Who [is] she [that] looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, [and] terrible as [an army] with banners?
Ver. 10. Who is she that looketh forth as the morning.] This is the commendation that the queens and concubines give her, and it is expressed by way of question, not because they doubted, but for that they admired her excellence. See the like in Psa 77:13 Micah 7:17. First, The Church is compared to the "morning," which hath no full light, but mixed, so that light seems to strive with darkness. "Then shall thy light break forth as the morning." Isa 58:8 The Hebrew word a here used hath its name from blackness or dimness. Next, she is said to be "fair as the moon," which is called here Lebanah, ab albedine, from her whiteness or bright shining. In her full, the moon is a very beautiful and fair creature, and even in her eclipse, though she appear dark toward the earth, yet is she bright and radiant in that part which looketh toward heaven; so is the Church. The Papists would have this moon always in the full, and if she show but little light to us, or be eclipsed, they will not yield she is the moon. And yet, except in the eclipse, astronomers demonstrate that the moon hath at all times as much light as in the full; but oftentimes a great part of the bright side is turned to heaven, and a lesser part to the earth, and so the Church is ever conspicuous to God's eye, though it appear not always so to us. The Church waxeth and waneth as the moon, nonnunquam etiam in deliquio est et aspici non potest; adeo exiguus humerus fidelium aliquando apparet. Elijah complained of his aloneness. Christ, when he came, scarce found faith upon the earth. Papists themselves yield that there, was but Mary and some few others that "looked for the consolation of Israel." "Christ came to his own, and his own received him not," Joh 1:11 he wondered at one good Nathanael, and sets him forth with an Ecce admirantis. "Behold an Israelite indeed." The mad multitude cried crucifige with one consent. The "whole world" went wondering after the beast. Rev 13:3-4 Of Luther it is said, Iste vir totius orbis impetum sustinuit, that he had all the world against him, as once Athanasius had. Latimer saw so few good in his time, that he thought the last day had been come. Our Saviour foretold that toward that day "the love of many should wax cold, but he that endureth to the end shall be saved." Mat 24:12-13 Lo, it is but a "he," a single man, a very few, that holdeth out, in comparison of the "many" apostates that fall from their own steadfastness. Here then falls to the ground that Popish and sottish mark of the true Church, universality and visibility. We deny not that the Church is a multitude of believers, and a catholic company, to the which we must join ourselves, but that she is always visible and aspectable, as a city on a hill, as the sun in heaven, can never be proven. As the moon, she hath her wanes and non-appearances, and when at the very brightest and broadest she may be muffled up and overcast with a cloud of persecution. Such was the paucity and obscurity of Christians in the Arian times, that Basil cries out, An ecclesias suas prorsus dereliquit Dominus? Hath the Lord utterly left his churches? &c. The ship of the Church was then almost overwhelmed saith Jerome. The Church was not then to be sought in tectis et exteriori pompa, in palaces and external pomp, but in dens, mines, and prisons, saith Hillary. God hath set the moon lowest in the heavens and nearest the earth, that it might daily put us in mind of the constance of the one and inconstance of the other, herself in some sort partaking of both.
Clear as the sun.] As having put on Christ that Sun of righteousness. Gal 3:27 Malachi 4:1,6 : 2Ki 12:1 The sun is so glorious a creature that the heathens, over admiring it, deified it, and from the Hebrew word, Chammah, here used, called it Jupiter Hammon. The Greeks called it ηλιος, from gnelion, the most high God. Eudoxes said that he was made for no other purpose but to behold it, and that he could be content to be presently burnt up by the heat of the sun, so he might be admitted to come so near it as to learn the nature of it. Chrysostom b cannot but wonder, that whereas all fire naturally tends upwards, the sun should shoot down his rays to the earth, and send his light abroad all below him. Christ, "the Father of lights," Jam 1:17 doth the like for his spouses. And as the pearl, by the often beating of the sunbeams upon it, becomes radiant and orient as the sun itself, so doth the Church, and shall do much more when she shall "appear with him in glory." "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father." Mat 13:43 The sun in his strength, compared to them, shall be but as a clod of clay, or as those things that shine in the dark, but it is only from their rottenness. Three glimpses of this surpassing glory expected by the saints were seen: in Moses's face when he came from the mount; in Christ's transfiguration, when "his face did shine as the sun, his raiment was white and glistering, so as no fuller can white them"; Mat 17:2 Mar 9:3 Luk 9:29 and in St Stephen's countenance when he stood before the council. It should suffice for the present that the Church looketh forth, or is looked for, so some render this text, at first, "as the morning," somewhat dark and duskish: she shall be "fair as the moon," at least in regard of sanctification; and for justification she is "clear as the sun," so that God seeth no sin in her, or if he do, yet, as the sun, he "blots out the thick cloud as well as the cloud," the thickest mist as well as the thinnest vapour. Isa 44:22 And therefore to the devil and his angels she must needs be "terrible as an army with banners"; because, as she marcheth under the banner of Christ's mercy and love, Son 2:4 so "the weapons of her warfare are not carnal but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds," 2Co 10:4 and do strike as great a terror into her enemies as once Christ did into those ruffian soldiers that came to apprehend him, or as Basil did into Valens the emperor, that came to disturb him when he was in holy exercises. c See Trapp on " Son 6:4 "
a שׁחר .
b Hom. 8, Ad. Pop. Anti.
c Greg. Orat. de Laude Basil.