A34663:767
A brief exposition of the whole book of Canticles, or Song of Solomon lively…
A brief exposition of the whole book of Canticles, or Song of Solomon lively describing the estate of the church in all the ages thereof, both Jewish and Christian, to this day ... / written by that learned and godly divine, John Cotton ...
London: printed for Philip Nevil, 1642
Chapter 5: THE CANTICLES, OR SONG OF SONGS opened and explained.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
His cheeks are as a bed of spices.]
Cheeks imply the outward face of the faithful Church, for the cheeks are a place most conspicuous, which shows that the faithful of those times were as beds of spices and sweet flowers, to wit, not gathered into any set garden, as afterward in Luther's time,* but scattered here and there, yet of sweet and precious savour in the nostrils of Christ: yea one Nicholaus de Bibrath, living about that time, compareth faith and piety in the Church to spice rare and dear.
Cheekes implie the outward face of the faithfull Church, for the cheekes are a place most conspicuous, which shewes that the faithfull of those times were as beds of spices and sweete flowers, to wit, not gathered into any set garden, as afterward in Luthers time,* but scattered here and there, yet of sweet and precious savour in the nostrils of Christ: yea one Nicholaus de Bibrath, living about that time, compareth faith and pietie in the Church to spice rare and deare.
- *Cha. 6. 2.
His lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh.] The doctrine of the Church at those times was such as, like myrrh, served to preserve the faithful from putrefaction, ⟨p. 158⟩according to that,* That which ye have already, hold fast till I come. In the Primitive Apostolic Church her lips dropped like an honey-comb, being of strong sweet relish to delight and nourish to full growth: