Sermons on the Song of Songs

And it is very necessary for us, my brethren, that He should thus appear. For if, even with the mellowing influence of His Humanity, so great shall be the rigour of justice at the judgment, so awful the severity of the Judge, so overwhelming His Majesty, so completely transformed the face of physical nature, that the Prophet Malachy asks, “Who shall be able to think of the day of His coming?”—if such is to be His advent even in the form of man, what would it be, think you, were that “Consuming Fire”—I mean the Almighty God—to come in the infinite greatness and strength and purity of His Divinity, for the purpose of manifesting His power “against a leaf that is carried away with the wind,” and of “pursuing a dry straw”! He will come now in human form, and yet who shall be able to look upon Him? In the words of the Prophet, “Who shall stand to see Him?” How much less could any man endure the unapproachable splendour of His brightness, the inaccessible loftiness of His Majesty, and the incomprehensible greatness of His glory, if He exhibited to our gaze the Divine Nature unclouded by the Human! As it is, however, “when His wrath shall be kindled in a short time,” how sweet and benign, for the sake of the sons of grace, will He exhibit Himself in His Manhood, giving security to their faith, strength to their hope, and increase to their confidence! For “the grace of God and His mercy is with His saints, and He hath respect to His chosen.” And Christ Himself tells us that God the Father “hath given Him power to do judgment,—not because He is His own Son but—because He is the Son of man.” O “Father of mercies” in deed and in truth! He will have men to be judged by a Man, so that amidst such panic and confusion of evils, their community of nature with the Judge may be for the elect a source of confidence! Holy David announced this of old in prayer and prophecy, saying, “Give to the King Thy judgment, O God, and to the King’s Son Thy justice.” Nor is this contradicted but rather confirmed by the promise made at the Ascension through the angels, who thus addressed the apostles, “This Jesus Who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come as you have seen Him going into heaven,” that is to say, in the same bodily form and substance.

From what has been said it follows clearly that the Spouse is made the confidant of the divine purpose and is perfectly well acquainted with this mystery of heaven’s will. Therefore, using the figure of weak and inoffensive animals, she proclaims in the form of a prayer and in the spirit of prophecy, that her Bridegroom will come to the judgment in His weaker, or rather say in His inferior Nature, because weak It no longer is. For He Who rules the heavens and the earth in the might of His strength and Who will come “girded with power” against the wicked, will show Himself to His elect sweet and mild and, as it were, stripped of His terrors. Here it may be added too, that in order to distinguish the just from the reprobate, the Judge shall have need not only of the hart’s power of leaping, but also of the eyes of the roe. Otherwise He shall not be able to see and to discriminate on whom He is to leap and whom to skip over in that countless multitude and in the midst of such confusion; and there would be danger that the good should be trampled under foot along with the wicked, when He will “break (the nations) in the day of His wrath.” For as regards the impious, it is necessary that the prediction of David, or rather the word of the Lord spoken by David, should be fulfilled, “I shall beat them as small as the dust before the wind; I shall bring them to nought like the dirt in the streets.” Another similar prophecy, spoken by the mouth of another prophet, shall likewise be seen in its accomplishment on that day, viz., “I have trampled on them in My indignation, and have trodden them down in My wrath.”

However, if anyone thinks that the leaping and skipping should be so understood that our Divine Hart is to skip over the sinners and to leap on the just, I make no objection, so long as it is granted me that the leaping and skipping are designed to distinguish the elect from the reprobate. Nay, if my memory serves me right, I proposed this very interpretation myself in a previous sermon, for we met these words, “like a roe or a young hart,” on a former occasion also, where they occur in an earlier verse of this Canticle, and I then discussed them fully. But in that preceding passage the Young Hart was said to leap upon or to skip over souls, according to the dispensation of grace, which in this life is granted to some and denied to others, by the just yet mysterious judgment of God; whereas here there is question of the ultimate and various retribution according to the variety of merits or demerits. And perhaps this exposition may derive some support from the words with which our present text concludes, and which, in truth, I had well-nigh forgotten. For the Spouse tells her Bridegroom, “Be like, my Beloved, to a roe or a young hart, viz., leap like a roe or a young hart, upon the mountains of Bethel.” “Bethel” means “the house of God,” and surely there can be no evil mountains in the house of God. Wherefore the Young Hart will not trample but rather rejoice these mountains of Bethel by His leaping upon them, so that the Scripture may be fulfilled, wherein we read, “The mountains and the hills shall sing praise before God.” The Gospel, indeed, makes mention of mountains which faith, likened to the mustard seed, shall remove. But they are not the mountains of Bethel; because faith cultivates instead of removing all the mountains of Bethel.

But if we choose to regard the mountains of Bethel as designating the powers and principalities, with all the other orders of blessed spirits and heavenly virtues, so that of them may be understood what the Psalmist says, “The foundations thereof, that is, of the city of God, are in the holy mountains”: in this case, not contemptible surely or of little worth is that Young Hart to be considered Who appears to stand above such excellent mountains; “being made so much better than the angels, as He hath inherited a more excellent name than they”. We read in the psalms, it is true, that He is “made a little less than the angels.” But what of that? He does not cease to be “better” by becoming “a little less.” Nor are we to suppose that the statements of the Prophet and the Apostle are contradictory of each other, since the two spoke by the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit. For if He was made “a little less than the angels,” not by necessity but through condescension, that, instead of detracting from, only adds to His perfection. Now the Psalmist does not say that He is less than the angels, but is made less, thus defending His Majesty whilst extolling His grace. For His Divine Nature excludes anything like inferiority, although the cause for which He acted excused the condescension. He was made less “because it was His own will.” Yes, my brethren, it was His own will and our necessity that “made Him a little less than the angels.” To be made less in this manner is but an exercise of mercy. And how can there be any loss or waste here since piety gains whatever may appear to be taken from Majesty? Nor has the Apostle passed over in silence this “great mystery of godliness”; for he says, “But we see Jesus Who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour.”