Canticles 2:5

The texts of the New Testament, which we have discussed, are things said by Himself about Himself. Isaiah, however, He said that His mouth had been set by His Father as a sharp sword, and that He was hidden under the shadow of His hand, made like to a chosen shaft and kept close in the Father’s quiver, called His servant by the God of all things, and Israel, and Light of the Gentiles. The mouth of the Son of God is a sharp sword, for “The word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.” And indeed He came not to bring peace on the earth, that is, to corporeal and sensible things, but a sword, and to cut through, if I may say so, the disastrous friendship of soul and body, so that the soul, committing herself to the spirit which w …

But because he said, “Your heart shall rejoice,” lest we should suppose that the blessings of that Jerusalem are only spiritual, he adds, “And your bones shall rise up like a herb,” alluding to the resurrection of the body, and as it were supplying an omission he had made. For it will not take place when we have seen; but we shall see when it has taken place. For he had already spoken of the new heavens and the new earth, speaking repeatedly, and under many figures, of the things promised to the saints, and saying,“There shall be new heavens, and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind; but they shall find in it gladness and exultation. Behold, I will make Jerusalem an exultation, and my people a joy. …

14. “And in it He hath prepared the instruments of death: He hath wrought His arrows for the burning” ( ver. 13 ). That bow then I would readily take to be the Holy Scripture, in which by the strength of the New Testament, as by a sort of string, the hardness of the Old has been bent and subdued. From thence the Apostles are sent forth like arrows, or divine preachings are shot. Which arrows “He has wrought for the burning,” arrows, that is, whereby being stricken they might be inflamed with heavenly love. …

14. “Thine arrows are sharp, are most powerful” ( ver. 5 ); words that pierce the heart, that kindle love. Whence in the Song of Songs it is said, “I am wounded with love.” For she speaks of being “wounded with love;” that is, of being in love, of being inflamed with passion, of sighing for the Bridegroom, from whom she received the arrow of the Word. “Thine arrows are sharp, are most powerful;” both piercing, and effective; “sharp, most powerful.” “The peoples shall fall under Thee.” Who have “fallen”? They who were “wounded” have also “fallen.” We see the nations subdued unto Christ; we do not see them “fall.” He explains where they “fall,” viz. “in the heart.” It was there they lifted themselves up against Christ, there they “fall” down before Christ. …

13. “Coals of fire shall fall upon them upon earth, and Thou shalt cast them down” ( ver. 10 ). What is, “upon earth”? Here, even in this life, here “coals of fire shall fall upon them.” What are, “coals of fire”? We know these coals. Are they different from those of which we are about to speak? For these I see avail for punishment, those that I am about to speak of, for salvation. For we have spoken of certain coals, when man was seeking aid against a treacherous tongue.…The examples of the “coals” are added to the wound of the arrows (for I need not fear to say “the wound,” when the Spouse herself saith, “I am wounded with love”), and then the hay is consumed, and so they are called “devouring coals.” The hay is devoured, but the gold is purified, and the man exchanges death for life, and begins to be himself too a burning coal; such a coal as was the Apostle, “who before was a blasphe …

7. But there are some that conspire, that “gather themselves together against the Lord, and against His Christ.” They have come together, they have conspired. “Flash forth Thy lightnings, and Thou shalt scatter them.” Abound with Thy miracles, and their conspiracy shall be broken.…“Send forth Thine arrows, and Thou shalt confound them.” Let the unsound be wounded, that, being well wounded, they may be made sound; and let them say, being set now in the Church, in the Body of Christ, let them say with the Church, “I am wounded with Love.” “Send forth Thine Hand from on high.” What afterward? What in the end? How conquereth the Body of Christ? By heavenly aid. “For the Lord Himself shall come with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God shall He descend from heaven,” Himself the Saviour of the body, the Hand of God. What is, “Out of many waters”? From many peoples. …