YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE LIBRARY OF THE DIVINITY SCHOOL THE SONG OF SONGS AN EXPOSITION OF THE SONG OF SOLOMON. THE SONG OF SONGS AN EXPOSITION OF THE SONG OF SOLOMON A. MOODY STUART, D.D. THIRD EDITION. LONDON: JAMES NISBET AND CO., 21 BERNERS STREET. MDCCCLXXVII. PRINTED BY T. AHI) A. CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY, AT THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS. In this Third Edition the Practical Exposition has been revised, and is given as in the two former editions ; but to enable the Publishers to reduce the volume to a more convenient size and price, the Notice of Authors and the Notes have been entirely omitted, along with the greater part of the Introduction. Edinburgh, November 1876. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION— paoe The Song of Songs the Centre of the Old Testament Scriptures, . xiii Its Allegorical Character, . ... xx The Fitness of the Writer, . . . xxviii The Structure of the Song, .... . xxxv New Testament Illustration of the Structure of the Song, . xxxvii EXPOSITION. CanttcU E. THE BRIDE SEEKING AND FINDING THE KING. CHAP. I.— II. 7. PART I.— THE SEARCH FOR THE KING. I. The Anointed King (Chap. i. 1-4). The Kiss of the Anointed King, . . 3 Better than Wine his Lore, . . 9 Ointment poured forth his Name, 11 The Chambers of the King, . . 15 II. The Bride's Portrait of Herself (Chap. i. 5, 6). The Tents of Kedar, and the Curtains of Solomon, . 23 The Sunburnt Slave-girl, . . 28 III. The Shepherd whom the Soul loveth (Chap. i. 7, 8). The Good Shepherd's Pasture and Noontide Rest, . . .35 The Footsteps of the Flock and Feeding-place of the Kids, . i3 59 viii CONTENTS. PART II.— THE KING FOUND. PAGE I. The Chariots of Pharaoh (50), the Chains of Gold (55), the Beautiful Crown — (Chap. i. 9-11), II. The Spikenard at the Feast (63), the Bundle of Myrrh in the Bosom (66), the Camphire in the Vineyard— (Chap. i. 12-14), . . ... 68 III. The Green Couch of the Shepherd Kino— (Chap. i. 15-17), 73 IV. The Rose of Sharon (82), the Lily among the Thorns (87), the Apple-tree in the Wood — (Chap. ii. 1-3), . . 89 V. The Banquet-hall :— The Banner of Love (95), the Banquet of Wine (99), the Hands of the King (105), the Hinds of the Field— (Chap. if. 4-7), . . . 108 ffiantitU II. THE BRIDE A WAKED OUT OF SLEEP SEEKS THE KING AND CONDUCTS HIM HOME. CHAP. II. 8— III. 5. PART I.— CALL TO THE GARDEN OF FLOWERS. I. The Roe upon the Mountains (113), the Glimpse through the Lattice— (Chap. ii. 8, 9), . . . . . 119 II. The Garden of Flowers (123), the Song of Birds (129), the Voice of the Turtle — (Chap. ii. 10-13), . . . 132 III. The Dove in the Clefts of the Rock (135), the Foxes that Spoil the Vines— (Chap. n. 14, 15), . . 142 PART II.— THE BRIDE'S RESPONSE TO THE KING'S CALL. The Night before Daybreak (Chap. ii. 16— hi. 5). The Bride's interest in her absent Lord, . . . 147 The Evening Prayer, ... , jgj The Midnight Search, . . . . . . uq The King conducted Home, ...... jgj CONTENTS, IX fflantwlt III. THE BRIDEGROOM WITH THE BRIDE. CHAP. III. 6— V. 1. PART I.— THE BRIDAL PROCESSION. PAOE The Pillars m the Desert (172), the Angelic Swordsmen (181), the King's Chariot (189), the Crown of Espousal — (Chap. , in. 6-11), 200 PART II.— PORTRAIT OF THE BRIDE BY THE KING. The Spotless Bride (Chap. iv. 1-7). The Spotless Bride, ....... 205 The Doves' Eyes, 209 The Goats on the Mountain, 212 The Sheep from the River, 216 The Scarlet Fillet, 217 The Broken Pomegranate, 220 The Tower of Armoury, 222 The Twin Roes, 225 PART III.— THE BRIDAL EVENING. The Bridegroom's Farewell (228), the Garden of Spices (238), The Spices of the Garden (247), the Betrothing Supper —(Chap. iv. 8. -v. 1), 254 CantUJU 13. THE KING PROVOKED TO WITHDRA W, IS DESCRIBED IN HIS BEA UTY : THE BRIDE'S 'LO VELINESS AND PRAYER FOR HIS PRESENCE. CHAP. V. 2— VIII. 4. PART I.— SLEEP AND SORROW : THE BEAUTY OF THE BELOVED. I. The Night after Sunset (Chap. v. 2-8). The Waking Sleep, The Sorrowing.Search for the King, 261 268 X CONTENTS! II. The Beauty of the Beloved (Chap. v. 9-16). PAGE The White and Red, .... .282 The Chieftainship, . 286 The Most Fine Gold, . . 287 The Raven's Plumes, . 289 The Doves by the Rivers, . 294 The Aromatic Flowers, . 296 The Lilies, . 298 The Gold Rings, . 299 The Bright Ivory, . 307 The Pillars of Marble, . . 310 Lebanon, . 313 Excellent as the Cedars, . 320 The Sweetness, . 324 The Perfect Loveliness, . 326 PART II. -THE BRIDEGROOM'S RETURN. The Morning Twilight (330), Last Portrait of the Brlde by the King (338), the Bride's Portrait by the Queens — (Chap. vi. 1-10), ...... 352 PART III.— THE BRIDE ADMIRED BY THE DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM. I. The Garden of Nuts (364), the Chariots of Ammi-nadlb (369), the Two Armies — (Chap. vi. 11-13), .... 372 II. Portrait of the Bride by the Daughters of Jerusalem (Chap. vii. 1-5). The Beautiful Shoes, ..... . 377 The Well-set Jewels, . . 382 The Goblet not wanting Wine, The Wheat railed round with Lilies, . 384 . 387 The Twin Roes, . 391 The Tower of Ivory, The Fishpools of Heshbon, The Tower of Lebanon, . 391 . 392 . 395 Carmel, The Purple, The Galleries, . . . . 398 ., 400 . 402 III. The Betrothing of Jerusalem's Daughters (Chap. vtj. 6-10). The Palm-tree, . . . . . . . _ ^nr . 413 . 420 The Wine that awakes the Sleeping, The Seal of Espousals, . CONTENTS. XI PART IV.—THE GARDEN IN THE FIELDS— THE VERY BROTHER. m n „ TABS The Garden in the Fields (423), the Very Brother— (Chap. vh. 11— vm. 4), 428 Canticle 3. THE LITTLE SISTER. CHAP. VIII. 5-14. I. Divine Love— (Chap. vin. 5-7), Its Relying Weakness and Holy Boldness, Its Signet-like Adhesion, Its Deathlike Strength and Gravelike Cruelty Its Vehement Flame and Quenchless Fire, Its Priceless Worth, II. The Closing Song (Chap. viii. 8-14). The Little Sister, ....... 458 The Transference of the Vineyard, ..... 467 The Last of the Four Mountains, and Prayer for the Bridegroom's Coming, ........ 475 439441 445447449 454 INTRODUCTION. THE SONG OF SONGS THE CENTRE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES : ITS ALLEGORICAL CHARACTER : THE FIT NESS OF THE WRITER : ITS STRUCTURE. THE SONG OP SONGS THE CENTRE OP THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. The main difficulty with many, as regards both the in spiration of the Song of Solomon and its spiritual meaning, arises from the circumstance of there being no express quotation from it in the pages of the New Testament, whatever allusions there are to its language and its imagery. But this want is amply supplied by the central place which the Song occupies in the Old Testament. S-f ¦ If the Song of Solomon were abstracted from the Bible of the Hebrews, the volume would fall in pieces; each portion would retain its own inherent value, but the unity of the book as a whole would be dissolved. In the noble arch of the Old Testament Scriptures, if the Books of Moses form the foundation on which all the structure rests, the Song of Songs is the keystone. It is indeed the beauti ful apex of the whole, the crown on which the builder has lavished the most skilful profusion of curious tracery and ornament, leaving the rest comparatively unadorned, espe cially as it descends toward the base on either side. Yet this headstone, so exquisitely wrought, is no mere decora tion that may be broken off without further injury to the structure than marring its symmetry and defacing its beauty. The loss of any other poetic or prophetic portion XVI INTRODUCTION. ing with their own inventions,' and in the 73d, 'thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee;' it is this, and nothing more, nothing nearer or more distinctive, down to the days of Solomon (Numb. xiv. 32 ; xv. 39 ; Lev. xvii. 7; xx. 5, 6; Deut. xxxi. 16; Ps. lxxiii. 27; cvi. 39). This language is now clear and explicit to us by means of subsequent revelation; but had there been nothing more, no uninspired man would have ventured, in word or in thought, to liken the relation between the Lord and the Church to the union between husband and wife. The words would have been interpreted either as a strong reprobation of apostasy, without any further significance, like the kindred expressions, ' they have forsaken the Lord, they are gone away backward;' or if understood of any special allusion, they would have been referred to the notorious impurities of idol worship, beyond which, even now, many will not allow the description to extend. The same remark applies to the only expression of en dearment, applied by Christ to the Church in the book of Psalms before the time of Solomon, in which no commen tator has recognised any reference to the Bride. The Messiah, in the depths of his agony as uttered in the 2 2d Psalm, cri*es to the Father, ' deliver my soul from the sword,' adding in the same breath, ' my darling from the power of the dogs' (Ps. xxii. 20; xxxv. 17). This darling, or only one, as in the margin, is feminine, but is taken to mean the soul of the suppliant, by an interpretation which is surely frigid although universal ; and we must of neces sity have sought for some such difficult meaning, if a kindred expression were not afterwards employed regard ing the Bride, when the King says of her, ' My dove is but one, she is the only one of her mother ' (Cant. vi. 9). There is another term of similar endearment, employed by the Church in the 74th Psalm, ' 0 deliver not the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the multitude of the wicked ;' but the ' setting fire to the sanctuary, and breaking down its carved work,' described in the same Psalm, intimate that these words belong to a later period, and after Christ had INTRODUCTION. XVll addressed the Church in the Song, ' My sister, my love, my dove' (Ps. lxxiv. 6, 19; Cant. v. 2). There remains only the 45th Psalm, which suddenly opens a new era in the language of Zion ; and on it we remark — 1. That by general consent, it was written about the close of David's reign and the commencement of Solomon's ; and that whatever place in it is held by any earthly king belongs to Solomon. 2. That it has not the least similarity to any one of the other 149 psalms in the book, not one of them having anything in common with its scenery and its language. So completely is this the case that commentators, in whom the critical discernment is stronger than the spiritual, are embarrassed at its place among the Psalms, because the rest seem to have all to do with religious or grave concerns, and this with only such as are natural and festive. 3. This psalm is the obvious groundwork of the Song of Solomon. Its title is ' A Song of Loves,' even those loves which the Song of Songs com memorates as ' better than wine ;' it is written ' upon Shoshannim,' or ' concerning the lilies,' even those lilies amongst whom the beloved in the Song is ever said to be feeding (Hengstenberg); but withal it is a ' song of instruc tion,' teaching us to look also for spiritual instruction in its fuller unfolding in the Canticles. It is throughout regarding the King, ' fairer than the sons of men, all his garments smelling of myrrh, aloes, and cassia, and the king's daughter all glorious within ; ' and the Song of Solomon is throughout of Him who is the ' chief among ten thousand,' with His ' name as ointment poured forth,' and of the Bride, who is 'all fair, and no spot in her.' 4. Those who deny any spiritual meaning to the Song of Solomon are constrained to deny it likewise in the 45th Psalm. The truth is, that although unquestionably one of the Psalms of David, and among the noblest of them all, this psalm is not of a piece with the book in which it is found, but stands detached and isolated ; and is entirely of a piece with the Song of Solomon, to which it must be regarded as forming the preface. But, on the other hand, there is a clearly marked dis- XV1U INTRODUCTION. tinction between the Psalm and the Song, as regards the language employed, and the completeness of the relation between the King and the Bride. In the Psalm the whole account of the Bride's position is future,, with the single exception of the expression, ' at his right hand stood the queen,' which must therefore be interpreted as future and prophetic, in accordance with the tenor of the whole. But in the Song all is full and perfect. In the Psalm it is, ' hearken, 0 daughter, and forget thy father's house ;' in the Song it is, 'my mother's children were angry with me; draw me, we will run after thee.' In the Psalm, ' she shall be brought unto the king, they shall enter into the king's palace;' in the Song, 'the king hath brought me into his chambers, he brought me to the banqueting house.' In the Psalm it is, ' so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty;' in the Song, 'thou art all fair, my love; his desire is toward me.' In the Psalm it is the preparatory ceremony of betrothal or marriage, with a direction to the chosen daughter to give her full consent to the royal and divine union ; in the Song it is the Bride, the Lamb's wife, the Sister, the Spouse, the love, the dove, the undenled, she the Beloved's, and the Beloved hers. This relation after Solomon. — Let us look now to the Old Testament Scriptures, omitting the Song of Solomon and this single detached Psalm, of which it forms the sequel. The prophets that succeed, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, the prophets whose writings are the most copious and