Chapter 11

CHAP. XI.

Of the fourth disposition, which is Love-sickness. 1. Parts of the Text. 2. The meeting of Believers for godly conference is owned by the Lord. 3. Smaller means of grace, and short visits of Christ, are to be highly esteemed, especially when flowings are neglected. 4. Sense is prouder than Faith. 5. Withdrawings of Christ teach us profitably. 6. Except we find Christ, we cannot pray as becomes. 7. The real withdrawings of Christ make no real change in moral or legal interests; four great interests stand entire and safe under desertion. 8. What lovesickness is. 9. The wisdom of God in suspended influences of grace. 10. The wisdom of Sovereignty therein, and how dependance on the Lord's guiding is best. 11. How we may deprecate the pain of love-sickness, and pray for comforts and influences, and 12. may contradict the Lord's permissive will. 13. We are to have peace as touching the satisfied for guilt of sin, when we have not peace with the inherent blot. 14. How Love-sickness rightly pains. 15. Pain of Love-sickness. 16. Sense above faith. 17. The Idol of moderation. 18. Of spiritual savouriness.

*Cant. 5. v. 8.* I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I am sick of love. 9. What is your beloved more than another beloved, O you fairest among women? what is your beloved more than another beloved, that you do so charge us?

The charge by an oath is given to the daughters of Jerusalem, of whom the Holy Ghost, (Cant. 2:7; Cant. 1:5). If you find my beloved in the ordinances by hearing or prayer, tell him: what shall you tell him? A passionate kind of speech, that I am sick of love. Greek, wounded with love, pained for the want of Christ in his comfortable presence, who was now to her feeling absent. Here is a comfortable dialogue between the Spouse and her companions, who are less experienced with the way of Christ than she; there was a more comfortable dialogue between Christ and the Spouse, but she slighted that, and therefore now is glad to speak with the servant when the Master is away.

In the words there is the Spouse's speech, containing a charge, that the daughters of Jerusalem carry a message to Christ.

2. The particular message, I am sick of love.

3. The daughters of Jerusalem their reply and carnal disposition is noted, bewraying their ignorance of Christ, and finding fault with vehemency of words doubled, What is your beloved? what is your beloved more than another beloved?

2. Yet a feeling of some savouriness in the Spouse in her love-sickness, O you fairest among women!

The Church did formerly of late confer with Christ, and refused to open to him when he was knocking and showring down influences of grace; now she is glad to confer,

1. With the smiting watchmen, where she found little of Christ.

2. Next with private Christians in assemblies. This is a mean of the Lord's showring down of influences in the public and domestic, or less public meetings of his saints; for ordinances of all sorts that are appointed of Christ, they drop down savoury and seasonable dews. The Lord writes in his book the savoury conferences of such as fear the Lord's name (Malachi 3:16), and three things follow.

1. The Lord owns such as are his.

2. His forbearance though there be faults in their service.

3. His making known to his the difference between such as serve God, and such as serve him not: and Zechariah 8, the inhabitants of one City encourage the inhabitants of another; and the fruits of it is 1. Praying. 2. Owning the saints. And they take hold of the skirt of a Jew; and both say Christians meeting for prayer and conference want not God, who rains down impressions of grace upon them as his people, especially when they warm one another; as many coals in one heap make a great fire. Nor is the acting of the Spirit tied only to the public ministry; the saints take to their houses clusters of wine-grapes, which they feed upon at home. Let the saints meet, and by conference and prayer draw down new influences of the Spirit (Jude 20; Isaiah 2:1, 2, 3; Jeremiah 50:4, 5; Colossians 3:16; Hebrews 3:13 & 10:24; 1 Thessalonians 5:14).

Tell him. Why did not you yourself tell him, when he knocked, and spoke, and said, Open to me my Sister. She might have told him herself, when he lovingly knocked, and sweetly and comfortably spoke, Open to me, my Sister: now she is glad, wanting his own presence, to send salutation to absent Christ, Ah, I cannot see him myself! But tell him, I charge you, that I am sick of love. What speaks such a dispensation, but 1. Saints be content to sail with an half-wind, or a side-wind, and improve it well. Husbandmen in the midst of a long continued drought, bless the Lord for twelve hours of summer rain, that brings a comfortable reviving. A sight of the Lord in the wilderness of Judah (Psalm 63), when David cannot have sanctuary-presence, is good. A prayer of the prisoner, or a groan, or (Psalm 102:19, 20) tears by the rivers of Babylon, and a praying eye and heart looking out at Daniel's window, when all those are banished and exiled captives far from the Temple, are sweet: and we are to make use of these lesser dispensations: though the well be low in a drought, yet here the water is sweet. Fret not because it is (as Bernard says) rara hora, brevis mora. His visits are but half-visits and short, yet they speak whole, rich, and everlasting mercy; little gold may seal a rich man's inheritance. Ah, I have seen showers of influences in plenty, and now feeds me with far off and half-bedewings; did you use them well when you had them?

