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

When private means do not the business, the Bride betakes her to public Ordinances, and frequents them: And this 7. vers. shows what she found in the use of that mean, a sad disappointment also, which is several ways aggreged: Christ's presence is easily lost, but it is not easily recovered; This will cost much pains, and the enduring of many perplexing disappointments: It is much more difficult to win to enjoy Christ, than it is to lose him: Lying on the bed in ease may bring on that, which much labour and watching will not remove.

When private means do not the businesse, the Bride betakes her to publick Ordinances, and frequents them: And this 7. vers. shews what she found in the use of that mean, a sad disappointment also, which is several wayes aggreged: Christ's presence is easily lost, but it is not easily recovered; This will cost much pains, and the enduring of many perplexing disappointments: It is much more difficult to win to injoy Christ, than it is to lose him: Lying on the bed in ease may bring on that, which much labour and watching will not remove.

That this verse points at her going about the public Ordinances, the scope makes clear, that being the next ordinary mean used for enquiring after an absent Christ, when private diligence hath had little success. The matter of the words, as was cleared in Chap. 3. 3. doth also evidence this; The Church is the City which hath walls (that is, the Ordinances) for preventing her hurt, and promoving of her edification: The watchmen are her Ministers, appointed and designed to keep the walls, and to go about the City: They are said to go about the City, in respect of their care and solicitude to prevent inward difficulties and hazards, and are called keepers of the walls, as they stand to repel what from without may disturb the Churches edification, and ecclesiastic peace: In a word, they are the same by office, that these were, Chap. 3. 3. but their carriage to her is more unlike the relation they stood in: Which is set forth in four steps, all which are to be looked on as a special piece of untendernesse in them, and of suffering in her; which now the Lord in his wisdom permits her to meet with, that so she may find how unwisely she had done to neglect Christ's kind call, vers. 2. when as now other hands deal