complete, break forth with one mouth against the Church in a, hundred denunciations. But their manifold accusation is the same, their language of reproach is one ; it is the faithful city become an harlot, the wife of youth an adulteress, divorced and widowed. Eemove the Song of Solomon with its prefatory Psalm, or interpret them literally, and the Church is reproached as a harlot, before she had ever been named a virgin, or commended as chaste ¦ charged with unfaithfulness, when the Lord had never been her husband; branded as an adulteress, when from the beginning of the world she had never once been called a wife; lamented as a widow before she had ever been a bride INTRODUCTION. xix and rejected as divorced when she had never been married. The least attentive reader must have observed, how con trary this is to the whole manner of the Word of God ; and every student of Scripture knows how completely ' the words of the wise are as nails, fastened by the masters of assemblies, given by one shepherd' (Ecc. xii. 11); and how impossible is such want of mutual fitness, in the parts of a structure so marvellous for its unity in the midst of utmost variety, and for its harmonious and progressive order through all its separate builders. We find an analogous case in the language of the New Testament, although consecutiveness in its parts is less important, because it is throughout founded on the Old Testament Scriptures. In Revelation the apostate Church is largely described as ' a harlot, and the mother of harlots and abominations ;' but this is no abrupt introduction of the latter half of a figure, before the first half had been recognised. The Church had already been described in the gospels under the emblem of a bride : ' He that hath the bride is the bridegroom ; but the friend of the bride groom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice' (John iii. 29). She had been recognised in the Epistles as ' espoused to one hus band, to be presented as a chaste virgin to Christ,' and as 'married to him who is raised from th« dead' (2 Cor. xi. 2 ; Rom. vii. 4) ; and altogether the bridal relation had been variously and amply set forth (Eph. v. 23-33), before the apostate Church is described as ' the woman arrayed in scarlet, having a golden cup in her hand full of fornica tion, and drunken with the blood of the saints, to be replaced in the end of all by ' the Lamb's wife, the bride adorned for her husband' (Rev. xvii. 4, 6 ; xxi. 2, 9). There is a double argument regarding the Song of Solomon, based on the considerations now stated ; an argument first for its inspiration, and next for its allego rical design. The argument for the inspiration is found in the fact that the leading prophets, in their expostulations with Israel, proceed on the footing that the language employed XX INTRODUCTION. by Solomon, and the figure used throughout the Song, are as much from God as the records of Moses. Nor is this position affected by the circumstance that two of the four prophets, who chiefly use the figure, introduce a reference to the marriage along with the charge of unfaithfulness (Jer. ii. ; Ezek. xvi.) This remark, in itself scarcely ma terial, applies only to the two later of these prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, while nothing can be more abrupt than the charge as made by their predecessors. Hosea breaks forth without any preface, ' Plead with your mother, plead : for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband' (ii. 2) ; and Isaiah with equal abruptness, ' How is the faithful city become an harlot 1 — Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away ?' (i. 21 ; 1.1.) But until the time of Solomon, there had never been any reference made to marriage between the Lord and the Church ; and in the days of Hosea and Isaiah, the Lord had never called her his wife, except in the words of the Song, ' My sister, my spouse.' The argument for the allegorical meaning is equally strong, or rather is exactly the same ; for, if the Song is inspired but literal, it has no more to do with the relation between Christ and the Church, than if it were a merely human composition. The literal interpretation lacks all countenance from the other Scriptures ; but the purely spiritual bears the broad stamp of prophetic and Divine sanction. - f t\_<— ITS ALLEGORICAL CHARACTER. The Inspiration of the Song of Solomon has been called in question chiefly, if not solely, through misapprehension of its design. As a question of evidence, there is little room left for disputation. The objections that have been raised are both few and minute, and there is now little diversity of opinion in those who have examined the subject; Dr. Pye Smith, the most respected of the theologians who refused to receive it, yielding in the end to the force of evidence and acknowledging it as part of the inspired Word of God! INTRODUCTION. Xxi The Song of Solomon is embodied in the Septuagint Greek translation of the Scriptures, executed about two hundred years before Christ ; it was received as a sacred book by the ancient Jews without exception ; it is inserted by Josephus in his catalogue of the sacred books ; and is quoted as of divine authority from the earliest period of the Christian Church. It forms, therefore, an unquestion able portion of those ancient oracles, to which our Lord set his divine seal, when he issued the command, ' Search the Scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.' In the words of Professor Stowe of ^nerica, ' If a fact can be established by testimony, it is established by testimony, that the Song of Solomon was a part of the Hebrew canon in the time of Christ.' The real question is that of interpretation, not of inspiration. If the allegorical interpretation is received, all will own the evidence of inspiration to be most ample ; some taking the book literally have accepted it as divine ; but there are thoughtful men whom no amount of evidence, short of miraculous proof to the individual, would induce to receive it as the Word of God, if its design is natural and not spiritual. Let us, therefore, consider the character of the Book in itself, and as it has been received by the Church. c The character of the Song in itself. — The Song of Songs is a pure allegory. It is neither a song of earth, nor founded on any actual event of earth. The basis of the spiritual allegory is an earthly imagery, but certainly not an earthly history. The magnificence of all the comparisons, ' beauti ful as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners,' is widely different from the simplicity of scriptural emblems representing objects earthly and human ; a"s in David's lament over Saul and Jonathan, when the most intense emotion still pours itself forth in the simplest images, — ' they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions' (2 Sam. i. 23). The Song in its whole con ception and structure is such, as never could have been welcomed or tolerated by any earthly bride by whomsoever composed, and least of all if written for her by her own Xxil INTRODUCTION. consort. With the exception of the fourth chapter, the greater part is put into the mouth of the bride ; the Song is commenced by her, closed by her, chiefly conducted by her ; while the narrative throughout is put into her lips, never into the lips of her Betrothed. Would any earthly bridegroom so construct a song for his bride, or earthly bride receive it so constructed ? Then she is represented as now self-condemning, and again self-excusing, but uni formly helpless, reverent, entreating. While the Bride groom is full of majesty, his affection ever mingled with condescension ; he is frequently reserved and distant, some times stern and severe. All this is intelligible only on the supposition, that the Song itself was never designed for any scenes of earth, but to shadow through an earthly veil the communion of the ransomed Church and her glorious Redeemer. The theory of the marriage of Solomon with Pharaoh's daughter, which was formerly taken by the literal inter preters as the basis of the Song, no longer needs confuta tion, for it is now neglected and forgotten. In its place there has sprung up another in Germany a hundred years ago, which after lying rather neglected for fifty years, ob tained a rapid acceptance in that country, and has more recently become current in our own with the followers of German theology. It will have its day, and then some other will succeed. The theory is, that the design of the Song is ' to record an example of virtue in a young woman, who encountered and conquered the greatest temptations, and was eventually rewarded.' The Shulamite is supposed to be the only daughter of a widowed mother, with several brothers, supporting themselves by farming and pasturage. After espousal to a shepherd, she is seen accidentally by Solomon who is struck with her beauty, and uses every effort to gain her affections, but in vain. Baffled in his endeavours he at last takes her to Jerusalem, and promises to make her queen ; but she finally resists all his temptations, and re turns triumphant with her shepherd to Shulem. Not merely must this view appear low to all who repard INTRODUCTION. XX1H the Song as a divine allegory ; it is self-refuting to make the wicked seductions of any king the subject of sacred song. But neither in the Song itself nor in other Scrip tures is there the remotest hint of this fine tale with which our German neighbours have so satisfied themselves. It comes from the imagination of the interpreter, not from the language of the author. In interpreting the Song alle- gorically, we may err by following out our own imagina tion; but of the great fact of the Bridegroom and the Bride being used in Scripture to represent the relation between Christ and the Church, there is no room for doubt. But the entire foundation of this recently invented story is a fancy ; it is German and not Jewish ; and affords one of a hundred proofs that there is no class of writers so easily assured of the flimsiest fancy, as the theologians who profess to interpret the Scriptures according to mere reason and science. We receive and interpret the Song of Solomon, as not less purely figurative than if God announced over it, as he does elsewhere — ' I have likened the Daughter of Zion to a comely and delicate woman' (Jer. vi. 2). In this allegory Christ is set forth as the Anointed, for ' Ointment poured forth is his name ;' as the King, a title which, when used hy way of excellence, Jews as well as Christians acknow ledge to belong to the Messiah; as Solomon, the Prince of peace; as the Beloved, and as the Chief among ten thousand, altogether lovely. The Church, on the other hand, is described as the Fairest among women, the Prince's daughter, the King's sister, and the King's spouse, whilst her more special designation is the Shulamite. This is not her own original name, but is a significant appellation suited for an allegory, and means the Peaceful ; for Shula- mith or Shulamite is the feminine of Solomon, just as Joanna is of John ; and if Solomon, the Peaceful, may in scriptural expression be translated the Prince of peace, the Shulamite may be rendered in like manner the Daughter of peace. Interpreted figuratively, the structure of the book presents no difficulty; for the vinedresser and the prince's daughter, the midnight inquirer and the royal XXiv INTRODUCTION. consort, the suppliant drenched with night dews and the king in his palace, stand in most perfect congruity to the relations and characters of Christ and his Church. Nor can it be deemed but most accordant with the entire scope of the Word of God, that one of its books should be thus expressly devoted to a delineation of the union and intercourse subsisting between Christ and his redeemed, under the aspect of the relation formed by the marriage covenant amongst men. From the commence ment of Genesis to the close of Revelation, this emblem of marriage is employed by the Holy Spirit to shadow forth that spiritual mystery. In Moses it is, ' therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh,' which is declared in the New Testament to be a great mystery concerning Christ and the Church ; in the Psalms it is, ' hearken, O daughter, and consider, forget also thy father's house and thine own people, so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty;' in the Prophets it is, 'thy maker is thine hus band,' and ' I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals ; ' in the Gospels it is, ' He that hath the Bride is the Bridegroom,' and ' how can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the Bridegroom is with them;' in the Epistles it is, 'the chaste virgin espoused to one husband even Christ,' and the believer ' married unto him that is raised from the dead ; ' and in Revelation, ' the Bride the Lamb's wife,' ' the marriage of the Lamb being come, and his wife having made herself ready.' If it be objected, that within the compass of the book itself there is no key to the spiritual meaning, we have the ready answer that this allegoric song is only part of a book ; that the New Testament itself is but half a book, requiring the Old as another essential half ; that this entire song is no more than one chapter in the Word of God, and that the other chapters furnish keys enough to open all its locks. Nor is the assertion well-founded, that every other parable in Scripture is