The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^5. Look back to Adam, whence the human race sprung. For how but from him was misery propagated? Whence but from him is this hereditary poverty? Let him then, who in his own body was at one time in despair, now that he is set in Christ's body, say with hope, “My heart is smitten down, and withered like grass”. Deservedly, since all flesh is grass. But how did this happen unto you? “Since I have forgotten to eat my bread.” For God had given His commandment for bread. For what is the bread of the soul? The serpent suggesting, and the woman transgressing, he touched the forbidden fruit, he forgot the commandment: his heart was smitten as it deserved, and withered like grass, since he forgot to eat his bread. Having forgotten to eat bread, he drinks poison: his heart is smitten, and withered like grass....Now eat that bread which you had forgotten. But this very Bread has come, in whose body you may remember the voice of your forgetfulness, and cry out in your poverty, so that you may receive riches. Now eat: for you are in His body, who says, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven.” You had forgotten to eat your bread; but after His crucifixion, “all the ends of the earth shall be reminded, and be converted unto the Lord.” After forgetfulness, let remembrance come, let bread be eaten from heaven, that we may live; not manna, as they did eat, and died; that bread, of which it is said, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness.”

6. “For the voice of my groaning, the bones cleave unto my flesh”. For many groan, and I also groan; even for this I groan, because they groan for a wrong cause. That man has lost a piece of money, he groans: he has lost faith, he groans not: I weigh the money and the faith, and I find more cause for groaning for him who groans not as he ought, or does not groan at all. He commits fraud, and rejoices. With what gain, with what loss? He has gained money, he has lost righteousness. For the latter reason, he who knows how to groan, groans; he who is near the head, who righteously clings to Christ's body, groans for this reason. But the carnal do not groan for this reason, and they cause themselves to be groaned for, because they do not groan for this reason; nor can we despise them, whether they groan not at all, or groan for the wrong cause. For we wish to correct them, we wish to amend them, we wish to reform them, and when we cannot, we groan; and when we groan, we are not separated from them....

7. “I have become like a pelican in the wilderness, and like an owl among ruined walls”. Behold three birds and three places: the pelican, the owl, and the sparrow; and the three places are severally, the wilderness, the ruined walls, and the house-top. The pelican in the wilderness, the owl in the ruined walls, and the sparrow in the house-top. In the first place we must explain, what the pelican signifies: since it is born in a region which makes it unknown to us. It is born in lonely spots, especially those of the river Nile in Egypt. Whatever kind of bird it is, let us consider what the Psalm intended to say of it. “It dwells,” it says, “in the wilderness.” Why enquire of its form, its limbs, its voice, its habits? As far as the Psalm tells you, it is a bird that dwells in solitude. The owl is a bird that loves night. Parietinæ, or ruins, as we call them, are walls standing without roof, without inhabitants, these are the habitation of the owl. And then as to the house-top and the sparrows, you are familiar with them. I find, therefore, some one of Christ's body, a preacher of the word, sympathizing with the weak, seeking the gains of Christ, mindful of his Lord to come. Let us see these three things from the office of His steward. Hath such a man come among those who are not Christians? He is a pelican in the wilderness. Hath he come among those who were Christians, and have relapsed? He is an owl in the ruined walls; for he forsakes not even the darkness of those who dwell in night, he wishes to gain even these. Hath he come among such as are Christians dwelling in a house, not as if they believed not, or as if they had let go what they had believed, but walking lukewarmly in what they believe? The sparrow cries unto them, not in the wilderness, because they are Christians; nor in the ruined walls, because they have not relapsed; but because they are within the roof; under the roof rather, because they are under the flesh. The sparrow above the flesh cries out, hushes not up the commandments of God, nor becomes carnal, so that he be subject to the roof. “What ye hear in the ear, that preach ye on the housetops.” There are three birds and three places; and one man may represent the three birds, and three men may represent severally the three birds; and the three sorts of places, are three classes of men: yet the wilderness, the ruined walls, and the house-top, are but three classes of men.

8....Let us not pass over what is said, or even read, of this bird, that is, the pelican; not rashly asserting anything, but yet not passing over what has been left to be read and uttered by those who have written it. Do ye so hear, that if it be true, it may agree; if false, it may not hold. These birds are said to slay their young with blows of their beaks, and for three days to mourn them when slain by themselves in the nest: after which they say the mother wounds herself deeply, and pours forth her blood over her young, bathed in which they recover life. This may be true, it may be false: yet if it be true, see how it agrees with Him, who gave us life by His blood. It agrees with Him in that the mother's flesh recalls to life her young with her blood; it agrees well. For He calls Himself a hen brooding over her young....If, then, it be so truly, this bird does closely resemble the flesh of Christ, by whose blood we have been called to life. But how may it agree with Christ, that the bird herself slays her own young? Does not this agree with it? “I will slay, and I will make alive: I will wound, and I will heal.” Would the persecutor Saul have died, unless he were wounded from heaven; or would the preacher be raised up, unless by life given him from His blood? But let those who have written on the subject see to this; we ought not to allow our understanding of it to rest upon doubtful ground. Let us rather recognise this bird in the wilderness; as the Psalm expresses it, “A pelican in the solitude.” I suppose that Christ born of a Virgin is here meant. He was born in loneliness, because He alone was thus born. After the nativity, we come to His Passion....Born in the wilderness, because alone so born; suffering in the darkness of the Jews as it were in night, in their sin, as it were in ruins: what next? “I have watched:” and “have become even as it were a sparrow, that sits alone upon the house-top”. You had then slept amid the ruins, and had said, “I laid me down, and slept.” What means, “I slept”? Because I chose, I slept: I slept for love of night: but, “I rose again,” follows. Therefore “I watched,” is here said. But after He watched, what did He? He ascended into heaven, He became as a sparrow by flying; that is, by ascending; “alone on the house-top;” that is, in heaven. He is therefore as the pelican by birth, as the owl by dying, as the sparrow by ascending again: there in the wilderness, as one alone; here in the ruined walls, as one slain by those who could not stand in the building; and here again watching and flying for our sakes alone on the house-top, He there intercedes in our behalf. For our Head is as the sparrow, His body as the turtle-dove. “For the sparrow has found her an house.” What house? In heaven, where He does mediate for us. “And the turtle-dove a nest,” the Church of God has found a nest from the wood of His Cross, where “she may lay her young,” her children.