But this is not aU ; but let me find his Spirit now walldng with me here, and further, 'kiss me with his mouth,' by increasing his graces in me, manifesting his love unto me more and more. This is the desire of the church, and of every Christian soul, that Christ would thus kiss her ; that he would reveal himself every day more and more unto her, in his word, in his sacraments, by his Spirit, by his graces, by increasing of them. This is the desire of the church and of every Christian soul, that Christ would thus ' kiss her with the kisses of his mouth.'
Now we are come to the ground of this desire, taken fi-om the excellency of the love of Christ, which is here said by experience of the whole church, and of every Christian soul, to be ' sweeter than wine.'
From hence we note two things.
Doct. 1. First, that every Christian soul and the spouse in general hath a sweet taste of the love of Christ even in this life.
Doct. 2. That after this contract and taste of this love, she hath ever spring- ing up in her a further desire of the increase and manifestation of it.