accompanied by its own solution. The double parable of the ploughman and the harvestman, INTRODUCTION. XXV at the end of the 28th chapter of Isaiah, than which there is none more beautiful in the Old Testament, is not furnished with any key to its meaning, but merely with the remark that ' his God doth instruct him,' and that it ' cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.' Many of Solomon's own proverbs, or brief parables, contain a hidden meaning without a solu tion ; such as he calls ' words of the wise and their dark sayings,' demanding wisdom ' to understand the proverb, and the interpretation.' Our Lord's parable on ' taking the lowest room at the feast' is provided with no key. It wants it as entirely as the Song of Solomon ; and therefore many expositors, and some translators, have called it an ' instruction,' and not a parable. But the Scripture is express, that ' he put forth a parable,' and this word is never employed in the New Testament to signify instruc tion in general, but uniformly denotes either a similitude or a dark saying (Luke xiv. 7). A recent American writer on the Song makes the fine remark, that ' it lies in the casket of revelation, an ex quisite gem, engraved with emblematic characters, with nothing literal thereon to break the consistency of their beauty.' To have inserted the solution within the hiero glyphic itself would have been to mar all its symmetry, because it is not written in the form of a parable spoken by another, but of an allegory personating the speakers themselves. The writer never speaks ; it never is — ' ten virgins took their lamps and went forth to meet the Bride groom ; ' but the bridal virgins are themselves the speakers — ' draw me, we will run after thee.' This accounts also for the designed absence of the name of God ; with this additional argument, that if words exclusively religious had sometimes been introduced, the hasty inference would have been drawn that the whole of the rest was earthly, while all is now spiritual, heavenly, divine. Let it be further noted that the directness of the allegorical form, as dis tinguished from the narrative style of a parable, makes the greater part of the book to consist of immediate address either by Christ to the soul or by the soul to Christ, and c XXVi INTRODUCTION. as of necessity moves us to ponder every word, and ' suck honey from every letter.' Its character as received by the Church. — The Jews revered the Song of Solomon as amongst the holiest of sacred books. Likening his written works to his noble but less durable fabric of wood and stone, they compared the Pro verbs to the outer court of the Temple, Ecclesiastes to the Holy Place, and the Song of Songs to the Holy of holies, the inmost sanctuary of God. The Chaldee Targum, which is the oldest Jewish Commentary on the book, entitles it ' The Songs and hymns which Solomon the prophet, king of Israel, delivered by the spirit of prophecy, before Jehovah the Lord of the whole earth;' and explains it throughout as a divine allegory, representing the dealings of God with his people Israel. The Christian fathers compare the whole teaching of Solomon to a ladder con sisting of three steps, moral, natural, mystical. Proverbs embraces instruction in morals ; Ecclesiastes indicates the nature of things sensible, and the vanity of the present life, that despising these things, as transient, we may desire the future as firm and eternal; and the Song of Songs contains the mystic relation and union of Christ and his Church, that we may fly upward to the great Bridegroom, to love and embrace him as promising everlasting blessed ness. (Origen, Theodoret.) Any attempts, amongst either Jews or Christians, to attach a lower sense to this divine Song, were extremely few and quite exceptional, serving only to bring out more clearly the general, and all but universal judgment for the allegorical interpretation. ' Far be it! far be it!' exclaims one of the Hebrew doctors, ' that the Song of Songs should treat of earthly love ; for had it not been a pure allegory, and had not its excellence been great, it would not have been numbered with the holy books ; nor on this head is there any controversy.' During the mists that preceded the dawn of the Refor mation, these divine Canticles must have been songs in the night for weary pilgrims, as is testified by the explanatory headings which interspersed the verses, such as ' The voice of the Father — the voice of Christ — the Church saith of INTRODUCTION. Xxvii her tribulations.' And when the sun was rising on Britain, and the fruit of the labours of the noble martyr Tyndale was presented in ' The Bible truly and purely translated into English,' as God's best gift to this country, the 'Ballet of Balletts' stood forth distinguished in the centre of the noble book. The rest of the massive volume is printed in black letter; but in the Song of Songs are bright lines of red shining between the black, dividing passages and verses and even clauses, and shedding rays of spiritual light — ' The voice of the Patriarchs speaking of Christ, the voice of the Church chosen out of the heathen, the voice of the Synagogue marvelling in itself at the Church.' In our own Scottish land more than a century later, when the clouds returned after the rain, and the Church betook herself like a bird to the mountains, the dove plucked this page of holy writ as an olive leaf in her mouth, and bore it to her hiding-place in the clefts of the rock. As our covenanting fathers threaded their blood stained path through the mysteries and cruelties of a thinly disguised Antichrist, the beaten oil from the Isle of Patmos fed the lamp that lighted their midnight way, and the Song of Songs supplied their holy hymns of praise, the sweet utterance of their Bridegroom's voice, and their own responsive echoes. Meanwhile, quickly following the light of the Reforma tion and the diffusion of the Word of God, not a few devoted ministers of Christ expounded this Song of Solomon from the pulpit and the press, and dug from its deep mines the richest treasures of Gospel truth, to the great comfort and edification of the Church. Metrical translations and paraphrases were prepared by eminent divines, eagerly welcomed by the people, and circulated in great numbers ; and the Bride of the Lamb rejoiced, that she could ' sing to her well-beloved a song of her Beloved touching his vineyard.' The present tendency to degrade this mystical Song into a profitless earthly story is sure to pass away if the Church should fall again into times of trial, for the old truth abides and ever returns again; and the day may I XXviii INTRODUCTION. not be distant when the great Bridegroom of the Church will employ this glorious Song, more than ever heretofore, for the maintenance and expression of holy fellowship between himself and his redeemed. THE PITNESS OF THE WRITER, It would take us far beyond our limits to discuss the proposals of another authorship than Solomon's for this Book, which all antiquity, Jewish and Christian, has ascribed to Solomon, and whose right to the honour nothing can really shake ; and we proceed at once to con sider his fitness for writing the Book, and his probable age at the time of writing. The fitness of the writer. — God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, chooses his own season and his own messen ger, giving us no account of his matters ; yet both in the time and in the writer, as well as in the character, of the book, we may humbly recognise the manifold wisdom of God. The time suited the manner of the revelation, because types and allegories specially belonged to the old dispensation; and that dispensation reached its ripeness in the days of Solomon, when the temple was built, when sacrifice and offering and burnt-offering were in thousands of rams and as ten thousand rivers of oil, when the glory of Jehovah filled the house, and the tabernacle of God was visibly and gloriously in the midst of men. Previously the daughter of Zion was still growing into maturity, but now she had reached her prime, was richly endowed, and was openly married to the Lord of Hosts ; subsequently the prophets with one voice testify against her for unfaith fulness to her marriage covenant. If ever in all her history, it was now the season for such a song. The songs of the law and the prophets were the preparatory lessons of her infancy, the hymns of her lovely childhood ; but the last and crowning song of all, the Song therefore of Songs, was prepared for the now mature maiden against the day of her marriage to the King of kings. (Origen.) INTRODUCTION. XXIX The time had come, and also the man ; the time for the nuptial song and the man to sing it ; Solomon the king of peace, Solomon the ripe consummation of wisdom human and divine. Judging from the product, it had been the will of God to employ the utmost knowledge attained by man of what was fair on earth, and of what was mysterious in heaven, along with the deepest skill in parabolic imagery, to frame this mystic song of the communings of the great Redeemer with his sister Bride. In the lowest of these qualifications Solomon had no equal, for the earthly works of the Lord were sought out by him from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall ; and none knew, as he did, all that was pleasant to the eye, or harmonious to the ear, or fragrant to the scent, or delicious to the taste of man. In the words of Bossuet, who possessed a most discriminating eye for the beauties of graphic delineation, ' This entire Song abounds with delightful objects. On every side are flowers, fruits, and a profusion of the loveliest plants ; the pleasantness of spring; the luxuriance of the fields, flourishing and well- watered gardens ; streams, wells, fountains; odours artificial and natural; rock-pigeons, songs of turtle-doves, honey, milk, and flowing wines; together with all that is beautiful and graceful in the human form. If any object of horror is introduced, such as rugged rocks, wild mountains, and lions' dens, the whole is arranged to produce a pleasing effect, and as if for the ornament and variety of a most beautiful painting. To what end are these things 1 except that being delighted with their beauty we may learn how much more beautiful their Lord is than all these, and may commence the song of divine love.' Solomon was the fittest of all the sons of men to draw such a picture. In the higher qualifications for the work Solomon equally excelled ; for above all the prophets, preceding or follow ing, he was enabled to discern and to describe the eternal Wisdom or Word of God (Prov. viii.) Isaiah wrote the obedience unto death of the Man of sorrows ; but it was given to Solomon to speak of the Lord Jesus with the XXX INTRODUCTION. Father, ' as one brought up with him, daily his delight, and rejoicing always before him,' and likewise as 'rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and his delights being with the sons of men,' which is the precise theme of this Song. But he possessed a third preparation for the holy task, in which none ever equalled him save that Greater than Solomon, who in his parables as in all things else spake as never man spake. Of his 'wisdom and under standing exceeding much, and largeness of heart even as the sand that is on the sea-shore,' one of the most distin guishing features was the power of clothing spiritual reali ties with earthly images. ' To understand a parable and the interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark sayings,' and to frame such parables or proverbs for the use of the Church in all ages, was peculiarly the divine vocation of Solomon amongst the ancient prophets; and such was the very gift to be called into exercise in this allegoric song. ' Solomon, divinely inspired, has uttered the praises of Christ and the Church, the mysteries of their eternal marriage, and the longings of a holy soul ; and exulting in Spirit has formed these things into a plea sant, yet figurative song. Even as Moses, so hath Christ here drawn a veil over his face, which might else have shone too brightly, because in that age few or none could look upon his glory with face unveiled.' (Bernard.) The Song, however, was not the work of Solomon with out preparatory aid. But as the father framed the plan and gathered the materials for the temple, which the son was to build ; so the father, in the forty-fifth Psalm, sketched the outline and laid the foundation of that Song, which the son was to fashion into its goodly fabric. David, ' the sweet psalmist of Israel,' sung psalms and hymns and spiritual songs of most heavenly melody, but his calling was not to cast divine truth into the form of allegory. Ezekiel after the interval of ages wove lofty allegories, but into the writer's inkhorn by his side the golden vials full of wrath often poured their fiery stream, for the time of singing songs was past. Solomon, standing between the two, united both ; elaborately fashioned an allegoric song, INTRODUCTION. XXX1 sung an allegory. The son of Jesse breathed the longings of holy desire, ' My soul thirsteth for God,' and the fervour of divine affection, ' I love the Lord ; ' and rose to the source of these emotions in Jehovah's free love to men, ' Many are thy thoughts to us-ward, they are more than can be numbered.' The son of David, moved by the Holy Ghost, took hold on these two golden threads, spun them with singular