Sermons on the Song of Songs

It was said of old, and now we see the fulfilment of the prediction, “Behold in peace is my bitterness most bitter.” Bitter was the bitterness of holy mother Church in the early ages whilst the martyrs were being slaughtered; it was more bitter during her struggle with heresy; but it is now become most bitter owing to the corrupt morals of her own children. These she can neither drive away nor flee from, so powerful have they grown, and “they are multiplied beyond number.” She is now attacked by an internal and incurable distemper, and therefore “in peace is her bitterness most bitter.” But in what peace? There is peace and there is no peace. There is peace from infidels and peace from-heretics, but she has no peace from her children. “I have brought up children and exalted them, but they have despised me.” Such is her plaintive cry in our day. “They have heaped contempt and dishonour on me by their shameful lives, by their shameful love of lucre, by their shameful traffic, by their devotion to the ‘business that walketh about in the dark.’” It only remains now for the “noon-day devil” to make his appearance in order to seduce, if he can, the remnant who still abide in Christ, persevering in their simplicity. For he has already swallowed up the “rivers” of the wise and the “torrents” of the powerful, “and he trusteth that the Jordan—that is to say, the simple and humble children of the Church—may run into his mouth.” This is Antichrist who simulates the day, yea, and the Meridian, “and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped.” Him may the Lord Jesus slay “with the Spirit of His Mouth and with the brightness of His coming,” as the true and never-fading Meridian, the Bridegroom and Advocate of the Church, Who is over all things, God blessed for ever. Amen.