Master Bezaes sermons upon the three chapters of the canticle of canticlesMaster Bezaes sermons vpon the three chapters of the canticle of canticles

5 The winter, saith the Bridegroom, is past, the rain is past, it is gone away. We know that the winter is nothing else but the death as it were of the world, besides that the stormy cold and the obscurity and darkness of the air covered throughout with thick clouds, deprive men of the use both of the heat as also of the light of the sun. The Church on the contrary side is the kingdom of light, Joh. 5.6. and 1. Thess. 5.5. And because that Jesus Christ is the life, Joh. 11.25. nay hath life in himself, Joh 5.26. it followeth that the church only is in life, as the world is in death: and therefore is she also compared unto a forrest of trees not dead, and such as are ready to be cut down, and cast into the fire, Mat. 3.10. but always green, ⟨p. 263⟩flourishing, and laden with fruit, Psalm. 1.3. yea and that when they are extreme old, Psal. 92.14. The reason is added in that place, because they are planted by the rivers of running waters; and of what waters? Certainly of those which flow forth unto eternal life, Joh. 4.14. not of that which is in ditches and wells, rising from out of the bowels of the earth, but of the water, saith this Bridegroom, which I give, which issueth from above, not which this sun draweth up from the earth, but sendeth down into the earth, as flowing & proceeding from him, as it is said, Psal. 110.3. that the Church is borne of the dew of this morning: and Matth. 5.45. being borne anew by the water which is from above, which is the spirit of God, Joh. 3.15