2. It says that sense is prouder than faith. Sense complains the breathings of the Spirit are not strong, the wind is not fair: but faith is not content to look through the key-hole, and see the half of his face, and is humbler: Ah, may I but hear of him, or kiss his feet and weep over them, touch but the skirts or the hem of the garments of Christ, and it is good. Some must be feasted with the King, taken into his house of wine, embraced in his arms, or there is no peace, but fretting: but here faith was commended as great (Matthew 15), who would be well pleased with the crumbs that fall from the table; no, it was humble, and hungry, and yet lively faith (Luke 15:18, 19), Father; I have sinned, I am no more worthy to be called your son, make me as one of your hired servants.

3. Is not spiritual hunger humble? David had a great room in the house, and was a type of the chief cornerstone, and prepared in abundance for the building of the house, and was a man according to God's heart; but when he was banished, ah, how happy was a door keeper in his house (Psalm 84:3). The room of a sparrow or a swallow's nest beside his altar is a king's inheritance (v. 4). Blessed are they that dwell in your house, they will be still praising you, says David, at such a time.

Qu. But are not love-dispositions now under desertion and the Lord's withdrawing, the stronger and more powerful in Christ?

1. The very withdrawing of Christ, as touching his end, is mercy, and requires strong missing. Christ's hard pulling to be away, suits strong holding on our part, I will not let you go; for there is strength and bones in love to resist a contrary.

2. Dispositions heavenly in the affections, make a huge deal of noise and tumult, as here there is pathetic charging to tell Christ her love-sickness under desertion; and it's good when desires for Christ under absence are strongest. That faith humbly and submissively waiting on in hope, is stronger also when it makes least noise and tumult; as the deepest river without rumbling runs quietly down the banks. But

1. Learn to husband well love-feasts of nearer and sweeter presence; believe for the time to come; pray for the time to come; hear and observe for the time to come; lay up love in store for times of spiritual scarcity. Ah, we waste dispensations of the love of Christ, and swallow them over without humble believing, and godly watching and fear, and waste prodigally feasts of love. We then learn to grow in experimental knowledge, in solidity of believing; sense is wanton, and feeds itself, and we neglect faith and the growth thereof.

2. Be submissive when influences are withdrawn; examine whether they have been abused, and if you might not have made five ten, and had a richer stock if you had been spiritually diligent; and if so, mourn for the abuse of these showers. For Paul tells that the Lord's working in us to will and to do, which is showering of influences of grace, is the great teaching argument that lays bands on us to will and to do. And the Lord's teaching David wisdom in the hidden part (Psalm 51:6), which was holy breathings and inspirations of the Spirit, to make the letter of the word effectual, is an argument of heightening his sin of adultery and murder. And he lays bonds on his own heart to improve influences (Psalm 119:33): Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I shall keep it to the end. Certainly the Lord's sending the first and latter rain on his garden of red wine, and watering it every moment, must lay bands on his people to be plants of righteousness; and his blowing with the North and South wind of his Spirit upon his garden requires the duty of the flowing of the spices and their thriving; and the Spirit of the Father's purging calls for bringing forth of more fruit; and the Spirit's leading requires that we should willingly follow such a guide; and the Spirit's teaching requires that we be docile and spiritual; and the Spirit's convincing, that we bow and yield to his conviction. The Spouse then under the withdrawing of Christ (v. 6) is here put to see her poverty, and speak by others her case to Christ, when she neglected to speak to Christ when he was nearer to her than now.

If you find him, tell him.

There is then some spiritual capacity, without which the daughters of Jerusalem cannot pray, and that is, if they find him not, Christ cannot be prayed to, and if the faith meet not with him as Immanuel. Paul says well (Romans 10:13): How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?

2. Can one call on God, or cry to him Abba Father, who never laid hold on him as a Father? Know then that unbelief is an iron door between Christ and many who pray, or rather cry to him: for many pray to an unknown Christ. Could Jacob wrestle with an unfound and far-off God (Hosea 12:4)? He wept, and made supplication to him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spoke with us. Can any knock, and neither find the right door, nor know the King and the Lord of the house within? You never went into the King's chamber, nor to his house of wine, and how can you speak to him?

Obj. 1. You lay much weight on the quality and worth of prayer, when you say we must first find Christ, before we can pray to him?

Answ. Praying must have some spiritual quality in it, since it's a work of the Spirit: for speaking of words is not praying. The legion of devils in the possessed man (Matthew 8) spoke words, and made a suit to Christ, but they prayed not. David's enemies cry, even to the Lord (Psalm 18:41), but pray not. The damned in hell speak words to God, but they blaspheme and quarrel with holy justice, but pray not.

