Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Oh that he would bestow upon me the comfortable testimonies of his love; and that he would vouchsafe me yet a nearer conjunction with himself; as in glory hereafter, so for the mean time in his sensible graces! For thy love, O my Saviour, and these fruits of it, are more sweet unto me, than all earthly delicates can be to the bodily taste. Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee. Yea, so wonderfully pleasant are the savours of those graces that are in thee, wherewith I desire to be endned, that all, whom thou hast blessed with the sense thereof, make as high and dear account of thy Gospel, whereby they are wrought, as of some precious ointment or perfume; the delight whereof is such, that, hereupon, the pure and holy souls of the faithful place their whole affection upon thee. Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee. Pull me therefore out from the bondage of my sins: deliver me from the world, and do thou powerfully incline my will and affections towards thee; and, in spite of all temptations, give me strength to cleave unto thee; and, then both I, and all those faithful children thou hast given me, shall all at once with speed and earnestness walk to thee and with thee; yea, when once my royal and glorious Husband hath brought me, both into these lower rooms of his spiritual treasures on earth, and into his heavenly chambers of glory, then will we rejoice and be glad in none but thee, which shalt be all in all to us; then will we celebrate and magnify thy love, above all the pleasures we found upon earth; for all of thy righteous ones, both angels and saints, are inflamed with the love of thee. I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Never upbraid me, O ye Foreign Congregations, that I seem, in outward appearance, discoloured by my infirmities, and duskish with tribulations; for whatsoever I seem to you, I am yet inwardly well-favoured in the eyes of Him whom I seek to please; and though I be to you black, like the tents of the Arabian shepherds, yet to Him and in Him I am glorious and beautiful, like the curtains of Solomon. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. I have already tried your reformation by many chastisements, yea, judgments; yet ye will not amend: to what purpose should I correct you further, since I see you do still grow worse and worse? these parts of you, that should be best, and are most eminent and of greatest use, are extremely out of order. Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards: but mine own vineyard have I not kept. Look not therefore disdainfully upon me, because I am blackish and dark of hue; for this colour is not so much natural to me, as caused by that continual heat of afflictions wherewith I have been usually scorched; neither this, so much upon mine own just desert, as upon the rage and envy of my false brethren, the world, who would needs force upon me the observation of their idolatrous religions and superstitious impieties; through whose wicked importunity and my own weakness, I have not so entirely kept the sincere truth of God committed to me, as I ought. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Even from the highest to the lowest, from the meanest drudge unto the greatest of your princes, ye are all miserably disordered and sinful; and are accordingly plagued, so as none of you are free from some grievous judgment; and such are your sins and your judgments, that they have made themselves incapable of remedy or mitigation. If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents. If thou know not, O thou my Church, whom I both esteem and have made most beautiful by my merits and thy sanctification, stray not amongst these false worshippers, but follow the holy steps of those blessed Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, which have been my true and ancient flock, who have both known my voice and followed me; and feed thou my weak and tender ones with this their spiritual food of life, far above the carnal reach of those other false teachers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard. The country round about being wasted, Jerusalem itself is left standing alone desolate, as a cottage in a vineyard, &c., and hath no more recourse unto it, and traffic in it, than if it were already besieged, as ere long it shall be. I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots. Such is mine estimation of thee, O my Love, that so far as the choicest Egyptian horses of Pharaoh, for comely shape, for honourable service, for strength and speed, exceed all other, so far thou excellest all that may be compared with thee. Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. If God had not been gracious unto us, contrary to our deservings, and restrained the fury of our enemies, and mercifully reserved this small remnant unto us, we had been utterly destroyed and laid waste, like to Sodom and Gomorrah. Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold. Those parts of thee, which both are the seats of beauty and most conspicuous to the eye, are gloriously adorned with the graces of my sanctification; which are, for their worth, as so many precious borders of the goodliest stones, or chains of pearls. Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom. Since ye have made yourselves then as sinful as those infamous cities, that were destroyed with fire from heaven, let me give you the names of those, whom ye have imitated: hear therefore the word of the Lord, O ye rulers of Sodom, &c. We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver. And though thou be already thus set forth, yet I and my Father have purposed a further ornament unto thee, in the more plentiful effusion of our Spirit upon thee; which shall be to thy former deckings, instead of pure gold curiously wrought with specks of silver. THE CHURCH. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, &c. To what purpose is the formality of these your outward sacrifices; as if the multitude of your oblations, or the very act done, could please me without due affections? While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof. Behold, O ye daughters, even now while my Lord and King seems far distant from me, and sits in the throne of heaven among the companies of angels who attend around upon him, yet now do I find him present with me in spirit: even now the sweet influence of his graces, like to some precious ointment, spreads itself over my soul, and returns a pleasant savour into his own nostrils. A bundle of myrrh is my wellbeloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts. And though I be thus delightful to my Saviour, yet nothing so much as he is unto me: for lo, as some fragrant pomander of myrrh, laid between the breasts, sends up a most comfortable scent: so his love, laid close unto my heart, doth still give me continual and unspeakable refreshings. My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of En-gedi. Or, if any thing can be of more excellent virtue, such smell as the clusters of camphire or cypress berries, within the fruit-fullest, pleasantest, and richest vineyards and gardens of Judea, yield unto the passengers; such and more delectable, do I find the savour of his grace to me. CHRIST. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me: I am weary to bear them. Those your solemn feasts, which I have instituted, and do therefore well approve in themselves, yet as they are celebrated by you, I loathe and abhor them, &c. Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes. Neither dost thou on my part lose any of thy love, O my dear Church; for behold, in mine eyes, thus clothed as thou art with my righteousness, oh how fair and glorious thou art! how above all comparison glorious and fair! Thine eyes, which are thy seers, (Prophets, Apostles, Ministers) and those inward eyes, whereby thou seest him that is invisible, are full of grace, chastity, simplicity. THE CHURCH. Behold thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green. Nay then, O my sweet Saviour and Spouse, thou alone art that fair and pleasant one indeed, from whose fulness I confess to have received all this little measure of my spiritual beauty; and behold, from this our mutual delight and heavenly conjunction, there ariseth a plentiful and flourishing increase of thy faithful ones, in all places, and through all times. The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir. And behold, the congregations of saints, the places where we do sweetly converse and walk together, are both firm and during, like cedars amongst the trees, not subject, through thy protect-