Christ with His Bride, part 3

"...Those frequently claimed, avouched, boasted of, and gloried in, mutual interests:- Those love restings, and resposings on the arm, and on the bosom of one another, with these serious and solemn chargings and adjurings not unseasonably to disturb and interrupt this rest and repose:

-Those mutual kind invitings, and hearty accepting of invitations; those comings and welcomings; those feastings, feedings, and banquetings on all manner of pleasant fruits, chief spices, and best wines, even the rarest and chiefest spiritual dainties and delicates:

-Those pleasant, refreshful airings and walkings together in the fragrant fields, villages, woods, orchards, gardens, arbours, umbrages, and as it were, labyrinths of love:

-Those stately magnificent and majestic describings of one another, as to stature, favor, beauty, comely proportion of parts, curious deckings and adornings, seet-smelling odoriferous anointings, powderings, and perfumings, holding forth their respective qualifications, endowments, accomplishments, perfections, and excellencies, whereof all things in the world, bearing such names, are but dark, dull, and empty resemblances..."


- Margaret Durham, the wife of James Durham, in a letter (1669), describing the spiritual communion of Christ with His bride, His people.

Christ with His Bride, part 2

"...those failings, faultings, lyings a-bed, and lazinesses, and thereupon, when observed, those love-faintings, swarfings, swoonings, seekings and sorrowings on the one side; and those love followings, findings, pityings, pardonings, passings by, rousings, revivings, supportings, strengthenings, courings, confirmings, and comfortings, with most warm and kindly compellations, on the other: (O let men and angels, wonder at the kingly condescending, the majestic meekness, the stately stooping, the high humility, and the lofty lowliness that conspicuously shines forth here on the Bridegroom's part!)

-those love languishings, feverings, sickenings, holy violentions, apprehendings, and resolute refusings to let go on the one part, and those love unheartings, heart-ravishings, captivatings, and being overcome: those love arrests and detainments in the galleries, as if nailed (to speak so with reverence) to the place, and sweetly charmed into a kind of holy impotency, to remove the eye from looking on so lovely an object, on the other:

-those bashful, but beautiful blushings, humble hidings, and modest thinking shame to be seen or heard speak, on the Bride's part, and those urgent callings, and in a manner compellings, to compear, with those serious professings of singular satisfaction, to hear her sweet voice, and to see her comely countenance on the Bridegroom's part...


- Margaret Durham, the wife of James Durham, in a letter (1669), describing the spiritual communion of Christ with His bride, His people.

Christ with His Bride, part 1

"My blessed husband, the author of this piece, as according to the grace given unto him... has been led to open up [this] book of the holy scriptures, wherein the Lord's people did very much desire to know the mind of the Spirit, [it] being somewhat darker, and less easily understood, than many, if not than all the rest... this book of Solomon, the Song of Songs, or the most excellent Song;

containing the largest and liveliest discoveries of the love of Jesus Christ, the King, Bridegroom, and Husband of his church, to her His Queen, Bride, and Spouse; and of hers to Him, with those spiritually glorious interviews, holy courtings, most superlative, but most sincere, commending and cordial entertainings of each other, those mutual praisings and valuings of fellowship;-those missings, lamentings, and bemoanings of the want thereof;-

those holy impatiencies to be without it, swelling to positive and peremptory determinations, not to be satisfied, nor comforted in any thing else, those diligent, painful and restless seekings after it, till it be found and enjoyed, on the one hand;-and those sweet, and easy yieldings to importunity, and gracious grantings of it, on the other; with those high delightings, solacings, complacencies, and acquiescings in, and heartsome embracings of one another's fellowship:-"


- The Epistle Dedicatory of Margaret Durham commending the commentary of her husband James Durham on the Song of Solomon to the Lady, Viscountess of Kenmure, 1669. Her letter is impressive, being much more spiritually full and edifying, savoring of a rich, experiential acquaintence with the deeps truths of Christ's Word, than even the preface to the reader by the justly renowned scholar, John Owen.

Christ's Love for His Own

"And he that loves Me... I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." - John 14:21

"Christ manifests Himself most sweetly unto them who love Him, especially after long absences. When the soul has been seeking and cannot find Him, wandering in the wilderness under amazing fears, perplexing doubts, doleful despondencies, sinking in heart-overwhelming grief, after a black night of deep desertion... Oh, how comfortable are the bright beams of the morning light when He shines upon their dark, despised and sorrowful spirits, giving them to know assuredly that they are the dearly beloved of His soul, that He has not forgotten them, that He will not forsake them, and that He has a more tender love unto them!...

He manifests Himself when they have the most need... when they are most low in their spirits, most poor and mean in their own esteem as well as most low in their condition through affliction and trouble. Humililty and patience under affliction makes way for the experience of Christ's manifestation. Christ, many times, reserves His cordials for the fainting fits, and the sweetest consolations in the discoveries of His love, for the time of the greatest adversity, especially when the trouble is for His sake."


- Thomas Vincent (1634-1678), an English puritan who was ejected from his pulpit in 1662, and remained in London to minister to the 68,000, and seven of his own household, that would die around him in the plague of 1665.