Thou [art] beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as [an army] with banners.
Ver. 4. Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah.] A most neat and elegant city, where the kings of Israel kept their courts. A place of pleasure it was, as the very name imports; hence the Greeks translate it here good pleasure, a like as the Italians call a city of theirs Placenza. Of the Church's exquisite beauty much hath been said before. Let it ever be remembered that all her beauty is but borrowed. Eze 16:14 Uxor fulget radiis mariti, as they say in the civil law. Isaac, when he was to marry Rebecca, sent her jewels aforehand, that, having them, she might be more lovely in his eye. So doth Christ the spirit of faith, and other graces, besides the imputation of his own perfect righteousness, that he may delight in his spouse. And albeit she had so discourteously dealt with him, as Son 5:3 and thereupon he had stepped aside for a while; yet that she might know that he was still the same, without shadow of change, and that he "hated putting away," Mal 2:16 meeting her again, he doth marvellously commend her, that is, his own graces in her, and all is as well as ever between them. Homo agnoscit, Deus ignoscit: it is but acknowledging the debt, and Christ will soon cross the book, and cancel the handwriting. Col 2:14 Quem poenitet peccasse, pene est innocens, - Repent, and the amends is made. "Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings." Jer 3:22
Comely as Jerusalem.] That "city of the great king," great among the nations, and "princess among the provinces," Lam 1:1 the glory of the whole earth; Urbium totius Orientis clarissima, saith Pliny, b the most famous of all the cities of the East. Orbis totius lumen, as another calls it; yea, an earthly paradise, as Josephus, soli coelique fertilitate omnes civitates superans - a city compact together. Psa 122:3 The Church is all this in Christ's esteem, and though the least, yet "not the least among the princes of Judah," as it is said of Bethlehem in a different respect. Mic 5:2 Mat 2:6
Terrible as an army with banners,] i.e., Of invincible faith and spiritual courage: terrible also and full of majesty, either to draw hearts or to daunt them; as Nazianzen saith of Athanasius, that he was magnes et adamas, a lodestone in his sweet gentle drawing nature, and yet an adamant in his resolute stout carriage against those that were evil and erroneous. How terrible were the Israelites, encamped and bannered in the wilderness, unto the Moabites, Canaanites! &c. Exodus 15:14,16 Psa 48:5-6 And the like may be said of the Hussites in Bohemia, when all Germany were up in arms against them, and worsted by them; of the Britons under the conduct of Germanus, fighting against a mighty army of Pelagian Picts and Saxons in this kingdom, and prevailing only by the three times pronouncing the word Hallelujah. c Of the Protestants in France at the siege of Mountalban, where the people of God using daily humiliation, immediately before their sallying forth, sang a psalm, which when the enemy heard, they would so quake and tremble, crying, They come, they come, as though the wrath of God had been rushing out upon them. d God is both van and rear in the Church's army. "The Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rereward." Isa 52:12 Even he that is "the great, the mighty, and the terrible God"; Neh 9:32 so that although, Loricatus incedat Satan, et cataphractus, as Luther hath it, Satan, muster up all his forces, tyrants, heretics, &c., that invade the Church and assault her on all sides, yet they shall find her invincible: Oppugnatur, sed non expugnatur. "Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel say, yet they have not prevailed against me." Psa 129:1-2 Populus Rom. saepe proelio victus, nunquam bello, saith Florus. The people of Rome lost many battles, but were never overcome in a set war; at the longrun they crushed all their enemies. So the Church. Nay, it may be truly affirmed of her, that she conquereth, even then, when she is conquered; as Christ overcame as well by patience as by power. So that more truly it may be written upon her gates, that is at this day upon the gates of Venice, Intacta manet, Let them remain intact, because it was never yet subdued by any enemy.
a ευδοκια .
b Lib. v. cap. 14.
c Dr. Ussher, De Britan. Eccles. Primord., 337.
d Spec. Belli Sac, 282.