skill so as to develop both their strength and their beauty without impairing either, and wove them into this wondrous Song of Songs ; which is nothing else than the interlacing of these two cords, the one drawn from heaven downward, and the other drawn from earth up ward ; the interlocution of these two hearts, the human and the divine. This being, then, a song of the love of Christ under the veil of allegory, let us take heed lest in the contemplation of the beauteous veil we should for a moment forget Him, whom it both manifests and conceals ; manifests because without it we should look upon a blank, conceals because in it as regards the letter we see but an outward picture, and not the very person of Jesus. ' We should in this resemble the skilful musician, and touch these cords lightly with the finger, only to elicit the sweet music of divine love; or like the ..roes and hinds of the field which this Song commemorates, we should scarcely tread the earth with our feet, and only for the purpose of springing upward toward heaven.' ' So by trie aid of one celestial guide Implored and rested on, not safe alone Those precincts will appear, but rich in mines Of pure and precious gold.' His Probable Age. — Regarding the time in Solomon's life when he wrote this Song, we possess no materials for a certain conclusion, yet are not without rays of light. That it was the work of his old age, is not im possible in itself; and many believers, to whom it has formerly presented few attractions, begin in the decline xxxii INTRODUCTION. of years to find great delight in this book, even as ' in good wine which the master of the feast has kept for them until now ; ' wine causing the lips of the ' ancient ' to speak, and reviving them for the later stages of their pilgrimage (vii. 9, marg.) But all the law and the pro phets prove, that it is contrary to the mind of God that open defection in high places, such as marked the declining years of Solomon, should be followed by a public song of gladness ; and his personal repentance does not appear to have uprooted outward stumbling-blocks. During the sad season of his follies, it could not be composed. The sen sualist is the last of all men to express his religious senti ments in the language of the Canticles, into which only the pure in heart can enter. Advancing towards his earlier years, we find an argu ment drawn by many from the ' tower of Lebanon,' as if it proved the Song to have been written after ' the house of the forest of Lebanon' was built. But allowing that palace ' of the forest ' to have been built in Mount Lebanon, as well as of its cedar, it could have no connection with the watch-tower ' of Lebanon, looking to Damascus ; ' because the last spot that the peaceful king would choose for a summer retreat, would be a border fortress erected against a restless foe, whose king ' abhorred Israel.' On the con trary, the Song appears to have been composed before the building of the temple; for after that period, and even earlier but with reference to it, Jerusalem stands alone in the land, ' Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, the city of the great King.' If another city is added to complete a parallel, it is only part of itself, as ' the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and yet choose Jerusalem ;' but the introduction along with it of a different city altogether, in the comparison ' beautiful as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem,' leads to the conclusion that the temple, which was Jeru salem's glory, had not yet been reared. Being thus conducted toward the beginning of Solomon's reign, we receive at its own value the information given by the son of Sirach, who addresses Solomon, ' The coun tries marvelled at thee for thy songs, and proverbs, and INTRODUCTION. XXX1U parables, and interpretations ' (Ecclesiasticus xlvii. 1 7). In the same order, also, the marginal dates in our authorised version arrange his writings ; Canticles within about a year of the commencement of his reign, Proverbs after it had continued fifteen years, and Ecclesiastes at its close. But we advance one step further, and unhesitatingly concur with those who hold that the Song of Songs was written by Solomon before he ascended the throne of his father David. There is scarcely a circumstance of impro bability in this view. Solomon was beloved of God from his birth, was named Jedidiah or the Lord's Beloved, and throughout his youth and childhood retained this divine favour, ' for, he was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel' (Neh. xiii. 26). Full of grace and wisdom, there was every reason to expect that in his youth both grace and gifts would tend to flow in the channel of holy song ; for if any child on earth might im bibe the love of divine melody, it was the son of David, and if any house on earth would encourage and exercise the gift, it was David's house in Jerusalem. Nor was there a season in Solomon's life more adapted to call forth all his gracious affections, or more free from distracting cares, than after David had given him in presence of assembled Israel the solemn charge to build the temple of the Lord ; had received for it at the hands of a willing people gold, silver, precious stones, brass, and iron, and doubtless also (as in the tabernacle) blue, purple, scarlet, and fine linen for the curtains of Solomon ; and had written the forty-fifth and seventy- second Psalms for the great Prince of Peace, that was yet to come. If Solomon was the chosen man, this seems to have been the choicest time to sing the Song of Songs ; and ' saith not the law the same also 1 ' Ecclesiastes is entitled ' The Words of the Preacher, the son of David, king of Jeru salem ; ' from which it seems certain, that the ' Words ' were written after Solomon had been settled in his house and kingdom in Jerusalem. The Proverbs are entitled ' The Proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of XXXIV INTRODUCTION. Israel,' without the addition of Jerusalem ; from which it is probable that he wrote the Proverbs after he was king of Israel, yet before his palace in Jerusalem was completed and himself established there. The title of Canticles is simply ' The Song of Solomon ; ' and the inference is reason able, that the Song was sung by him before he ascended his father's throne. From the days of Origen downward, long and laboured disquisitions have been written on those three titles ; but nothing penetrates the mind, or adheres to the memory, save these simple distinctions ; which lead to the conclusion that it was a holy song of first love to the Lord, ' a spiritual and mystical device ' given to him in the kindness of his youth, and in the love of his own espousals to the King eternal, immortal, invisible. Nor is it the least argument against this conclusion, that he sings of ' King Solomon,' because David had now publicly de clared that Solomon was to succeed him in the throne ; had himself sung touching the King ' fairer than the sons of men ; ' had entitled the seventy-second Psalm for, or rather of Solomon ; and had therein described that King, ' whose name is to endure for ever with abundance of peace,' even as his son in these Canticles sets forth the true Solomon, the one Prince of Peace. But it must further be noted concerning the author of the book, or rather the ready writer whom the Divine Author employed in this work, that in one Solomon three several men are found. There is the child of Adam, the old man corrupt according to the deceitful lusts ; there is the child of God, new-born, taught, chastened, and. ' among many nations no king like him, beloved of his God ; ' and there is the inspired writer of Holy Scripture, of Can ticles, of Proverbs, of Ecclesiastes. How divinely even the covetous and accursed Balaam sings, when ' he hears the words of God, and sees the vision of the Almighty,' and prays for the death and the heaven of the redeemed: ' Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end (my latter state after death) be like his.' So Solomon, hearing the words of God and seeing the vision of the Almighty, speaks not the words of Solomon earthly, nor INTRODUCTION. XXXV of Solomon spiritual yet fallible, but of Solomon ' moved by the Holy Ghost ;' words which at another season he could by no effort have uttered ; words which in their utterance he could only partially understand, and which he would afterwards study as a humble inquirer, ' search ing what the Spirit of Christ which was in him did signify.' One grand principle remains both to be broadly stated, and constantly kept in mind in the perusal of this book, Lord Bacon's great rule for Bible interpretation, that- ' these two, known to God, and unknown to man, do make a just and sound difference between the exposition of the Scriptures and all other books.' Once incorporated with the Word of God, written and recorded for all ages of the Church, every image it contains is to be examined not by the lamp of Solomon, but by the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness, of the true light that now shines on every page of God's great revelation. In our hearts also may it shine, giving ' the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.' THE STRUCTURE OP THE SONG. One who has few superiors among men of learning, has said most happily, that ' the Scriptures being written to the thoughts of men and to the succession of all ages, in the foresight of all differing estates of the Church, yea and particularly of the elect, have in themselves, not only totally and collectively, but distinctively in clauses and words, infinite springs and streams of doctrine to water the Church in every part.' (Bacon.) It is chiefly from those infinite streams that spring out of the clauses and words, that the believer is enabled to draw the living water both for life at the first, and for daily refreshing ; yet great additional light may be thrown on each separate word by the discovered connection of the whole. The Unity of the Song is allowed almost universally, and by critics and divines widely differing from each other in its interpretation. This unity is clearly established by xxxvi INTRODUCTION. the oneness of subject throughout; by the recurrence in every part of the same expressions; and by an evident chain of connection through the whole, however some of its links may lie concealed. Receiving then the entire Song as one, let us note the occurrence of every complete break in the connection, indi cated by the double mark of one scene fairly closed, and another commencing abruptly ; and dividing the Song by these breaks into its principal parts, we find three closes exactly alike, ' I charge you, 0 daughters of Jerusalem. that ye stir not up nor awake my love until he please ; and these are followed by three abrupt commencements ' The voice of my Beloved,' and the twice repeated inquiry. ' Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness 1 ' (ii. 7, 8 iii. 5, 6 ; and viii. 4, 5.) Another full close we find, ' Eat, 0 friends, drink, yea drink abundantly, 0 beloved ; ' and followed by the abrupt beginning of a new scene, ' I sleep but my heart waketh' (v. 1, 2). These four breaks divide the Song into five parts, which we shall call by the time- honoured name of Canticles, all alike ending in fulness of rest and refreshing, in the form either of quiet repose or of abundant repast ; or rather all the four of which these are the terminations, for the fifth strikingly concludes the book, as it had commenced, with the intense longing of unsatisfied spiritual desire, beginning, ' Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,' and ending, ' Make haste my Beloved.' Taking these five Canticles as our great divisions, and marking certain lesser parts into which they naturally divide themselves, we have the following sketch of what appears to us to be the most probable structure of the Song : — Canticle I. — Chap. i.-ii. 7. The Bride Seeking and Finding the King. Part I.— The Search for the Kino. — Chap. i. 2-8. Part II.— The King Found.