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Son_4:15 A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.
Ver. 15. A fountain of gardens, a well, &c.] Or, O fountain of the gardens, &c. For they do best in mine opinion that make this to be the Church’s speech to Christ, grounded upon his former commendation of her. And it is as if she should say, Callest thou me, Lord, a garden enclosed, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed? True it is I am the garden which thine own right band hath planted, walled, watered, &c., but for all that I am or have, the entire praise belongs to thee alone. All my plenty of spiritual graces, all my perennity of spiritual comforts, all my pleasance and sweetness, is derived from thee, no otherwise than the streams of Jordan are from Mount Lebanon; "all my springs are in thee," as in their well head. Certam est nos facere quod facimus, sed ille facit, ut faciamus, saith Augustine. True it is that we do what we do; but it is as true that Christ maketh us to do what we do; for "without him we can do nothing"; {Joh_15:5} "in him is our fruit found": {Hos_14:8} it is he that "works all our works in us." {Isa_26:12} Hence it is that the Church is nowhere in all this book described by the beauty of her hands or fingers, because he alone doth all for her. The Church of Rome, that will needs hammer out her own happiness (like the spider climbing up by a thread of her own weaving, and boasting with her in the emblem, Mihi soli debeo I own to myself alone.), shows thereby of what spirit she is. That wretched monk died blasphemously who said, Redde mihi aeternam vitam quam debes, Pay me heaven which thou owest me. And what an arrogant speech was that of Vega, Caelum gratis non accipiam, I will not have heaven of free cost? Haec ego feci, haec ego feci, shows men to be no better than mere faeces, said Luther wittily. This I have done, and that I have done, speaks them dregs, and dogs that shall stand without doors. {Rev_22:15} Hear a child of our Church speaking thus of himself: {a}
“ Fabricius studuit bene de pietate mereri;
Sed quicquid potuit, gloria, Christe, tua est. ”
This was matrissare, to be like his mother, whose motto hath ever been, Non nobis Domine, - "Not unto us, Lord, not unto us, but to thy name give the praise." {Psa_115:1} If I be thy garden, thou art my fountain, from whence, unless I be continually watered, all will be soon withered, and I shall be as one that inhabiteth the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land, and not inhabited. {Jer_17:6} In the island of St Thomas (on the back side of Africa), in the midst of it is a hill, and over that a continual cloud, wherewith the whole island is watered, {b} Such is the Lord Christ to his Church, {Hos_14:5-7} which therefore, as Gideon’s fleece, must needs be wet and moist, when all the earth besides is dry and desolate, as the mountains of Gilboa, or as St David’s in Wales, which is said to be a place neither pleasant, fertile, nor safe.
A well of living.] Or, A pit of living and life giving waters, {c} Christus et coelum non patiuntur hyperbolen, A man cannot say too much in commendation of Christ and his kingdom; hence the Church here cannot satisfy herself. A fountain she calls him, a well, a stream, such as "makes glad the city of God," even that "pure river of the water of life proceeding out of God’s throne." {Rev_22:1 Eze_47:6} Gregory makes this fountain to be the Scriptures, which, he saith, are like both to a fountain and to a pit. Some things in them are plain and open, and may be compared to a spring which runs in an open and eminent place. Other things therein are dark and deep, and like unto a pit, that a man must dive into, and draw out with hard labour.
And streams from Lebanon.] Watering the whole Church (as Jordan did the Holy Land), and tasting no doubt of that sweetness mentioned before; {Son_4:11} even as we see by experience, saith one, that the waters that come out of the hills of some of the islands of Molucca taste of the cinnamon, cloves, &c., that grow there.
{a} Georg. Fab. Chemnicensis de seipso.
{b} Abbot’s Georg., 251.
{c} Godw. Catal. Giral. Camb. Puteus effosus ubi est aqua viva scaturiens et clara. - Merc.