2. The lowest discernible breathing out of a sigh through the Holy Ghost, has as well the nature of prayer, as an eighth part of an ounce of gold partakes of the nature of gold no less than a mountain of gold.

3. The groaning of the Spirit of the Lord is in every praying, and therefore let none be beguiled, who are destitute of the Spirit; for no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 12:3). It's not want of charity, nor unnecessary discouraging of any, to say a thistle is a thistle, and not a rose, a thorn is a thorn, and not a vine-tree. Where the Spirit of grace joins no influences of saving grace, can you call that speaking to God a work of saving grace? It were good men were not permitted to treasure up pieces of brass and copper, and suffered to dream they have a treasure of gold.

4. Sense of deadness in prayer oftener speaks the life of prayer; and a godly sense of blindness is a large measure of seeing (John 9:41).

Obj. 2. Then must we not pray till we first find Christ?

Answ. Not so neither; for praying fits for praying. Stirring of the birth brings and increases lively heat; better mar praying, especially if you dare not dissemble, than restrain or omit praying.

Obj. 3. I cry, and I am not heard.

Answ. The godly man may move the same doubt (Job 19:7; Psalm 22:2).

2. There are degrees of discerning an answer, and degrees of the Lord's opening to the knocking of faith; it were fit yet Magus prayed more (Acts 8:22), and that he went about means with more sense of deadness.

If you find my beloved.

The spouse's withdrawing beloved, v. 6. is her beloved. Christ is a seeking, yet, says she, he is my beloved. The interest in Christ is moral, or (in a manner) legal; the Father made him ours by free gift, the withdrawing of influences. 2. The shining and smiling. 3. The suspending of influences needful for the act of feeling is physical and real. The Lord's outward dispensations make no change of 1. Covenant-interest, the Covenant is eternal; the Lord's absence from his own is not eternal. Nor is there change in relation of interest; no distance of miles, no frowning or hiding of his face makes Christ leave off to be a husband, a head, a ransom-payer, a Father.

2. Faith lays hold on right and on propriety. When the heir's possession is suspended, and an out-lawed heir, here is an heir; the use of the breathings and influences is removed; the mill stands and grinds not, the ground is plowed; yet the same Lord and heritor of mill and land remains. Hang not your rights, writs, and charters upon your sense, or upon the ups and downs of the Lord's dispensation; nor does a believer's heaven stand in the particular out-lettings of the Lord's free grace, or his withdrawings, though the more of the Spirit any has, the more does their spiritual life and being depend upon the operations of grace; as all things that grow and have life depend upon the influences of the Sun and Heaven, trees; and plants, and flowers, and herbs, suffer a sort of death by the departure of the Sun from them, and they begin to live again when in the spring the Sun moves near toward them; so are the out-goings and gracious influences of the Sun of righteousness to the renewed ones, in whom is the life of Christ: for Christ keeps in being his own life, and cannot but keep it in being and operation (Romans 8:10). And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin: but the spirit is life because of righteousness. v. 11. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you; he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by the Spirit that dwells in you. See both the life of grace in this life is kept in being by the Spirit; and the life of the body, which shall be made spiritual in the resurrection, is restored again by the Spirit of Christ.

2. Deserted souls under the Lord's withdrawing would neither cast away their confidence, nor be too securely comforted when the Lord withdraws (to speak to the former) the right in Christ is entire.

2. The bargain of Redemption. Christ's act of buying, and dying, and paying a price for his own.

3. The care of the trust and charge of redeemed souls committed to Christ.

4. The act of atonement made by Christ, accepted by God, by which justice and the law stands fully satisfied, are all whole and untouched under desertion: For our obedience is neither in whole nor in part, neither in toto nor in tanto any penny of satisfaction to the law, but paid upon another account. All these 4. stand entire, and the land and shore sail not, and move not, though the green sailor judges so, because he and the vessel are in sail.

2. Nor is it safe to sleep, and lie and be secure, when the Spirit in his flowings withdraws. It speaks some out-cast, or out-lawry; and the child should not be quiet, when he knows the Father is displeased: nor would ministers heal them with all Gospel and honey, and lay aside all Law; for what cures help the disease and the first fever, the same are good some way for the second fever and recidivation.

I am sick of love.

As Cant. 2. Greek, wounded of love, the Hebrew word imports weakness (Judges 16:11). If they bind me with ropes, I shall be weak as another man.

Hence it implies languishing pain, through want of the feeling and enjoying of Christ's presence (Cant. 2:5; Cant. 3:1, 2, 3; Cant. 3:6, 8).

