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

3 It followeth in our text, What is she that mounteth up out of the desert like palms of smoke? Whereupon a man may first of all demand, what personage is brought in in this place. Some think that these are the Daughters of Jerusalem, unto whom this charge was given: but there is no reason of this. It is therefore the Bridegroom which speaketh, discoursing and talking with his spouse in her Mothers Chamber, and magnifying ⟨p. 349⟩with her the graces and blessings which himself had bestowed on her. And this very changing of the person (namely that he turneth his speech so, as if he spake to a third person although he spake to her herself) hath a marvellous grace. Neither must we take this for a question or demand, as if the Bridegroom asked and enquired after one which he knew not: but we must take it as a kind of admiration, touching the goodly comeliness and grace of this spouse. He compareth her therefore unto a pillar which is high and straight as were the palms or date trees of that country: a pillar, Isay, of a vapour or fume mounting countermount from the mountains of the desert or wilderness, which vapour he also saith to proceed from hence, that the spouse is so perfumed with all sorts of excellent odours, that the fume thereof mounteth, as I may say up unto heaven, whereof we shall speak anon. Such then is this comparison, which seemeth to have been borrowed from this, that a multitude marching together and coming from any place resembleth as it were a cloud, as the Apostle speaketh, Heb. 12.1. For how ever this spouse be brought in, speaking in this Canticle as it were one person only, it hindereth not for all that, but that the whole company of the faithful and believing be understood by her person, joined together notwithstanding in one body, and quickened by one and the same spirit, as it is described unto us, Act. 4.32.

3 It followeth in our text, What is she that mounteth vp out of the desert like palmes of smoke? Whereupon a man maie first of all demaund, what personage is brought in in this place. Some thinke that these are the Daughters of Ierusalem, vnto whom this charge was giuen: but there is no reason of this. It is therefore the Bridegroome which speaketh, discoursing and talking with his spouse in her Mothers Chamber, and magnifieng