Song of Solomon 1:8

If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents.

Ver. 8. If thou know not, O thou fairest among women.] So Christ is pleased to style her, who erst held and called herself black and sunburnt. Son 1:5 Nothing more commends us to Christ than humility and lowly mindedness. 1Pe 3:5 The daughter of Zion, for this is likened to "a comely and delicate woman," her enemies to shepherds with their flocks. Jer 6:2-3 False prophets also have their flocks, seducers drag disciples after them. Act 20:30 Faciunt favos et vespae, faciunt Ecclesias et Marcionitae, saith Tertullian; wasps also have their honeycombs; apes imitate men's actions. These conventiclers the Church must studiously decline, and not viam per avia quaerere, seek truth by wandering through the thicket of errors, as Junius saith one in his time did, who confessed he had spent twenty-two years in trying religions, pretending that Scripture, "Prove all things." The spouse is here directed by the archshepherd to repair to the foddering places, to frequent the public assemblies, to tread in that sheep track, the footsteps of the flock, the shepherds' tents. There Christ hath promised to feed his lambs (that have golden fleeces, precious souls), to call them by name, as he did Moses, Exodus 33:12 ; Exo 33:17 Cornelius Act 10:1-2), &c., to "teach them great and hidden things, such as they knew not," Jer 33:3 to give them spiritual senses, ability to examine what is doctrinally propounded to them, to try before they trust - for all Christ's sheep are rational, they "know his voice from the voice of a stranger" Joh 10:5 - to be fully persuaded of the truth that they take up and profess, Colossians 2:2 Luk 1:1 to feel the sweetness and goodness, the life and power of it within themselves, Col 1:9 Job 32:8 to hate false doctrines, and those that would persuade them thereunto, Psa 119:104 buzzing doubts into their heads. Rom 16:17 Joh 10:5 So that, though man or angel should object against the truth they have received, they would not yield to him. Gal 1:8-9 They know that Satan can, and doth, "transform himself into an angel of light," 2Co 11:14 and can act his part by a good man also, as he did by Peter once and again, Mat 16:23 Gal 2:11-13 and as he did in our remembrance by Mr Archer, a holy man, who yet held and broached hellish opinions. Swenckfeldio non defuit cor bonum, sed caput regulatum, saith Bucholcerus: Swenckfeldius had a good heart, but a wild head, and so became a means of much mischief to many silly, shallow headed people, whom he shamefully seduced. This to prevent, Christ hath given gifts to men; pastors and teachers after his own heart; guides, to "speak unto them the word of God," Heb 12:7 to "set in order for them acceptable words, "words of truth that may be as "goads, and as nails fastened by those masters of the assemblies which are given from one Shepherd": Ecc 12:10-11 in fine, to "take heed to themselves, and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made them overseers, to feed the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood," Act 20:28 that they might go in and out, and find pastures, such as will breed life, and life in more abundance. Joh 10:9-10

Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock.] Add endeavour to thy desire; up and be doing: for affection without action is like Rachel, that ancient shepherdess, beautiful, but barren. "Get thee forth therefore by the footsteps of the flock"; tread in the same track that good old Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Paul, &c., did, who followed the Lamb whithersoever he went. Keep to that "good old way," the way that is called holy, "and ye shall find rest to your souls." Jer 6:16 Walk in the footsteps of faithful Abraham, and ye shall one day rest in the bosom of Abraham. "Walk in the same spirit," in the same footsteps with Paul and Titus, 2Co 12:18 so shall you shortly and surely "receive the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls." 1Pe 1:9

And feed thy kids.] The Church also is a shepherdess, as were Laban's and Jethro's daughters, and hath a little little flock of young goats, that is, of green Christians, who are to be fed with "the sincere milk of the word, that they may grow thereby." 1Pe 2:2

Beside the shepherds' tents.] Turn to the undershepherds, the godly ministers, and so "return to the great Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." 1Pe 2:25 Hold you close to these, and "hold fast the form of wholesome words," 2Ti 1:13 and linger not after unsound and unsavoury doctrines, so rife abroad - those murdering morsels that fat men indeed, but it is to the day of slaughter. Silly sheep do eat no grass more greedily than that which rots them. "But thou, O man of God, fly these things, and from such stand off." 1 Timothy 6:5 ; 1Ti 6:11