I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped [with] myrrh, and my fingers [with] sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock.
Ver. 5. I rose up to open to my beloved.] This was repentance from sin, as that in the former verse was repentance for sin. To repent, and yet to lie still in sin, is to repent with a contradiction, saith Tertullian; Optima et aptissima poenitentia est nova vita, saith Luther. A new life is the best repentance. Up gets the Church, when once soundly sensible of her sin; and, leaving her bed of carnal security, makes after Christ with all her might, with a redoubled diligence, to make some amends for her former negligence. Nunquam sero, si serio. Late though it were ere she started and stirred, yet better late than not at all. We are too much after witted for the most part, post masters, Epimetheuses; we see not our folly (but cry with him, In crastinum seria), till we have smarted for it, and then wish, O mihi praeteritos, &c.
And my hands drop with myrrh.] That is, with the testimonies of his sweetness left behind him on the lock handles, the better to allure her to his love. Philip Beroaldus, a and many others, tell us of a very precious unguent Cinnamimum, because made of cinnamon and other sweet odours; whose chief commendation is, that the very smell thereof, if a man carries it about him, draws any woman, though passing by and minding other things, to draw nigh to him. What truth is in this relation I know not; but sure it is, that the smell of the gospel, and those spiritual blessings which the presence of Christ had left behind it, did notably attract and draw after him the Church's affections. Goodness is of itself attractive. The Greeks call it καλον from καλειν, and Aγαθον from αγαν θεειν; because it doth, as it were, invite and call to it, and every man is willing to run after it. b Christ puts a secret instinct into his people to do so; like as nature hath put an instinct into the bee, the stork, and other creatures. And as the needle in a sundial that hath been touched with an adamant, though it may be forced this way and that way, yet it rests not till it look toward the north pole; so the soul that hath aliquid Christi something of Christ in it, that hath been once hand fasted to Christ by a lively faith, though for a season it may, by the malice of Satan working with corruption, suffer some decays of her first love, be drawn aside by some lust, and enticed so as to fall from former steadfastness; James 1:14 2Pe 3:17 yet after a while her thoughts will work, and the sweet remembrance that Christ hath left behind him, will make her to say, "I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now." Hos 2:7
a In Apuleium, lib. ii. M. Les.
b Velut aliqui volunt Aγαθον quasi αγαν θεατον. Sic Aρετη quasi Aιρετη .