The Pulpit Commentary — Song of Songs — Section 136

It cost more to redeem our souls than our poor thoughts can comprehend. When we try to realize the Lord's sufferings, we seem to stand afar off beholding, like the people who came together to that sight of awe, who smote their breasts (Luke xxiii. 48). The Church pleads those bitter sufferings in her solemn Litany : "By thine agony and bloody sweat, by. thy cross and passion, good Lord, deliver us." "Remember, good Lord Jesus," we say in the ancient hymn, "that it was for me thou didst undertake that long, weary journey; in that long search for me thou didst sit faint and exhausted; it was to redeem me that thou didst endure the cross. Let not that toil and labour be in vain, 0 Lord." But here it is the Lord himself who pleads with us in our hardness; he so longs for our salvation. He bids us remember what he endured for us. It is the expression of his intense yearning love. He would have us comprehend with all saints something of the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of that great love; to return it in our poor way, to open our heart to him, that he may enter in and take that heart to be his own which he bought with the price of his most precious blood. 2. The answer. The bride does not realize the deep, solemn meaning of the bridegroom's call. She is half asleep still. She lies dreaming in her bed. She makes excuses to herself.. And we, alas I far too often do the like when the Lord calli us to work, to deny ourselves for his sake. We slumber on in careless sleep; we forget what he did for us. We do not hear his voice; or, if we hear, we listen dreamily, lying still in spiritual sloth, not thinking that when the Lord calls it is time to bestir ourselves, to be up and doing, to "pass the time of our sojourning here in fear : forasmuch 38 we know that we were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold . . . but with the precious blood of Christ" (1 Pet. i. 18). We must not make vain excuses, like those that were bidden in the parable (Luke xiv. 18), for the time is short. It is our eternal salvation that is at stake. It is Christ the Son of God who is calling us; and he loved us, and gave himself for us (Gal. ii. 20). Alas I the bride, whom the bridegroom loved with so great a love, makes poor excuses in her dream. She will not rise and open till it is too late; she will not take a little trouble for his sake. 3. The repentance. The beloved put his hand through the hole of the door; he sought to open it. The bride's heart was moved at last by his earnest appeals. "My bowels were moved for him," she says, as she repeats her dream. She thought of her past love for him, of his great love for her, of the hardships he had gone through in seeking her. She wonders how she could have forgotten all this even in a dream; she rose up to open to her beloved. So the soul that has made many excuses, that has slumbered long, that has spent its time as in a dream, forgettini the solemn realities of life hears at last through the long-suffering grace of God-listens to the patient call or'the heavenly Bridegroom, Then our head burns within us when we think that he has indeed been talking with us, opening the Scriptures (Luke :niv. 32); our bowels are moved for him. We think that it is the Saviour of the world, our Saviour, who is stautlina without, waiting for us to answer; that the hand with which he seeks to open the do;r was once pierced through for us, nailed upon the cross for O\l.f &out~• 6ake. We listen to his voice--  126 THE SONG OF SOLOMON. [ell, V, 1-16,