— Chap. i. 9-h. 7. INTRODUCTION. XXXVU Canticle II. — Chap. ii. 8-iil 5. The Bride awaked out of sleep, seeks the King, and conducts him Home. Part I. — Call to the Garden oe Flowers. — Chap. ii. 8-15. Part II. — The Bride's Response to the King's Call. — Chap. ii. 16-m. 5. Canticle III. — Chap. hi. 6- v. 1. The Bridegroom with the Bride. Part I. — The Bridal Procession. — Chap. hi. 6-11. Part II. — Portrait oe the Bride by the King. — Chap. iv. 1-7. Part III. — The Bridal Evening. — Chap. iv. 8-v. 1. Canticle IV. — Chap. v. 2-viii. 4. The King provoked to withdraw, is described in His Beauty : the Bride's Loveliness, and Prayer for His Presence. Part I. — Sleep and Sorrow ; the Beauty op the Beloved. — Chap. v. 2-16. Part II. — The Bridegroom's Ret urn. — Chap. vi. 1-10. Part III. — The Bride admired by the Daughters of Jeru salem. — Chap. vi. 11-vii. 10. Part IV. — The Garden in the Fields ; The Very Brother. — Chap. vii. 11-viii. 4. Canticle V. — Chap. viii. 5-14. The Little Sister. NEW TESTAMENT ILLUSTRATION OF THE STRUCTURE OF THE SONG. The heading of the Song of Solomon in our old Bibles is, ' A mystical device of the spiritual and godly love be tween Christ the Spouse, and the Church or Congregation his Spousess.' The Jews understand it of Jehovah and the xxxviii introduction. Congregation of Israel, the Christians of Christ and the Church; some have taken it historically of transactions past, others prophetically of transactions to come ; some explain it of the Church collective, and others of the in dividual Bride, the living soul. We take it to exhibit a, regular progress throughout; historical now, prophetical at its first utterance, yet not properly either history or prophecy, but communion of Christ with his Church on an historical basis. Without setting aside either the ground of Jewish history with the progress of the ark through the desert for its centre, or the ground of personal history and experience, which is undoubtedly the principal design ot the book ; the groundwork that we take is our Lord's life on earth, in connection with the times immediately pre ceding and following. Taking up the book historically, we find three notes of time which have commended themselves to general recep tion, and which we shall give in the words of three of our old bibles, derived from older sources, and taken in sub stance from the early fathers of the Church. Commencing with the' last, ' We have a little sister,' the note is, The Jewish Church speaketh of the Church of the Gentiles ; then in the centre, 'Eat, 0 friends, drink,' it is, Christ speaketh to the apostles ; and in the commencing verse of all, 'Let him kiss me,' the note is, The Church of the coming of Christ speaketh saying (viii. 8 ; v. 1 ; i. 2). Combining these three we shall have at the beginning of the Song, Christ about to come ; in the middle of it, Christ finishing his work on earth ; and in the end, Christ ascended and having poured out the Spirit : first, Christ absent be cause not yet descended from the Father; second, Christ present being come in the flesh ; and last, Christ absent again having reascended where He was before. These are not isolated points, but three distinct links belonging to one chain in regular order of history; the cry for the Advent, the last Supper, and the calling of the Gentiles ¦ and if the rest of the book is filled up according to this' outline, some of the earliest interpretations of texts in different chapters may be appealed to for confirmation. INTRODUCTION. XXXlx! Canticle I. — Chap, i.— ii. 7. Time. — Immediately before and after the Birth of Christ. Part I. — The Cry for the Advent. — Chap. i. 2-8. Part II. — Christ born in Bethlehem. — Chap. i. 9-ii. 7. Canticle II. — Chap. ii. 8-iil 5. Time. — From the Appearance of John till the Baptism of Jesus. Part I. — John heralds the coming Christ. — Chap. ii. 8-15. Part II. — John's Disciples seek and find Christ. — Chap. ii. 16-m. 5. Canticle III. — Chap. hi. 6-v. 1. Time. — From Christ's Return out of the Wilderness till the Last Supper. Part I. — The Word made Flesh, and tabernacling with Men. — Chap. hi. 6-11. Part II. — Spotlessness of the Church. — Chap. iv. 1-7. Part III. — The Closing Scenes in the Life of Christ. — Chap. iv. 8-v. 1. Canticle IV. — Chap. v. 2-viii. 4. Time. — From the Agony in the Garden till the Evangelising of the Samaritans. Part I. — The Garden of Gethsemane and of the Sepulchre. Chap. v. 2-16. Part II. — Christ's Resurrection. — Chap. vi. 1-10. Part III. — The Descent of the Holy Ghost. — Chap. vi. 11- vn. 10. Part IV. — Conversion of the Samaritans. — Chap. vii. 1 1-vm. 4. Canticle V. — Chap. viii. 5-14. Time. — From the Calling of the Gentiles till the Close of Revelation. THE SONG OF SONGS. See how from far upon the Eastern road, The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet ; 0 run, prevent them with thy humble ode, And lay it lowly at His blessed feet ; Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet. Milton. 0 that I knew how all thy lights combine, And the configurations of their glory ; Seeing not only how each verse doth shine, But all the Constellations of the story. Herbert. Oh heavenly Spirit of especial power, That in thy hand this Praise of Praises holdest ; And from the top of truth's triumphant tower, The hidden sense of fairest thoughts unfoldest ; Inspire this heart and humble soul of mine, With some sweet sparkle of thy power divine. Vennard. THE BRIDE SEEKING AND FINDING THE KING. CANTICLE I. CHAP. I.-II. 7. PART I. CHAP. I. 2-8.— THE SEARCH FOR THE KING. I. THE ANOINTED KING. HIS KISS HIS LOVE — HIS NAME — HIS CHAMBERS. The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. Let Him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth ; for thy love is better than wine. Because of the savour of thy good ointments — Thy name {is as) Ointment poured forth — therefore do the virgins love thee. Draw me, we will run after thee. The King hath brought me into his chambers ; we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine ; the upright love thee. — Chap. i. 1-4. THE KISS OE THE ANOINTED KING. The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's, seems to be so en titled, as composed by Solomon, the wisest of men, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and as composed con cerning the true Solomon, the Prince of Peace, of whom the son of David was an eminent type. It belongs to the earthly Solomon, as the skilful work of his hands ; to the heavenly Solomon, as the utterance of his heart to the Church, and of the heart of the Church toward him. ' The Song of Songs of Solomon ' would nearly express the ambiguous fulness of the original, and might be taken to mean either by Solomon or concerning him ; and in a hieroglyphic book, every word of which is an earthly 4 THE ANOINTED KING. CH. I. 2. symbol with a heavenly meaning, it is altogether probable that the title itself has a double significance, and has been so framed as to intimate that the Song is of, or by, the earthly Solomon as its author, and of, or concerning, the heavenly Solomon as its subject. It is the Song of Songs, as the choicest both of all the songs of the sons of men, and of all that Solomon sung ; the chief of his thousand songs and five ; the sweetest, the simplest, the highest, the deepest of the songs of the Church in the house of her pilgrimage ; above all others her song in the night, until the day break, and the shadows flee away. ' For this reason, also,' said one who knew it well, ' would I call it the Song of Songs, because other songs must be sung first, and this as the fruit of all the rest ; grace alone teaches it ; experience alone can learn it.' Bride of the Lamb, the Song is yours ; . for if anywhere in the oracles of truth the new song is found, which can be learned by none but the redeemed from the earth, and sung by none but the virgins who follow the Lamb, it must consist in part of this Song of Solomon. Emphati cally this is a song which the men of earth can never learn ; like Christ himself, it is a stumbling-block to one, to another foolishness ; but by this very token will- you recognise the word and image of your Lord, and 'bind the book as a crown upon you,' glorying in the reproach of the cross. ' If thy pleasure be In sacred song and sweet soliloquy, Thou that art troth-plight, with the endless ring Of lasting love, unto the Heir of heaven, And hast received thy wedding-robes, may sing The Song of Songs — to thee alone 'tis given.' Let Him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. — A kiss is the pledge of peace, and the prayer for such a token forms CH. I. 2. HIS KISS. 5 a most fit commencement for these communications between Solomon the Prince of Peace, and the Shulamite the daughter of Peace. It is the voice of the Ancient Church praying for the personal appearing of the Messiah, promised to the fathers, the long cherished Desire of all nations, the Hope of Israel deferred till the heart is sick. Types have come, Moses and the prophets have come, Aaron and the priests have come, and last of all David and the kings have come; but let Him now come Himself, the true prophet, priest, and king of all his people. ' I hear not Moses for he is slow of speech, the lips of Isaiah are un clean, Jeremiah cannot speak because he is a child, and all the prophets are dumb ; Himself, himself of whom they speak, let him speak.' His messengers betrothed me not to themselves but to Him, and with the kisses of his own mouth let him therefore ' kiss me.' The law came to our fathers in fire and thunder and earthquake, but let there come now the still small voice of the Prince of Peace ; let it be no longer the command and the curse, but the free grace of Him in whom ' righteousness and peace kiss each other.' Ceremonies and sacrifices have been granted, and such communion as might be had through these we have enjoyed ; but we have heard the voice of One who said ' Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, lo I come,' and let Him therefore come, let me see himself, and let him kiss me no longer by the lips of messengers standing in his room, but let him kiss me now with the kisses of his own mouth. The Bride names him not, because like Mary at the sepulchre her heart is too full of him to utter his name at once ; she names him not, because he is the First and the Last, none along with him, or like to him, or next to him from whom he needs be distinguished; she names him not, because she speaks not to him as present, yet cannot speak 6 THE ANOINTED KING. CH. I. 2. of him as absent, for he is neither— absent he cannot be, yet he is not present as she would have him; and she names him not, herself immediately assigning the reason, because 'His name is as ointment poured forth,' which hath filled, all the house of God on earth, all the virgins know it, and there is no need to utter it. But nay rather she does name him, immediately supplying the omission ; for in the next verse she employs no mark of comparison as we do, but simply announces, ' Ointment poured forth is thy Name,' the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, thee I address, that is thy name. But hers is the prayer of the Church in all ages ; for indeed He has come, and she has seen him, but he has gone again, and she sees him no more, save with the eye of faith, till he shall return to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Then, indeed, we shall know that ' his mouth is most sweet, and that he is altogether lovely.' But mean while the believing soul entreats, first, the kiss of reconcilia tion; like that with which the father embraced his prodigal son, when he fell on his neck and kissed him, or that of Joseph embracing his amazed brethren, when he kissed them one by one, and wept upon them. Bride though she be, she is bride to the slain Lamb of God, from whom she has been wholly estranged, who has redeemed her with his own blood and forgiven all her trespasses ; from whom she daily estranges herself, and who day by day forgives her debts, and daily says to her ' If I wash thee not thou hast no part with me.' The first kiss of reconciled love to ' her a. sinner ' was inconceivably sweet, and if this token of favour lose its preciousness by repetition, it is time for her to in quire if she has numbered herself now with the ninety and nine just persons, who need no repentance and have no forgiveness. The reconciled soul entreats, next, the kiss of solemn CH. I. 2. HIS KISS. 7 nuptial contract, used by men in the marriage covenant, and condescendingly vouchsafed in figure by the great Bridegroom of the Church. 'In redemption He grants not deliverance only but freedom, not freedom only but adoption, not adoption only as a son, but espousal as a bride.' The contract, indeed, has been already sealed on the day of first believing, ' I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness ; ' the marriage itself has been concluded, ' Behold, I am married unto you, and thou shalt no more call me " Baali," my Lord, but " Ishi," my Husband.' Yet meanwhile, and until the final supper of the Lamb, it is a cbntract permitting and requiring the renewal of its seals, an espousal demanding frequent repetition of its solemn pledges. And trembling soul, lest you fear to have no portion in His grace, listen to the manner in which he invites you to enter this closest covenant, ' Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest ; take up my yoke and learn of me, and ye shall find rest to your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light;' It is the marriage bond which he invites you to share along with him, in reference to the emblematic yoke said to have been placed upon the necks of the bridegroom and bride. Your marriage union with the law has been an ' unequal yoke,' for through your guilty weakness the ' holy, just, and good commandment ' has become to you as a hard taskmaster; righteously requiring you to run its heavenward race when you have fallen and cannot move, to bear its weighty burden when you are already sick unto death. But Jesus interposes, ' Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, take up my yoke, for my yoke is easy.' Great as the disparity may appear, His is no unequal yoke, for he is your glorious and perfect counter part ; all sin, all weakness, all death in you, all righteous ness, all strength, all life in Him. Leave, then, both 8 THE ANOINTED KING. CH. I. 2. the covenant command and the covenant curse of the law, and say, 'Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.' ' Yea, as of old a wayworn exiled man, Meeting the daughter of his mother's house, Owned her at once his heaven-affianced bride (Though to be won by servitude and toil), And Rachel kissed, and as he kissed her wept, And years were days when measured