2. It implies sickness and weakening of the person, as in Amnon's love to his sister Tamar (2 Samuel 13:1, 2, 3, 4). It comes from apprehended wrath, and the curse of the Law (Psalms 90:8; Psalms 32:3, 4; Psalms 6:1; Psalms 38:1, 2, 3, 4, &c.; Daniel 9:11; Romans 7:24; Isaiah 33:24; Job 13:24; Psalms 77:7, 8; Psalms 88; Psalms 80:7, 19).

3. It imports the feeling of that pain. The second act of sickness (Matthew 9:12), as to the pain through want of feeling and enjoying God. 1. Two things are here.

1. The want of the life, though the believer be still loved, chosen, redeemed, translated from death to life; but the Lord, who can put a check-lock and an iron bar on all our comforts, withdraws, and lets the spouse swoon, and stays not the heart with flagons of wine and apples, that is, with the effectual applying of the word of promise, by which the heart is established or strengthened (James 5:8; Romans 1:11), and by which we stay and rest ourselves upon the word the Lord (2 Chronicles 32:6, 7, 8; Acts 14:21, 22).

2. There is here suspending and the want of the consolations of the Spirit the comforter, which is the other want. Now the Lord has holy and necessary reasons why he suspends influences to the feeling and knowledge of these rich comforts.

1. His holy sovereignty. Now sovereignty never acts separated from infinite wisdom, when it's most abstract from the object; as in making a world, or not creating any thing; in ordaining of the same lump, some to be vessels of honor, and some of dishonor. There is a reason of the object, but never a reason concludent, or so objectively binding and limiting the Lord; but the contradicent, to wit, no created world, no ordaining of some to honor and some to dishonor, should be as good. As we see in thousands and millions of possible worlds of other men, other Angels, and other creatures which he can create.

2. Infinite wisdom judges it fitter that old Jacob weep and be not comforted that Joseph be sold into Egypt, then be a rejoicing free Patriarch at home; that the man Christ lie before him with tears and strong cries, then that it be otherwise.

3. To infinite wisdom it is clear, that a creature and a sinful creature cannot so measure out sense and comfort as the only wise God; as it is not so fit all the members of the house, servants, children, strangers should be their own stewards of the bread, wine, and dainties of the house, spices, ointments, myrrh, aloes, and cassia, as that there should be one wise and faithful servant over the family, that all and every one hand over head run not to the heap. Therefore is the Lord to be adored in his wisdom, as much in withdrawing influences of sense and comforts, as in bestowing them: Judge if all the fatherless infants, and pupils, and minors of the earth were left to be fathers and tutors to themselves, how would it be with their inheritances? If all the sick on earth were their own only physicians, whether old or young, should it not be ill with the health of many? Some cures are worse than the diseases: there is a sickly and unnatural thirst on some persons sick of a fever; it would be ill with them if either abundance of wine, or a fountain of water were at their bed-side: the choice and elective faculty of the sick man's mind, is often as sick as his body. Let me not then be my own comforter, but let the Spirit of infinite wisdom enjoy his own office, and be the other comforter, whom the Father sends in Christ's name.

Q. May not such as are sick of love pray for sense and comfort?

Answ. There are some relative mercies that the saints may pray for; and if they be denied, praise and bless the Lord for the denial of them; because we often pray for sense, comfort, full assurance, not as they are acts of gracious duties (which were good) but as they are taking and alluring rewards and wages before we do our work.

Q. 2. Is not languishing pain in love-sickness after Christ an evil to be prayed against?

Answ. No question we may pray against swooning and fainting of the life of God, and may pray for the contrary comfort, but with submission to infinite wisdom. Some diseases are so diseases, as some fluxes and some fevers, as they are also medicinal helps of health, and healthy and lively diseases. The Lord, and nature under the Lord, gives excellent medicine: who knows but Hezekiah's running botch, which was otherwise deadly, was a natural help to his fifteen years' health and life which followed? Look not on the holy Lord when he is acting as a physician, as if he were acting as a judge. Want with good will the sense and comfort that the Lord would have you want in his infinite wisdom.

Obj. But whatever we pray for, we are to pray for it with submission, and a reserve to holy sovereignty, as well as we are to pray for sense and comfort?

Answ. It is a doubt and a great one, whether with alike submission we are to pray for that which is bonum honestum, and a gracious duty, as we are to pray for bonum jucundum, that which is pleasant, or the reward of a duty: Hence the question, Whether it be lawful to pray for saving influences of grace, and how far, whether conditionally or absolutely? Hence the first Assertion.

Assert. 1. Whatever the clay suites from the potter, it should be suited,

1. With that general submission, or rather subjection, which all creatures as creatures owe to their Creator: Hence the clay cannot contradict the potter, though but a sinful man, and say, why have you made me thus? (Romans 9:20).

2. A negative submission is far required, as the contrary, to wit, a chiding and contending with the Lord in any case, whether he give or deny influences, is unlawful; it's sin to reply on the contrary to judge or misjudge God (v. 20, Isaiah 45:9). Woe to him that strives with his Maker. See the word in the Hebrew.

Assert. 2. It is most lawful to seek influences of grace for duties at all times.

1. The saints do pray for influences (Psalm 119:25): Quicken me according to your word. 27. Make me understand the way of your precepts. 29. Grant me your law graciously. 33. Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes. 35. Make me to go in the paths of your commandments. Cant. 1:4. Draw me.

2. We may pray that God would withdraw his influences from sinful actings (Psalm 119:29): Remove from me the way of lying. Psalm 141:4. Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practice wicked works with men that work iniquity. Matthew 6:13. Lead us not into temptation.

3. Influences to will and to do are promised in the covenant of grace (Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 32:39, 40; Ezekiel 36:27), and so does Christ promise the Spirit and his teaching (John 14:26), convincing (John 16:7), guiding (v. 13). Then we may suit from God what he promises to give.

4. Our will is to be conform to the holy will of God in his law (Romans 12:2; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; 1 Peter 2:5). Then may we seek necessary helps for these actings.

5. Christ commends praying for the Spirit (Luke 11:13; Matthew 6:9; John 16:23), and James is clear in it (James 16:6), and therefore he commands also praying for the saving operations of the Spirit and his influences.

Assert. 3. There is a two-fold contradicting of the Lord's will. One by way of replying, striving and challenging the Lord as doing unequally. This is condemned in the cited places (Romans 9:10; Isaiah 45:9). There is another humble contradicting in the woman of Canaan (Matthew 15:26, 27). In wrestling Jacob, when the Lord says, Let me go (Genesis 32:26). In Moses interceding (Exodus 32:10, 11, 12). Yes, when Christ commands the disciples to watch, and in order to watching cites the prophecy of Zechariah, c. 13, who foretold that the flock should be scattered, and that they should sinfully forsake and deny their Master; he also charges them to contradict that permissive will and decree of God by which it was ordained that the Lord shall withdraw his influences from Peter and the rest of the disciples, that their sinful weakness might appear, therefore suppose the Lord say it's my decree and will to deny influences of grace to us in such particular actings, it's the Lord's mind that we should humbly contradict that holy will and desire, and pray in the contrary. Nor can the Lord command the reasonable creature to will, or not to desire saving grace; for so the holy Lord should command sin. Yes, to desire and pray for grace is our duty commanded in the Law, and by Christ (Matthew 6:12, 13; Luke 11:13), even when we pray that the Lord's name may be hallowed, his kingdom come, and his will to be done by us and others cheerfully (Matthew 6:9, 10, 11, 12), we desire to be kept from sin, and to have grace in all things to obey the Lord, though we know that he denies his saving influences to us and to many others.

Assert. 4. With this holy contradicting of the Lord's will, is conjoined an humble submitting to the Lord's denying of saving influences, without a sinful counter-working of his holy will now revealed, or without charging folly or unequal dealing upon the Lord. For,

1. His own grace is his own grace, and he is free of all debt and obligation to give gracious influences to Angels or men; as also grace to use the measure of grace given, is rather to be sought than a large measure.

2. There is in love-sickness for Christ a weakness of the soul, and a fainting for the want of Christ; and this may come from the apprehended curse and anger of God for sin, which is a disease after conversion that the child of God may be sick of. So David (Psalm 6:1), Lord rebuke me not in your anger. Psalm 38:2. Your arrows stick fast in me, your hand presses me sore. 3. There is no soundness in my flesh because of your anger, neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin. 4. For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. Psalm 90:7. We are consumed by your anger, and by your wrath we are troubled; you have set our iniquities before you; our secret sins in the light of your countenance. Therefore that Romans 8:14, For you have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear, is all one with this, we ought not to receive it, or we have not received the habit, but are and may be under the temptation and actual assaults of that spirit of law-bondage. Now in this sickness in the renewed soul, this is wrong, that the conscience goes back to its old prison, and comes again under the spirit of bondage: for Christ having made our peace by the blood of atonement on the Cross, there is ground of peace with God, as touching the law-debt of sin; otherwise we fail against the sufficiency of the paid ransom. But as touching the blot of sin, we are never to have peace that way, and so it is good that the soul is troubled that way; and that the world is whole and needs not the Physician Christ, is the death of the world and a worse disease.

Hence the third; it's also good that the soul is pained for the want of righteousness; those ingredients make love-sickness a spiritual disposition for Christ.

