Sermons on the Song of Songs

Why should not David’s name be added to this list of just men? For it is he who has declared, “With expectation I have waited for the Lord.” He came fourth in the preceding catalogue also, my catalogue of “eructators,” and I had almost forgotten him. He it is who hath “opened his mouth and drawn in the Spirit,” and being filled therewith, not only eructated of his fulness but even burst into song. O good Jesus, with what sweetness has he not enchanted my senses of smell and hearing, by his belching and his singing of that “oil of gladness” wherewith “God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee above Thy fellows,” telling me how “myrrh and stacte and cassia perfume Thy garments, from the ivory houses,” and how “the daughters of kings have delighted Thee in Thy glory”! Oh, how I wish that Thou wouldst grant me the privilege of meeting so great a prophet and so intimate a friend of Thine on the “day of solemnity and gladness,” when he comes forth from Thy bridal-chamber, singing his own marriage-song to the music of the psaltery and the harp, “flowing with delights,” sprinkled with and redolent of “all the powders of the perfumer”! On that day, or rather in that hour,—for whenever such a favour is granted it lasts no longer than an hour, and perhaps not even so long, but only for half an hour. agreeably to what is written, “There was silence in heaven, as it were for half an hour”—in that hour, I say, “my mouth shall be filled with gladness and my tongue with joy,” because I shall recognise—I do not say in every psalm—but in every verse of every psalm, an eructation surpassing all aromatic spices in the sweetness of its fragrance. What can be more odoriferous than that eructation of St. John, “In the beginning was the Word,” savouring to me of the eternity, the generation, and the Divinity of the Word? But how shall I speak of the belchings of St. Paul? With what a delicious perfume they embalmed the whole world! For he was “the good odour of Christ in every place.” Even those “secret words” of his, although he does not utter them to my hearing, he yet proposes sufficiently to arouse my desires, in order that I may enjoy at least the fragrance of what I am not permitted to hear. And indeed, it seems to me that the mystery he thus hides from us somehow pleases us the more, in proportion as we are the less able to fathom it; and we lone for it with greater eagerness because it is withheld. You may notice the Spouse acting towards us here in somewhat the same manner as the Apostle. For, like him, in this present verse she neither fully discloses her secret nor does she altogether pass it over in silence. She permits us to inhale its odour, but the taste thereof, either because of our unworthiness or because of our incapacity, she apparently thinks it right to withhold from us for the present.

“My Beloved to me, and I to Him.” There can be no doubt, my brethren, that the mutual love of the Bridegroom and Bride burns as a fire in this passage. And in that reciprocity of affection we behold the supreme felicity of the one and the amazing condescension of the Other. For not between equals is the loving union or embrace here in question. But what is the gift which the Spouse boasts of having, by the privilege of singular love, received from her Bridegroom and bestowed upon Him in turn? That is a secret which no one can pretend to understand fully, except those who, by the perfect purity of their souls and bodies, have deserved to experience something similar in themselves. For it is a mystery of love. Hence it is not by discourse of reason we are to attain to it, but by conformity of will. But how few there are who can say with the Apostle, “But we all, beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord”!

However, I will try to present what is said in our text in a somewhat more intelligible form; yet without presuming to trench upon that secret which is the prerogative of the Spouse, and access to which is in the meantime unlawful, particularly for sinners such as we are. I have consequently to put before you something which, because of its being familiar, shall be the better adapted to the ordinary capacity, and shall at the same time give coherence to the words of our text and “understanding to little ones” To me, then, it seems to be enough for our gross and unenlightened intelligence, if with the words “My Beloved to me” we understand the verb “attends.” Thus the sentence will run, “My Beloved attends to me, and I to Him.” It must not be supposed, however, that I am the only one or the first to whom this has occurred. Long before me the Psalmist gave expression to the same thought in the words, “With expectation I have waited for the Lord, and He hath attended to me.” Here you have explicitly mentioned the attending of the Lord to His Prophet. And you have also the Prophet’s attending to the Lord, evidently implied in what he says, “With expectation I have waited for the Lord.” For he who expects attends. Indeed to attend is nothing else than to expect. There is no difference in the sense, therefore, between what the Psalmist says here and the utterance of the Spouse, and very little even in the words which they employ, except that the Prophet inverts the order of the Bride, by putting in the second place what she places first and conversely.

Of the two it seems to me that the Spouse has spoken the more correctly. She does not give the prominence to her merit, but begins with an acknowledgment of the divine beneficence, and confesses that she has been prevented by the grace of holy love. This is certainly very proper, because, as the Apostle says, “who hath first given to Him and recompense shall be made him?”

St. John gives us his mind on this subject where he tells us in his Epistle, “In this is charity; not as though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us.” But although the Psalmist makes no mention here of antecedent grace, he does not deny the grace which is consequent, neither is he silent concerning it. Yet, listen to a more manifest testimony of his, relating to the latter and taken from a different place, where he confesses, speaking to the Lord, “And Thy mercy will follow me all the days of my life.” I will present you from the same Prophet with an equally clear and certain acknowledgment of prevenient grace: “My God,” he says, “His mercy shall prevent me.” And again he prays to God in the words, “Let Thy mercies speedily prevent us, for we are become exceeding poor.” In a subsequent verse of this Canticle, the Spouse, unless I mistake, very beautifully repeats the words of our present text, but inverting the order of the parts and following the example of the Prophet. For she there says, “I to my Beloved, and my Beloved to me.” Why this, my brethren? The reason is that she there wants to prove herself to be more full of grace, since she has now given up everything to grace, assigning to it both the beginning and the end. For how could she be full of grace, if there was anything in her or belonging to her, which was not from grace? There is no room for grace in a soul already occupied by merit. Therefore the confession that all her good is from grace proves that the soul which so confesses has the plenitude of grace. For if there is anything in her of her own, be it much or be it little, grace, of necessity, shall be so far excluded. Whatever room you make in yourselves for merit, you withdraw from grace. As for me, I want none of that merit which is an obstacle to grace. I abhor and disavow whatever of mine I discover in myself, in order that I may be my own, unless perchance that is most truly mine which truly makes me my own. It is grace that justifies me freely and so delivers me from the servitude of sin. For “where the Spirit is there is liberty.”