by his love. So meeting in thine own appointed hour Mercy's long-chosen ones, with yearning heart Rejoicing over them with kind delight, Betroth them to Thyself in faith and truth.' Metrical Meditations. But further, the believer asks the kiss of divine friend ship and fellowship, as a constant token of that love which excels all other joy on earth ; and as a foretaste of the actual sight of Him ' whom having not seen he loves.' But this will recur again in the concluding feature of the glorious Eedeemer's person. Meanwhile we have only to add, that the ' kiss of the mouth,' is not a merely redundant expression, but a description of closest fellowship in con trast with more distant salutation, as by kissing the hand. The patriarch Job, portraying the process by which the idolater is secretly enticed to adore the moon walking in brightness, speaks of ' the hand kissing the mouth,' and an old translator renders this commencement of the Song, ' 0 with the kisses of his mouth let him kiss mine.' Let us now hear the whole substance of the words : ' His mouth the joy of heaven reveals ; < His kisses from above, Are pardons, promises, and seals Of everlasting love.' CH. I. 2. HIS LOVE, BETTER THAN WINE HIS LOVE. For thy love is better than wine. — Wine is the highest of the luxuries of earth, and is here used to comprehend them all ; even as the banquet of wine, at which Esther enter tained her consort and king, was obviously a feast of the choicest delicacies, though wine alone is expressed. The love ' better than wine ' is not simply the everlasting love of the Lord Jesus Christ to his Church, but is rather the enjoyment of that love in its free communication, when the soul ' tastes and sees that the Lord is good ; ' it is the experience of the love that is characterised as excellent above all earthly delights. ' In whom though now we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.' Neither is it the future enjoyment of Christ's love in heaven, but the present enjoyment of his love on earth, that is better than all the joys of earth together — ' Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and wine increased.' Without corn and without. wine, the bride of Christ re joices more in His love than in all abundance : ' Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither fruit shall be in the vine, the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat ; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.' Nor is it simply that the love is purer and more lasting, and therefore better ; but at the moment, and in reference to mere delight, divine love is better far than wine. More than ' strong drink to him that is ready to perish, or wine to him that is of a heavy heart,' is the love of Christ, cheering and reviving to the fainting soul of the believer, when ' he drinks and forgets his poverty, and remembers his misery no more.' More, also, in the season of gladness than wine to the animal spirits, is the love of Christ exhilarating to the spiritual 10 THE ANOINTED KING. CH. I. 2. man, and through the inward spirit to the entire person in mind and body ; making men forget adversity, making them forget prosperity, by the overflowing of its joys. Yea, Bride of the Lamb, if your Lord fills your earthly cup, and your eye is so fixed on the Giver as to overlook the gift ; if, captivated with His beauty, and ' counting all things loss for his excellence,' the earthly wine is spilt in your hand, the world will mock you, for they see not Him who replenished the cup, but the King will never forget the devotion of your heart, when deed rather than word declared, ' Thy love is better than wine.' The love here commended is specially ' the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost given to us ; ' and when the Holy Ghost was thus given of old to the afflicted Bride of Christ, their enemies saw it and said, These men are full of new wine ; yet wine of earth it was not, but ' love better than wine.' The command is given to the believer, ' Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit,' because the Spirit inebriates not, yet ex hilarates and overcomes the soul. One single luxury alone did Christ create during his whole sojourn on earth, it was in the first of all his miracles, and that luxury was wine, better wine doubtless than earth had ever tasted. At the marriage in Cana of Galilee he thus manifested forth his glory as the Bridegroom of the Church; and while the governor of the feast was arrested with its surpassing ex cellence, and exclaimed, ' Thou hast kept the 'good wine until now,' his' disciples through the miracle believed on the Lord, and the inward language of their hearts was, Thy love is better than wine. At his first marriage supper on earth, the Bridegroom made the wine for the children of the bridechamber ; at his last supper he opened the emblem, by explaining that the true vine is himself, and the juice of its grapes his own most precious blood; CH. I. 3. HIS NAME. , 1 1 that love cannot go beyond laying down the life, and that his life-blood is 'the good wine kept until now,' the love better than wine. — How sad your case, 0 reader, if your highest joy transcend not the wine of earth ; because when that is drunk with all its poisoned sweets, then ' in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red, it is full of mixture, and the dregs thereof all the wicked of the earth shall wring out and drink.' OINTMENT POURED FORTH HIS NAME. Because of the savour of thy good ointments, thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee. — Jesus is the Lord's anointed, the Messiah, the Christ, all whose ' garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia.' The Bride, when he is born in Bethlehem, brings him sweet spices from a far country, and presents to him ' gold, and frankincense, and myrrh ;' and while the lowly child Jesus is wrapped in swaddling clothes, all his raiment is fragrant with myrrh, aloes, and cassia. In the course of his minis try the Bride, while the Bridegroom is with her, weeping and loving much, because much has been forgiven her, breaks her ' alabaster box,' and anoints his feet with pre cious ointment. When the Bridegroom is about to be taken away, the Bride for the day of his burying takes ' a pound of spikenard very costly,' and anoints both the head and the feet of Jesus till the house is filled with the odour of the ointment, while the traitor murmurs alike at its quantity and its costliness. After his death the Bride, bolder than during his life, ' brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes about an hundred pound weight, and took the body of Jesus and wound it in linen clothes with the spices; ' enough, say modern murmurers, to have embalmed many bodies, but not enough, said the Bride of Jesus, for the 1 2 THE ANOINTED KING. CH. I. 3. one body of him who is Chief among ten thousand ; for she still ' prepares spices and ointments,' wherewith to embalm him afresh after the rest of the Sabbath is over. All those acts were typical, and point to Christ not as anointed by men, but as himself the box of purest alabaster full of precious perfume ; which, when broken, fills with its fragrance all the house of God, the meeting-place of the general assembly of the first-born. The ' savour of the good ointments ' includes both the anointing Spirit and the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. The Spirit is ' given not by measure ' unto him ; and full of the Holy Ghost he preaches, The Spirit of the Lord hath anointed me to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. ' Therefore do the virgins love him,' chiefly for the attractive fragrance of the anointing that rests upon himself; yet also because the precious ointment on the head of Aaron ' goes down to the skirt of his garments,' and because God hath anointed us in him, hath given us ' an unction from the Holy One,' and called us ' Christians ' even as he is ' the Christ' (2 Cor. i. 21). But further, the savour of the ointments is the fragrance of the sacrifice of Christ. The first mention of fragrance in the Bible is the ' sweet savour ' of a bloody sacrifice. Each of the other senses has had its notice ; the voice entering the ear, the pleasantness attracting the eye, the goodness for food alluring the taste, and the 'touch it not' have all had their record ; but there is no mention of fra grance till Noah has built an altar and offered burnt- offerings, whence ' the Lord smelled a sweet savour,' not indeed from the first of all sacrifices, but from sacrifice the. first of all savours unto Jehovah. Throughout the old economy fragrance is to a great extent appropriated to the same object, as in the holy incense around which ran the jealous words that ' whosoever should make like unto that, CH. I. 3. HIS NAME. 13 to smell thereto, should even be cut off from his people.' In like manner in the new dispensation, Christ hath loved us and given himself for us, ' an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour.' He is indeed the Anointed one, apart from his sacrifice ; yet never irre spectively, for he is anointed with the Holy Ghost 'against the day of his burying.' But without the sacrifice his name, had never been ' Ointment poured forth,' for all the unction would then have been his own, and not ours. But when he ' poureth out his soul unto death,' the oint ment compounded of every precious ingredient that heaven and earth could supply, of all that was infinitely fragrant in the unseen God, and exquisitely fragrant in the work of his hands, is poured out to its last drop till heaven and earth are filled with the perfume. Ointment poured forth is His name ; and sinners, of whom the Lord says that they have been as ' smoke in his nostrils all the day,' heed no other name to make them most sweet and acceptable, even a sweet savour of Christ unto God. Therefore the very name of Jesus, of Christ, of Lord, has such a power over his people, that the mere utterance of it fills them with joy and peace, scattering abroad the soul-reviving perfume ; much more the full preaching of the everlasting gospel, which is the declaration of His name, fills the earth with the know ledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. ' I love the name of Jesus, Immanuel, Christ, the Lord; Like fragrance on the breezes, His name abroad is poured.' But if you have no part in this anointing, your ' soul shall be gathered with sinners and your life with bloody men ;' you shall sink into that deep pit whither is flowing down continually the scum of all the universe ; all that is noxious and offensive everywhere gathered into that seeth- 14 THE ANOINTED KING. CH. I. 3. ing lake, whence ascendeth ' the smoke of their torment for ever and ever.' Make haste to ask, Let my prayer come before thee as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Therefore do the virgms love thee. — These virgins are thus described by the apostle John : ' Lo, a Lamb /stood on the mount Zion, and with him an hundred and forty and four thousand having his Father's name written in their fore heads, and they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand which were redeemed from the earth ; these are they which were not defiled with women, for they are virgins ; these are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth ; these were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God and the Lamb.' They bear such characters as these : redeemed from among men ; taught of God that song which no earthly man can learn to sing, not unlike this Song of Songs into which carnal minds can never enter; willing first-fruits dedicated to God and the Lamb; constant followers of the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, as a wife never forsaking the guide of her youth. They form an exceeding great multi tude ' which no man can number,' yet each is ' espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ.' Among those that seem to be virgins on earth, five are wise and five are foolish ; but these are virgins in the eye of the Lamb, for the charac teristic of them all is that ' they love thee.' David was one of them, and he sung, I love the Lord ; Peter was one, and he wrote of himself and of them all, Whom having not seen ye love ; John was one, and he testified, We love him because he first loved us; Paul was one, and he imprecated, If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha. The virgins love Thee, all the virgins love Thee; ' son of Jonas, lovest thou me V son of Adam, lovest thou Him 1 CH. I. 4. HIS CHAMBERS. 15 THE CHAMBERS OF THE KING. Draw me, we will run after thee. The king hath brought me into hjs chambers ; we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine : the upright love thee.