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

From vers. 2. unto the ninth (which is the second part of the Chapter) the Bride speaks, and sets down a very complex piece of her condition, which we take up in these three. 1. Her condition is shortly set down. 2. The mutual carriage of the Bridegroom and Bride are recorded; wherein (as it were) grace and loving kindness in him, and unkindness in her, are wrestling together for a time. 3. The out-gate, and the way how she attained it, by several steps on his side, and hers, are particularly insisted on from vers. 4. with what followed thereupon.

From vers. 2. unto the ninth (which is the second part of the Chapter) the Bride speaks, and sets down a very complex piece of her condition, which we take up in these three. 1. Her condition is shortly set down. 2. The mutual carriage of the Bridegroom and Bride are recorded; wherein (as it were) grace and loving kindnesse in him, and unkindnesse in her, are wrestling together for a time. 3. The out-gate, and the way how she attained it, by several steps on his side, and hers, are particularly insisted on from vers. 4. with what followed thereupon.

Her case is in short, I sleep, but my heart waketh, or (as it is in the Original) I sleeping, my heart waking: It's made up of contraries, and seeming paradoxes; she is distinguished from her ⟨p. 254⟩heart, and the sleeping of the one is opposed to the waking of the other: Both this sleeping and waking are spiritually to be understood; The first signifies a ceasing from spiritual duties, or a suspension of the acting of spiritual life, by arising of some inward corruption, that dulls and binds up the spiritual senses, as in natural sleep the external senses are dulled and bound up: So 1 Thess. 5. 6. and Rom. 13. 11. Let us not sleep, but watch and be sober. This is a further degree of spiritual distemper, beyond what was Chap. 3. 1, 2. where she was on bed, and yet seeking, but here she sleeps and lies still, as we see, vers. 3. It imports, 1. An interruption of liveliness and actual exercising of grace. 2. An indisposition and laziness in the frame of the spirit, added to that. 3. A sort of acquiescing and resting securely in that indisposition, with a loathness to stir and be interrupted, such as useth to be in the bodily sleep, and such as appears to be here from the following verse: It's sleepiness, or to be given to sleep, such as the sluggard is subject unto, who sleepeth excessively, and out of due time. This I that sleepeth, is the believer, but considered in so far as unregenerate; as,