1. That the soul is sick and pained for the want of saving influences.

2. It is pained with a spiritual burden; a carnal man cannot be pained with a spiritual burden, no more than a horse or an elephant can be sad for the want of a reasonable soul, or a sucking child weep because he has not learning, and the knowledge of a Philosopher.

3. Sickness is a pain and distemper through want of health, and argues a constitution of life, and this sickness is a fainting and weakness of the soul for the want of Christ, he being the health and life of the soul; and that speaks an excellent soul-constitution, that the soul lives, breathes, enjoys its best being of life, and the most vigorous and strong life in Christ, and when Christ is away in his sweetest operations of felt love and intimate embracings, flamings and out-lettings of free grace, the soul is deadly sick, and there is no cool for this fever but the shining and lovely speaking of the Physician Christ. Love has killed some because they could not enjoy the party loved. Eli's daughter in law not only is sick, but died because the glory was departed.

4. The fits of this ague are strongest when the Lord is away; cold pains most in the absence of heat; sickness in the want of ease and life. Hence seeking him whom the soul loves in all means, and seeking him with care, Saw you him (O watchmen) whom my soul loves? So there is panting, as is in sick men, or chased wild beasts dying a thirst; the flesh and the sensible soul crying out for the living God. Psalm 42:1, 2. My soul longs, yea even faints for the courts of the Lord. In this love-sickness fainting and swooning are near to dying: the moisture turned into the drought of summer. Leanness of body speaks sickness; My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God; when the pain of the stone, and childbirth pain put some to shouting the sickness must be vehement. Shouting and crying out of pain, O pain of pains, I want Jesus Christ, my soul is away; this causes spiritual distempers and doubts; this sickness keeps the sick person waking; there is no sleep, there is no rejoicing. The woman cannot sleep, but rises early in the morning, and weeps on Angels and men (John 20:1, 12, 13). Ah, they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. It was a branch of this sickness in the man Christ, though of a far other kind, feeling God to forsake him, he with tears and strong cries bemoans himself to God.

It's a wicked disposition 1. to think we shall do well enough without influences, and the breathing of the Spirit. David is in the mist, and misses the way when he prays in his blindness, Lord, lead me; and misses life and some degrees of it, when he prays so often for quickening: the artificer that wants his tools and instruments can work none.

2. When a soul can live contentedly and joyfully and wants God, and lives fat and rejoicingly 60 or 70 years without Christ, and never missed Christ; how few know this sickness? Especially 1. The pain of hunger and thirst which is destructive to life; the fruitful earth's disease and pain in a manner is want of rain and long drought; as (Psalm 63:2; Psalm 14:4, 6; Lamentations 2:20) this plague brings forth overwhelming of spirit, stretching out of the hands when one is a dying and cannot speak, the eating of young children; the hind for drought and want of grass calves in the field, and forsakes her young ones (Jeremiah 14:5). Few are put to shifts of all sorts for want of Christ. 2. Few know the sorrow and sadness of an absent husband: every wind is blessed in the wife's thought that blows where he is; every ship that is thought to carry him home is a ship of desire; the earth is loved that he walks on; the house blessed that he lodges in; and when the husband is dead, what mourning does the wife of youth make over his grave? Ah, few know heart-breaking and sorrow because Christ is gone; this were a holy moral happiness in the damned in hell, if their sorrow for being banished and punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power (2 Thessalonians 1:9), were for the want of the saving presence of Christ, which makes holy as well as happy. 3. Impatiency of desire is paining, how long shall the Lord hide his face? When shall I see him? Come, even so come; there is much paining impatience in that prayer for the marriage day in such as long for his appearance (Canticles 8:14), Make haste my beloved, and be you like to a roe, or a young hart upon the mountains of spices. So as the song began with desire of Christ's first coming to kiss her with the kisses of his mouth, in Christ's more bright appearance in the Gospel, preached by himself in the flesh, and his servants the Apostles, Pastors, and Teachers; so it endeth with a strong desire of his second coming, that he would come with speed, as the young harts, which flee for succour to the mountains where spices grow (Canticles 2:17), as there are divers words expressing this impatient desire, every hour seeming a day, and every day a year to love-sickness, longing for that day the dawning whereof is the eternal celebrating of the solemn marriage between Christ and the Bride the Lamb's wife without parting for ever (Revelation 22:12). Behold I come quickly. 17. And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth, say, Come. And v. 20. Surely I come quickly, Amen: even so come, Lord Jesus. These five comes speak love's desire upon the Bridegroom's side, and upon the Bride's side in love-sickness.

1. How sweet is it when pain itself makes prayers to Christ? And want speaks to riches, death and deadness to him who is the resurrection and the life.