— Chap. I. 4. The King, withdrawing into the glorious chambers of his majesty and grace, has left the soul that seeketh him without ; in approaching him the soul seems to have lost rather than gained, but therefore stirs itself all the more to prayer, resolution, hope; and describes from remem brance those chambers of the King into which it ardently desires now to be admitted. Draw me, we will run after thee. — ' Draw me,' in the fourth verse, is expressive of the same desire as ' let him kiss me' in the second, but is at once more earnest and more distant ; exactly as ' tell me,' in the seventh verse, is again both more earnest and more distant, than 'draw me' in the fourth. ' Let him kiss me,' he has just left and is not far off, let him come to me; but he comes not, he kisses not, and therefore the soul rises to follow and to find him, or rather to follow and overtake, for he is not lost and is not far before. But when the spirit girds itself for such an exercise, presently it feels its helplessness. ' Let him come to me' if he will, and when he willeth he can come ; but since he cometh not, I cannot go to him ' except the \ Father which hath sent him draw me,' or except he draw ¦¦ me himself; for he is one with the Father. Draw me, Thou whose name is ointment poured forth ; draw me, for I would come, but I am weak ; I would come to thee, but !"" a thousand cords draw me from thee ; sin draws, the flesh J draws, Satan draws, the world draws, the fair earth itself, with its things seen and temporal, draws me from things unseen and eternal. Lord, draw me with cords of a man, 1 6 THE ANOINTED KING. CH. I. 4. with bands of love sweetly alluring me to thyself; draw me with cords so strong that they will not break in the strain, cords stronger than death and hell ; draw me with cords so fast, that the oily subtlety of sin within me shall never wind my soul out of their bonds. Draw me, thou mighty One, with power irresistible, irresistible by me, irresistible by all the powers of darkness, draw me to thyself. ' But like a block beneath whose burthen lies That undiscovered worm that never dies, I have no will to rouse, I have no power to rise. — For can the water-buried axe implore A hand to raise it, or itself restore, And from her sandy deeps approach the dry foot-shore? So hard's the task for sinful flesh and blood To lend the smallest help to what is good ; My God, I cannot move the least degree. Ah ! if but only those who active be, None should thy glory see, thy glory none should see. Lord, as I am, I have no power at all To hear thy voice, or echo to thy call. — Give me the power to will, the will to do ; , 0 raise me up and I will strive to go : Draw me, 0 draw me with thy treble-twist, That have no power, but merely to resist ; 0 lend me strength to do, and then command thy list.' Quarles. We will run after thee. — For the desire to be drawn is not in indolence, but in helplessness. Those words in the lips of many are only the creaking of ' the door upon its hinges,' the prayer of the slothful not really desiring to run. But in the true Bride of Christ there is, combined with the cry for help, the attitude of earnestness and energy, We will run after thee; being drawn and enabled CH. I. 4. HIS CHAMBERS. 1 7 we will hasten toward thee meeting us, we will follow after thee departing from us. ' My soul followeth thee hard, and thy right hand upholdeth me ;' thy hand upholdeth me that I may run, and I run after thee that I may be upheld by thy hand. Being so drawn and so supported, the feet of the Bride are made swift as the hind's, follow ing the Lord and overtaking him, then running along with him in the way of his commandments. Draw me, for the Church is one, and he loved the Church and gave himself for it ; and we will run, for the Church consists of many, even of all whom the Father hath given to the Son. It is a lowly individuality, every one recognising his own special helplessness ; it is a noble union, all agreeing in one "divine resolution. Jesus 'lifted up draws all men unto him ;' all ' the given' ones are ' drawn,' all the drawn ones 'come,' all the comers 'run,' all the runners desire that every man on earth should enter the race, all the racers that throng the course hinder not but help the progress of each, and every winner of the prize of eternal life cheers on all that follow, till their heads also are encircled with the ' crown of glory that fadeth not away.' Lift up then your hands that hang down, and strengthen your feeble knees, fainting soul and lame ; arise and run the race set before you, looking unto Jesus ; and you shall mount up with wings as eagles, you shall run and not be weary, shall walk and not faint. The king hath brought me. — The King is the same spoken of in the second Psalm, as ' the Son whom we are to kiss, the Lord's anointed, the king whom he hath set upon his holy hill of Zion ; ' in the forty-fifth, in ' the things made touching the king ; ' and everywhere throughout the Psalms and the prophets. The Jews acknowledge that the king in those Psalms, and throughout this Song, is Messiah. In the New Testament he is King of kings, B 1 8 THE ANOINTED KING. CH. I. 4. and king of saints ; and he asserts his own sovereignty, ¦ saying, ' ye call me Lord and Master and ye say well for so I am, ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.' He is never prophet, priest, redeemer, husband, except he is also king; king over ourselves, our bodies presented to him a living sacrifice; king over our substance, for to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba ; king over our lips, for we shall give account to him of every idle word in the day of judgment ; and king over our hearts, bringing every thought into subjection unto Christ. He is the king that hath conquered us, whose arrows were sharp in our hostile hearts, who also made us willing in the day of his power ; but he is the king likewise who hath conquered for us, triumphing over sin, over Satan, over death, over hell. This King, saith the bride, hath brought me into his chambers. To her it had been fore told, or rather promised, that ' she should be brought unto the king ; ' and she gratefully owns the fulfilment of the sure word of God. Nay more, the king himself had brought her; for he it is who brings all, as well as to whom all are brought, laying on himself a blessed neces sity and saying ' them also must I bring.' In the lips of the believer it is a powerful plea, that he has not rushed either unbidden or unaided into the king's presence, but that the king himself has both called and brought forward his guests. It is a mighty argument for being drawn anew, received again, and admitted into yet inner chambers of royalty. Understood of the Church collective, the reference applies to the recorded manifestations of the divine glory in earlier ages. The. bride in the time of Solomon re members the day when the migratory temple was reared in the desert, and ' the cloud covered the tent of the con gregation and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle,' CH. I. 4. HIS CHAMBERS. 1 9 and prays for a similar yet greater blessing on the temple of Solomon. The bride in the days of Simeon remembers the dedication of Solomon's temple, when Jehovah owned its courts as 'the chambers of the king;' so that the priests could not stand to minister, because ' the glory of the Lord had filled the, house of God ; ' and desires that ' the glory of the latter house may be greater than of the former,' by the manifestation within it of Immanuel, God with us. The bride in our day recalls the Pentecostal rushing of the 'mighty wind from heaven' that filled the house, when the upper room formed the chambers of the great king ; and prays that ' the glory of the Lord may fill the earth as the waters cover the sea,' and that the Lord may hasten the great day of his; own appearing. Into his chambers — which the man after God's own heart calls ' the secret of his presence, his pavilion, and the secret of his tabernacle.' It is the sanctuary of Jehovah, the secret place where the stranger intermeddleth not, where the noise of tongues intrudeth not ; ' the place by him ' in the cleft of the rock, where he covers with his hand and communes with his chosen. It is fbe same of which Jesus said, ' knock and it shall be opened unto you,' and con cerning which it had been promised, 'they shall enter into the king's palace.' What awe, what trembling, what joy, what peace and holiness are there ! What desire to enter, what gratitude for admission, what admiration of the divine beauty, what gladness within the holy place ; yet what shrinking, yea, almost withdrawing, ' woe is me for , I am of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen' the King the Lord of hosts.' But because they are the king's chambers, they are also ours, for 'my Beloved is mine and I am his ;' and while the bride calls them his chambers he calls them hers, saying, ' Come, my people, enter thou into thy cham bers and shut thy doors about thee.' It has much to do 20 THE ANOINTED KING. CH. I. 4. with ' entering into the closet, and shutting-to the door, and praying to the Father in secret ; ' yet it is not the closet of the house but of the heart, or rather of the heart of the Lord, where the life is hid with Christ in God. It is the inmost sanctuary of Jehovah, chambers not one but several; the soul led into chamber after chamber, one chamber within another and still one further within ; the outer court with its altar of burnt-offering, the holy place with its golden altar of incense, the holiest of all with the cloud of divine glory between the cherubim. Brought by the king, yet knocking at each successive door ; the king himself opening, admitting the soul within, and leading it onward and inward till the whole spirit says, ' How fear ful is this place ! this is none other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven.' We will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine. — The Bride of the Lamb is full both of gratitude and hope, present fellowship alone she wants. Yet she has not lost it by negligence ; the king is with drawn, and she scarcely knows that he is gone. She first asks some renewed token of his love ; then she refreshes herself with the holy fragrance which his presence had diffused and left; then she asks to be drawn, and girds herself to run to overtake him ; then she considers, and makes herself certain that he had vouchsafed his fellow ship ; then she comforts herself with the assured hope of its renewal, ' we will be glad and rejoice in thee,' and with fixing fast in her memory all the grace and truth that she had tasted, ' we will remember thy love more than wine.' More than royal banquets we will remember thy love, yea more than the sacramental wine itself, and all the accom paniments of the feast at which that love was revealed. The sixty-third Psalm describes a similar spiritual condi tion, not of present satisfying communion with God, but CH. I. 4. HIS CHAMBERS. 21 of earnest longing after it, and with such remembrance of past, and such hope of future, as almost or altogether forms present fellowship. Let us compare the Psalm of David with the Song of Solomon : — Let him kiss me with the kisses My soul thirsteth — my flesh longeth to see thy of his mouth. Chap. i. 2. glory. Ps. Ixiii. 1, 2. For thy love is better than wine. Because thy loving-kindness is better than 2. life. 3. Because of the savour of thy good My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and ointments, thy name is as oint- fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee. 5. ment poured forth. 3. Therefore do the virgins love 0 God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee. 3. thee ; every one that sweareth by him shall The upright love thee. 4. glory, but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped. 1, 11. Draw me, we will run after thee. My soul followeth hard after thee : thy right 4. hand upholdeth me. 8. The king hath brought me into So as I have seen thee in the sanctuary ; be- his chambers. 4. cause thou hast been my help. 2, 7. We will be glad and rejoice in Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I thee. 4. rejoice. 7. We will remember thy love more My mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips, than wine. 4. when I remember thee upon my bed. 5, 6. TeU me, O thou whom my soul O God, thou art my God, my soul thirsteth loveth, where thou makestthy for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry flock to rest at noon. 7. land. 1. The upright love thee. — The upright men of the fourth verse, and the virgins of the third are the same ; the same by the structure of the words, for they are introduced as parallels ; the same in reality, for the distinction of both is that they love the Lord Jesus Christ, and virginity of soul and uprightness of heart are one. Nathanael is of their number, and Jesus witnesses of him, Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile : not in whom no sin, but in whom no guile ; and David had already sung, Blessed is the man whose sin is forgiven, and in whose spirit there is no guile. The natural deceit and self- covering, that are in and over all men, have been removed by the Holy Spirit ; and he has become honest and upright so as to confess sin, to condemn himself, to justify God. Every such man admires and loves the Lord Jesus Christ, 22 THE ANOINTED KING. CH. I. 4. like Simeon, ' just and devout, waiting for, the consolation of Israel ;' he loves him both as the living righteous One, and as the just One dying for the unjust. But as through grace inworking there is now no guile, so also through grace forgiving there is now no guilt; the upright is like wise the justified and righteous. The mark of all such men is that they own Jesus, come to Jesus, believe in Jesus, love Jesus, follow Jesus. ' Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.' He is the great test and trial of the sons of men, set for the rising and falling of many; the foundation-stone of their building, or their stone of stumbling and rock of offence. How many who are proud of their own uprightness will be confounded with sore amazement in the great day, when all the redeemed shall testify to Jesus, The upright love Thee ; but Jesus will announce to them, in awful contrast : Depart from me, I never knew you, all ye workers of iniquity. II. THE BRIDE'S PORTRAIT OF HERSELF. THE TENTS OF KEDAR, AND CURTAINS OF SOLOMON : THE SUNBURNT SLAVE-GIRL. I am black, but comely, 0 ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me. My mother's children were angry with me ; they made me the keeper of the vineyards : but mine own vineyard have I not kept. — Chap. i. 5, 6. THE TENTS OF KEDAR, AND THE CURTAINS OF SOLOMON. 