Ver. 1. How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, &c.] Before he had described her from head to foot; now back again, from foot to head, taking in ten parts of his spouse, concerning whom—such was his love—he thought he could never say sufficient. He begins at the lowest and most abject part, the feet, not without admiration of them. O quam pulchri sunt pedes tui! “Oh, how beautiful are thy feet with shoes!” A temporal calling honours our profession; so some understand it. Others make the meaning to be, the Church’s being “shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace”; (Ephesians 6:15) ready pressed to “run with patience the race that is set before her.” (Hebrews 12:1) To run is active; to run with patience is passive. This prince’s daughter (Atalanta-like) can only skill of this “running with patience,” as being shod with Tachash skin, (Ezekiel 16:10) bestowed upon her by her spouse, as a love token, that is, with sound affections and holy actions. Whereas wicked men are carried captive by the devil, as the Egyptians once were by the Assyrians, (Isaiah 20:4) “naked and barefoot,” and so “perish from the way.” (Psalms 2:12) O prince’s daughter.] Thou that hast him for thy father “in whose hands are all the corners of the earth,” and is supreme King of the universe. This is such a privilege and preferment as St John stands amazed at. (1 John 3:1) “Behold,” saith he, qualem et quantum, “what manner of love the Father hath showed unto us, that we should be called the sons” and daughters “of God Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:18) All privileges are summed up in this; and in John 1:12 it is called a power or prerogative royal; it is to be of royal blood of heaven; it is to be an heir of God and co-heir with Christ. Kings can make their firstborn only heirs, as Jehoshaphat. (2 Chronicles 21:3) But all God’s children are firstborn, and so “higher than the kings of the earth.” (Psalms 89:27) The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, &c.,] i.e., Thy loins are compassed with the belt of truth; for so some render it, The compassing of thy thighs or loins. And here, if ever, ungirt, unblest. “Gird up therefore the loins of your minds”; (1 Peter 1:13) gird yourselves and serve God. (Luke 17:8) Girding implies readiness, nimbleness, handiness, handsomeness. A loose, discinct, and diffluent mind is unfit for holy actions. εξουσια
Ver. 2. Thy navel is like a round goblet, &c.] There are those who expound this text as the two sacraments. The navel is baptism, that nourisheth newborn babes in the womh of the Church. See hence the use of it, even to infants, who can receive nourishment by the navel, though they can neither take nor chew nor suck meat with hand or mouth. Note this against Anabaptists, saith Mr Cotton upon these words, this navel never wants liquor; there is a continual matter of instruction and comfort to be fetched from baptism against all temptations. A Christian, saith Chrysostom, should never step out of doors, or lie down in his bed, or go into his closet, but he should remember that word, Abrenuncio, I forsake the devil and all his works, &c. Luther tells of a certain holy virgin, that used to quench the devil’s fiery darts with the water of baptism: for as often as she was tempted to do anything not beseeming her profession, she would resist the devil, steadfast in the faith, and stop his mouth with this short but full answer, Christiana sum, I am a Christian; I have been “baptized into the death of Christ”; I have also “put on Christ by baptism”; I am a votary, the vows of God are upon me, &c. But what a horrible shame is that to the Papists, and what a sore stumblingblock must it needs be to the poor Jews that live among them, that in Rome a Jewish maid may not be admitted into the stews of whoredom, unless she will be first baptized? This is related and bewailed by Espencaeus, a moderate Papist. Thy belly is like an heap of wheat, set about with lilies.] Some understand hereby that other sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, called a “heap of wheat,” for its store of excellent nourishment; and said to be “set about with lilies”—that is, with Christians, white and of holy conversation. Basil calls such, stars of the world and flowers of the churches Chrysostom calls them earthly angels, and saith that they were puriores coelo, purer than the heaven in their common conversation, but especially when they came to the Lord’s table—that dreadful table, as he calleth it—whereunto all must come with the best preparation they can make, wash and be clean—wash their hands in innocence before they compass God’s altar, wash their “hearts,” (Jeremiah 4:14) their “feet.” (John 13:10) “He that is washed (sc., for the outside) needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit”; an allusion to those that, having bathed their bodies, foul their feet by going out of the bath, and so are fain to wash them again. The inwards and the feet in a sacrifice were to be washed above the rest, because the entrails contain the excrements, and the legs tread in the dirt. The soul is apt to gather soil by meddling with earthly things, though lawful; how much more to be defiled with the soot of sin, as if she had “lain among the pots.” All Christ’s Nazarites, his votaries, must come to his feast “purer than snow, whiter than milk,” &c., (Lamentations 4:7) since at this sacrament they do renew the nuptials of Christ, and take a corporal oath to cleave close to him with full purpose of heart all the days of their lives. As for those that presume to come unpreparedly, that want their wedding garment, they are no otherwise bidden to the feast of the King than Haman was to Queen Esther’s. Sin brought to the Sacrament petitions against a man, as Esther did against Haman at the banquet of wine; (Esther 7:2,6) pick out that time, and he shall find God no less angry than Haman did Ahasuerus. For “this is that which the Lord hath said, I will be sanctified in all them that draw near unto me.” Of communicants, God seems to say, as Solomon did of Adonijah, “If he show himself a worthy man, there shall not one hair of him fall to the earth: but if wickedness be found in him, he shall die.” (1 Kings 1:52) De Contin., lib. iii. cap. 4. Αστερας της οικουμενης ανθε των εκκλησιων. φρικωδης