Sermons on the Song of Songs

But good and true wisdom “is drawn out of secret places,” as blessed Job believed. Why then seek it outside, in your bodily senses? Wisdom resides in the heart as taste in the palate. Seek not wisdom in the material eye, since flesh and blood do not reveal it, but only the Spirit of God. Neither should you look for it in the taste of the mouth, because “it is not found in the land of them that live in delights,” as Job tells us. Nor in the touch of the hand, for the same holy man declares, “If I have kissed my hand with my mouth, which is very great iniquity, and a denial against the Most High God.” As I understand it, the hand is thus kissed when wisdom, which is God’s gift, is ascribed, not to Him, but to our own merits. Isaac was a wise man, yet he was led astray by his senses. Hearing alone takes hold of the truth, because it alone has perception of the word. Justly, therefore, is the still carnally-minded woman, Magdalen, forbidden to touch the reanimated Flesh of the Word, because she gave more credit to the eye than to the oracle, that is to say, to the sense of the body, than to the word of God. For she did not believe Him risen, though He had promised to rise, whereas she believed Him dead on the testimony of her senses. Nor did her eye rest until her sight had been satisfied, because she had no consolation from faith, no confidence in the promise of God. But is it not so, that heaven and earth and everything visible to this eye of flesh must pass away and perish, ere one jot or one tittle of all that God has spoken shall be suffered to fall to the ground? And yet she, who found no consolation in the word of the Lord, ceased from her weeping at the vision of her eye, placing greater reliance on experience than on faith. Nevertheless, experience is often deceptive.

She is, therefore, invited to give the preference to the more certain knowledge of faith, which attains to things beyond the reach of the senses, beyond the range of experience. “Do not touch Me,” said the risen Saviour. That is to say, “Cease to confide in thy fallacious senses. Rely upon my word. Accustom thyself to being led by the influence of faith. Faith is infallible, it apprehends the invisible, it is a stranger to the poverty of sense. Nay, it even transcends the limits of human reason, the capacity of nature, the bounds of experience. Why ask the eye about objects beyond its possibilities of vision? And why should the hand endeavour to touch that which is altogether above its reach. The knowledge given by either of these faculties is of comparatively little worth. But faith will certainly speak to thee of Me, without detracting aught from My Majesty. Learn to receive with more certainty and to follow with fuller confidence what it shall teach thee. ‘Do not touch Me, for I am not yet ascended to My Father.’” As if to say that when He is ascended, she shall have the permission or the power to touch Him. And indeed that power she shall have, but with her affection, not with her hand; with her will, not with her eye; with faith, not with the senses. “Why,” He asks, “dost thou seek to touch Me now, whilst with the bodily sense thou dost estimate the glory of My Resurrection? Knowest thou not that even in the days of My passible life, the eyes of My disciples were unable to bear the glory of My mortal Body, momentarily transfigured. I still condescend, indeed, to the weakness of thy senses, by presenting to thee the form of a servant which thou canst recognise from thy past experience. But My glory ‘is become wonderful to’ thee; ‘it is high’ and thou canst ‘not reach to it.’ Defer, therefore, thy judgment; postpone thy verdict; do not entrust thy senses with so important a decision, but reserve it to faith, which, as comprehending more fully, will pronounce sentence more worthily and with more truth and confidence. For faith, in that deep and mystical breast of hers, comprehends ‘what is the breadth and length, and height, and depth’ of this glory. What ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered the heart of man,’ that faith bears within herself, wrapped round with mystery and preserved under seal.

“She, therefore, may worthily touch Me, who shall behold Me enthroned with the Father, no longer in an humble, but in a heavenly form, in the same Flesh indeed as to substance, but different as to degree of glory. Why Wouldst thou touch what as yet is uncomely? Wait that thou mayst touch Me when I am revealed in My perfect beauty. For I, Who am now unprepossessing by comparison, shall be truly beautiful then. Now I appear imperfect to the faculties of touch and of sight. I appear imperfect to thee, who art thyself imperfect, in that thou dost follow sense in preference to faith. Make thyself beautiful, and then mayst thou touch Me. Thou shalt make thyself beautiful by rendering thyself faithful. Thus beautiful thyself, thou shalt more worthily and more blissfully touch Me in My beauty. Thou shalt touch Me with the hand of faith, with the finger of desire, with the embrace of devotion, with the eye of the intellect. But shall I still be black? God forbid! Thy Beloved shall be beautiful beyond question and beyond compare, for He shall be ‘white and ruddy’ as being surrounded with roses and lilies of the valley, that is, by the choirs of martyrs and virgins. Nor shall I in the midst of both companies appear alien to either, since I am Myself both a Martyr and a Virgin. For how could I be alien to the white choirs of virgins, being not only a Virgin, but the Son of a virgin, and the Bridegroom of a virgin? Or to the roseate army of martyrs, I, Who am the Motive, the Virtue, the Reward, and the Model of martyrs? When thou art such thyself, then mayst thou touch Me Who am such, and touch Me in such a way. Then canst thou say, ‘My Beloved is white and ruddy, chosen out of thousands.’ ‘Thousands of thousands’ are with thy Beloved, ‘and ten thousand times a hundred thousand’ surround Him, yet nigh Him is there none. Perhaps thou hast need to fear, lest, in seeking Him Whom thou lovest, thou shouldst mistake for Him one of the multitude of His attendants? But no, thou shalt have no hesitation in singling Him out. He shall easily draw thy attention, being ‘chosen out of thousands,’ and of peerless glory; and thou shalt say, ‘This is My Beloved, this Beautiful One, in His robe, walking in the greatness of His strength.’ No longer, therefore, shall He walk in the black skin, which up to this had to be presented to the eyes of His enemies, that they might despise Him Whom they were to slay, and now even to the eyes of His friends, that they might recognise Him after His Resurrection. No longer, I say, shall He appear under a black curtain, but in white robes, beautiful not only above the sons of men, but above even the angelic spirits. Why, then, dost thou wish to touch Me, whilst still in this humble habit, this servile form, this contemptible appearance? Touch Me when I manifest Myself all radiant with heavenly beauty, ‘crowned with honour and glory,’ terrible in the Majesty of My Godhead, yet sweet and mild in My native serenity.”