2. Yet sense alone speaking often mistakes and chides, yes, impatient sense, mistaking the wise and holy dispensation of God; for Christ's absence is wise, but not unkind and void of love; he does not ever absent himself because he is angry, or hates such from whom he withdraws his influences, but to increase hunger and lively desire.

And 3. Holy missing of Christ.

2. Careful seeking (Canticles 3:1, 2, 3, 4; Canticles 5:6, 7, 8).

And 3. Strong desires of love-sickness are more solid and edifying graces than feeling, sense, and comfort of his presence as we use them; and these are often stronger when Christ is absent than present, and so the influences of the Spirit that accompany missing of Christ.

2. Seeking of him.

3. And impatient longing for him are more useful than influences that accompany sense. See how lively they are in David when he wants sanctuary-presence (Psalm 42:1, 2; Psalm 63:1, 2; Psalm 84:1, 2, 3, 4), in the Spouse (Canticles 3:1, 2, 3, 4; Canticles 5:6, 7, 8) compared with v. 10, 11, 12, 13, &c. Sense never brings forth such a love-song, so highly extolling Christ, as faith under absence.

3. Strong believing and resting upon the promises when the Lord hides himself under love-sickness and apprehended wrath, fetch sweeter influences than sense of presence: as may be clear in the godly, who 1. move questions, yet so as love and faith incline most to the edifying conclusion, and to faith's side rather than to the judgement of sense. Psalm 71:7. Will the Lord cast off for ever? Faith under a cloud believes he will not cast off for ever: and will he be favourable no more? 8. Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Does his promise fail for evermore? 9. Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his tender mercies? In these questions the flesh and unbelieving sense have a great hand; the question in sense includes this, Is the Lord the Lord? And pure faith never moves such a question as that, but the aim and scope of faith is to beat down such questions; and the sense of faith in these is, the Lord has not cast off for ever; the Lord will not leave off to be gracious for ever and ever; his mercy is not clean gone; his promise and covenant is everlasting, and fails not.

2. Under the sense of wrath, faith eyeing the nature of God revealed in his word corrects sense. Lamentations 3:8. When I cry and shout he shuts out my prayers. Ah, no, v. 25. The Lord is good to them that wait for him, to the soul that seeks him: that is a harbour in place of a rock. 2. He was to me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places. Ah, not so. V. 24. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him. These are strong and edifying influences of grace under absence.

9. What is your beloved more than another beloved? This is not the speech of enemies, for they discern her to be the fairest among women, and see heavenly beauty and grace in the Spouse.

2. They are daughters of Jerusalem, professors, that seek the beloved with her (c. 6. v. 1), yet they are less spiritual, and more carnal than the Spouse.

For 1. They perceive her in a passion, and they meet her with a sort of passion, What is your Beloved? Whereof is your Christ made of more than ours? Either enemies or believers, in so far as they are carnal or apt to mistake a spiritual state; so must the world say of Noah, who was just in his time, sure the world thought him too just; he'll build an Ark, and he'll have all the world to be drowned but himself and his house. Hence Jeroboam's word (1 Kings 12:28): It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Why? and the Lord commanded them; does God command too much? Is the Lord too strict? So Satan (Genesis 3:1): yes, has God said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? That is a strict law-giver who lays bands on your eating of fruit which he has created to be eaten. The believing disciples (Matthew 15:23): Send her away [in non-Latin alphabet], she cries and troubles us with her prayers. Were there not some godly who might think Daniel needed not cry his prayers out at his window? He might pray and not blow a trumpet? There is an idol called discretion and moderation, pray, profess Christ leisurely, we think to be saved and come to heaven as well as you. O what precise lips were David's! I will not name Baal with my lips (Psalm 16:4). It's too great morosity for Moses to say to a King, Not a hoof shall bide in Egypt. What matter of cows, if the Church of God be brought out of the house of bondage? What if there were not one Israelite's four-footed beast breathing on earth, so the Church live?

And 1. Men that find fault with too much zeal, and cry, moderation, look to that; walk [in non-Latin alphabet] (Ephesians 5:15), strictly, precisely, numbering all your foot-steps; then shall we be called heady, precise, fools. No, walk as wise men, not as fools.

2. Moderate professors stint themselves, this I'll do, and no more; it shall do my business. Ah, speak of influences of grace, the ebbing and flowing of spirits, the breathings of Christ, the King's chambers, the house of wine; these are imaginations: preach fundamentals, faith and repentance, what should more? Such truths as are beyond fundamentals are not necessary, obliterate them out of the Scripture; that eight souls were saved in the Ark sure it is not fundamental, many are saved who know it not; yet if any say it's not necessary necessitate praecepti, he is like a man who pulls off the covering off the house, and says, what aileth you? I touch not any foundation-stone of the house; I hurt not the building.

What is your Beloved?

All professors see not with one measure of light: the Spouse is a wonder to many professors not so acquainted with Christ; some are led to heaven through much love-sickness and pain, and others with stronger influences of grace upon the soul than others; it rebukes such as are censorious and uncharitable to others, because they have not thronged through the same needle-eye with themselves.

Ah! 1. How many cast we out that Christ receives in? (Romans 14:3; Luke 7:39).

2. We look to what men have not, and not to what they have, and consider not what God may give them (Matthew 19:30).

3. Some see no good in Christ, no good in John Baptist (Luke 15:1; Matthew 11:18, 19). Can any good come out of Nazareth? No prophet arises from Galilee.

4. We pity the sick though our enemy, and extend not compassion to the sinner erring, though the son of the same father.

5. We see the spot in the face, the crook in the nose, but our own unseen boils we overlook.

6. We see not the secret good in some, and their sincerity which is dear to Christ (Luke 21:3; Luke 7:44, 45, 46). God has so ordered, that the infirmities of some of his children are ever visible in the streets.

O fairest among women.

Here the character of this heavenly disposition of love-sickness, which is called savouriness, the Spouse savours of the Spirit, and speaks like one sick of love, and the daughters of Jerusalem smell this savour, and look on her as the fairest among women. There is a savouriness of grace passive, whereby words and behavior cast a smell whether the children of God will or not; and an active savouriness by which those who have any thing of Christ can smell the savouriness of grace in others.

Now a word of this savouriness as it is in the head, in Christ, the cause and fountain. 2. In the Spouse. 3. In the single members. The sweet smell of the fountain, suppose a well of rose-water, is the cause of the sweet smell that is in the streams.

1. There is dwelling in him all the fulness of the Godhead bodily (John 1:44): we beheld his glory as the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father.

2. What a savoury lump and mass of grace must the man Christ be, who is the public channel of grace? Through him the savoury waters of the Sanctuary, and the river of joy does water all the indwellings of the City of God (Psalm 46).

3. Christ, God-man, is anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows (Psalm 45:7), without measure (John 3:34). The fulness of anointing is upon him (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18). His name is as a precious ointment poured out (Canticles 1:3). And the savour of the knowledge of his name in the preached Gospel is sweet, and savours out heaven and life eternal (2 Corinthians 2:14, 15, 16), and the fulness of grace in him (John 1:16), out of which we all receive (John 1:16), makes him more, indeed savoury, and natural men wonder at the gracious words that proceed out of his mouth (Luke 4:22), and enemies see some of the anointing and shining of God in him; never man spake like him, never man did like him, never man lived like him, never man died like him: would we come nearer to Christ by faith and love, we should smell more of Christ. O what a savour has his birth, his life, his precious ointments, his death, his resurrection? He is all savoury (Canticles 1:3; Psalm 45:7, 8; Canticles 5:13): his lips, like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh (2 Corinthians 2:15, 16). His word a sweet savour of life; his countenance is as Lebanon (Canticles 5:15). O what perfume is in his death, the smell of Lebanon is delicious.

There is much savouriness in the Spouse (Cant. 3:6), to the wondering of many. Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoak, perfumed with myrrhe and frankincense, with all powders of the Merchants? Cant. 4:10: the smell of her oyntments is better than all spices. V. 11: The smell of your garments is like the smell of Lebanon. Now Lebanon was a field where grew odoriferous trees, roses, sweet smelling spices, and herbs in abundance.

Every particular professor has received sweet smelling anointing (1 John 2:20, 27) of the Spirit; and they that are after the Spirit savour of the Spirit (Romans 8:5).

If the savouriness of love-sickness be in any, they shall use means for it; bring the soul under the influences of the sun of righteousness, for the sun-beams draw out sweet savours, and the actings of love-sickness out of the habit of grace; such smell as myrrhe and roses, and odoriferous herbs and flowers, and they have within, such comes out. You cannot draw out sweet smells out of a dead carrion. Some plague themselves with the Gospel, and the Gospel plagued them: Satan's influences for hating of Christ, loathing of the Gospel, persecuting the godly, are mighty.

To thrust the heart by acts of love upon Christ encreases love; to lay him between the breast as a bundle of myrrhe all the night, begets more love-sickness for him.

Much praying changes the countenance of Christ and of his (Jude 20): building up yourselves in the most holy faith, praying in the holy Ghost. Much praying must be much edifying of ourselves in the faith.

Know the stink and corrupt breath of many professors, rotten words, corrupt sects speak disgracefully of Christ, as of the man crucified at Jerusalem, of the holy Scriptures as of Ink-forms; their throat is an open sepulchre. O the dead bones and the rotten smell in the heart which come out in words and actions.