Clavis cantici, or, An exposition of the Song of Solomon

so doth it to the great Bishop and Shepherd of souls: And, as Prov. 12. 4. A virtuous woman is a crown, or ornament to her husband, whereas if she be not so, she maketh him ashamed: So are believers some-way a crown to Christ, because all the glory and beauty which is to be ⟨p. 193⟩found on them, is his, and from him. This then is the meaning, Consider Christ in the beauty wherein he appears to believers, and with the esteem they have of him, as full of grace and truth, when they acknowledge him, and subject to him, and he will be seen to be exceeding flatly and lovely.

so doth it to the great Bishop and Shepherd of souls: And, as Prov. 12. 4. A vertuous woman is a crown, or ornament to her husband, whereas if she be not so, she maketh him ashamed: So are believers some-way a crown to Christ, because all the glory and beauty which is to be ⟨p. 193⟩found on them, is his, and from him. This then is the meaning, Consider Christ in the beauty wherein he appears to believers, and with the esteem they have of him, as full of grace and truth, when they acknowledge him, and subject to him, and he will be seen to be exceeding flately and lovely.

The second qualification confirms this: This crown is put on him in the day of his espousals; Now Christ's general espousals are not yet come, and so the crown in that respect is not yet put on him; it must be therefore the day of his espousals with particular believers (which is here understood, there being no other before his second coming) who are, 2 Cor. 11. 2. espoused to him, by their consenting to accept him▪ for their husband, as he is king to them, by their submitting to his dominion. His being crowned here, is mentioned with respect to this day of his espousals, because as bridegrooms used to be most glorious in their marriage-day, so Christ hath at the time of espousals, a special loveliness to the new married believer, what by the more kindly and tender manifestations of his love, and what by the fresh relish it hath then to them, when their spirits are broken with the sense of their sin, and warm with a deal of holy joy and fainness which useth then to abound in their heart, in reference to so good a bargain; so Christ is then to believers wonderfully lovely: And although the effects of his kindness may be enlarged afterward, and their esteem of him may also grow, yet readily then as it's most sensible, so their admiration is most in exercise, and their thoughts of Christ's excellent worth, are most affectingly, and overcomingly ravishing; and when in their after-thoughts they are taken up with him, the remembering of that day of espousals, when he took them by the hand, puts still a loveliness on him to them, that in his love he so wonderfully condescended unto them.