0 ye daughters of Jerusalem. — But who is this that claims the rank of Bride to the King of kings, that asserts that she has been led by himself into his pavilion, and entreats to be admitted again 1 She looks unbecoming so high a station, unworthy of so great a privilege. The unfitness is felt by herself, and knowing that it is too manifest to others, she addresses them, to obviate the objection, ' 0 ye daughters of Jerusalem.' The parties whom she thus accosts are not the virgins, for these are one with herself, ' draw me, we will run ;' nor are they foes, for she speaks to them of her mother's children who had become her enemies ; nor are they captious on lookers, for while strictly charged not to disturb the rest of the Beloved, they are not driven away as intruders (ii. 7). The riches of Divine grace are ready for them in the gospel (iii. 10); and they are invited to ' behold king Solomon' with his nuptial crown (iii. 11). Their subsequent history is intensely interesting. The Bride's Beloved is confess- 23 24 THE BRIDE'S PORTRAIT OF HERSELF. CH. I. 5. edly not their Beloved, yet some of them are so near to Christ, that she counts it possible for them to find him before her (v. 8) ; they next express their desire to seek him along with her (vi. 1); when he has been found by her, but not by them, they most earnestly contemplate the Bride, and describe her from head to foot, or rather from foot to head, for what first attracts them is her 'feet beautiful with shoes,' publishing peace to Jerusalem (vi. 13; vii. 1); then advancing further, they speak not to the King, yet of him as ' held in the galleries ' (vii. 5) ; another step leads them, or some at least of their number, one by one to ascend the palm-tree with its clusters of exceeding great and precious promises, and to pluck its treasures for them selves (vii. 8) ; and lastly, they exchange the title of ' thy Beloved' for 'my Beloved,' and become one with the bride of the Lamb (vii. 9) ; not all of them, however, for there still remain those who are called the daughters of Jerusalem. Their character thus traced is fitly represented by that company of sorrowing women, whom our Lord on his way to Calvary addressed as the ' daughters of Jeru salem,' comprehending souls in various present conditions, and subjects of vastly different eternal results. Enemies they were not, for they were wailing loudly for his suffer ings; tried friends they cannot on this account be reckoned, for the expression of their sympathy exposed them to no peril. Christ does not own them as disciples, because he bids them ' weep for themselves and their children ;' but he does not leave them alone as if hardened ; and it is probable that many of them afterwards asked, ' what shall we do,' and gladly receiving the word, were baptised in the name of Jesus. If you are numbered among those inquiring daughters of Jerusalem your condition is full of hope, because the kingdom of heaven with its free righteousness and its CH. I. 5. THE TENTS OF KEDAR. 25 saving power is near you, is offered you, is given you if you will have it; but it is also full of danger, because thousands like you are daily 'perishing from the way.' Then shall you know, if you follow on to know the Lord ; but if you tarry in the plain you will be tempted to look behind you, then haply to turn again to your people and to your gods, and finally to have your portion with ' them that draw back unto perdition.' I am black. — Blackness of visage is in Scripture a fre quent image of affliction ; ' for the hurt of the daughter of my people I am black, astonishment hath taken hold on me.' It is enough for the disciple to be as his master, and if the visage of the Man of sorrows was ' so marred more than any man's, and his countenance more than the sons of men,' your countenance, believer, will oft be clouded by affliction, necessities, distresses, infirmities, reproaches. Yet never are you more comely, than when your mother's children are angry with you for your master's sake, and being driven from among them the sun scorches you ; for then most of all ' the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.' But this blackness is a still more lively emblem of the defiling and deforming power of iniquity ; ' though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver.' The face and raiment, blackened with smoke and soot, are here emblematic of sin, for the same persons are depicted as rebels ; ' thou hast received gifts for men, yea for the rebellious also.' Man was made in the image of God, very good, and very fair, ' a Nazarite whiter than snow ;' but by transgression his ' visage has become blacker than a coal,' so that he could not now be recognised. The dark-staining effect of sin on the soul is set forth in Jeremiah by the very same figure as in the Song, when he makes the inquiry, ' Can the Ethiopian 26 THE BRIDE'S PORTRAIT OF HERSELF. CH. I. 5. change his skin?' and returns the reply, 'then may ye also that are accustomed to do evil, learn to do well.' Black — as the tents of Kedar, denotes the deepest black ness as of the Ethiopian's skin, whether we take it of the dark felt with which sometimes, or rather of the dark goat skins, or the camel's hair, with which more frequently, the tent of the wild Arab is described as covered. The inmate of that tent was, also, black . like its covering ; and the contrast most marked between him, and the Nazarite whiter than snow, who ministered in the holy place before the curtains of Solomon. A wild wanderer likewise he was, an Ishmaelite, the child of Hagar, the son of the bondwoman ; a lively image of the unsubdued rebel, who promises himself liberty and is the servant of corruption. ' Woe is me,' said one of the virgins that love the Lord Jesus, ' that I dwell in the tents of Kedar.' Of old he had lodged there, when 'his moisture was turned into the drought of summer ; ' but it was all the more sad to return thither again for his habitation. ' 0 wretched man that I am,' is the voice of another from those tents of Kedar, ' who shall deliver me 1 ' The Bride of Christ had been a child of the bondwoman, and her skin had become as black as the Arab's tent. No beauty, no comeliness, no fairness, no loveliness was in her ; and she owns that she still re tains the odious brand. It is not all that marks her now, but sin deforms her still; and she confesses, not I was black, but ' I am black, 0 daughters of Jerusalem.' It is the soul's turning-point between death and life, when first brought to this confession, ' I am black.' Nature acknowledges both spot and defect, for these it cannot disown, and even its dull eye sees them. But the whole person deformed and disfigured, the whole visage marred, it will not confess. I am not black, is the plea of nature ; I have walked through the muddy paths of sin CH. I. 5. THE CURTAINS OF SOLOMON. 27 and bespattered my raiment, or I have even stumbled into the ditch and bemired myself all over ; but I shall wash the defilement away, and walk heedfully the rest of my course. But the almighty Spirit alone can drive in the conviction and draw forth the confession : I have done evil and cannot cease from sin, I have done evil and cannot learn to do well, I have done evil and cannot efface one stain, for mine is the Ethiopian's skin, I am black with no contrasted comeliness. How humbling, how sadden ing, yet how hopeful, yea how relieving, when the uneasy spirit ceases the vain strife to bring a clean thing out of an unclean, the endless effort to wash the Ethiopian white, and owns I am black. A sad and lowly rest it is, yet a rest from labouring in the fire. So is it likewise with the believer daily ; ' I am black ' would save him a world of inward labour, and hours of cheerless distance from his God. But comely — as the. curtains of Solomon. — The Bride of Christ, in her own outcast condition, is black like the tents of Kedar in the wilderness. But through grace she is comely like the ' curtains of fine twined linen,' which adorned the tent of the Prince of peace when he journeyed through the desert with his people ; and Hke ' the veil of fine linen,' which alike in the tabernacle and the temple, enclosed the holiest of all, being seen by God from within, and by man from without. 'Thy beauty was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee.' To nature it seems excessive humiliation to confess, I am black ; to nature it equally seems excessive presump tion to declare, I am comely. Neither black nor comely, is her confession; not altogether black, not altogether comely. Both black and comely, is the language of the Bride, altogether black in myself, altogether comely in the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ of God is made 28 THE BRIDE'S PORTRAIT OF HERSELF. CH. I. 6. unto her wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemp tion ; and being accepted in the Beloved, and found in him, she confesses I am comely. She denies not but confesses, I am comely as the curtains of Solomon. It is no self- exaltation, nor boasting in aught of her own ; but glorying only in the Lord, ' to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made her accepted in the Beloved.' Black like Kedar's tents without any beauty in herself, comely like Solomon's curtains without any flaw in Christ Jesus ; ever learning each of these more and more, ever becoming more vile in herself and in her own eyes, ever becoming more comely in Christ Jesus ; that is, growing daily in the conscious need of his comeliness, depending more entirely on it, accepting more cordially of it, and re joicing more triumphantly in it. THE SUNBURNT SLAVE-GIRL. Before entering on a more detailed account of her his tory, the Bride thus deprecates the searching examination of Jerusalem's daughters : Look not upon me because I am black. — Fix not your eyes on me, examine me not, for I cannot stand it. You look for spots, I own them all, and am blacker than you account me ; yet for my Redeemer's sake overlook not his comeli ness, wherewith he hath invested me. My sins have taken such hold on me, that I am unable to look up ; look not upon me, daughters of Jerusalem ; look not upon me, Lord of all, but hide thy face from my sins. The soul convinced of its own guilt, cannot bear to be looked on by God's eye above, cannot bear to be looked on by human eyes around, cannot bear to be looked on by its own eye within. It feels as if its exceeding sinfulness were evident to the GH. I. 6. THE SUNBURNT SLAVE-GIRL. 29 whole universe, written and seen on the very counte nance. ' Look not on me, she cries, for I am black ; Beams from above with penetrating force, Revealed my dark condition to myself ; The true light shone, and showed me all my guilt.' Because the sun hath looked upon me : my mother's children . were angry with me ; they made me keeper of the vineyards : but mine own vineyard have I not kept. — This parable bears a striking resemblance to the parable of the penitent prodigal ; with this distinction, that the images in the one are adapted to a son, in the other to a bride. In the one it is the younger of two sons whom the father had; in the other it is ' the daughter of Zion likened to a comely and delicate woman,' the virgin daughter of the great King. Both were once in a father's house, enough and to spare they both enjoyed, servile labour neither of them knew, and a father's kind and watchful eye preserved them both from temptation, from suffering, and from all the evils that wasted without. The son renounces a daily dependence on a father's bounty, and departs from his father's house ; the daughter wearies of constant watching, and goes forth into the world ' to see the daughters of the land.' To him the speedy consequence is, that all the abundance in which he gloried is exchanged for penury, and he is starving ; and to her, that all the comeliness in which she trusted withers under the sun's scorching ray, she has burning instead of beauty, and the skin of Ethiopia for snowy whiteness. In each case the evil is aggravated by the treatment received from others. The son is despised and ill used by the man to whom he joins himself in friendship, and is sent into his fields to feed his swine. - The daughter is hardly dealt with by her mother's children,'' is treated by them not as a sister but a slave, and is set to 30 THE BRIDE'S PORTRAIT OF HERSELF. CH. I. 6. the degrading and servile employment of keeping their vineyards, and driving thence the foxes that spoil their vines. The son, while giving foodrto the grovelling herd, is himself famished more and more ; for the husks which they devour are no meat for him, and he is left to starve. The daughter, scorched without and parched within by the fire of the noon-day sun, dares not to stretch her hand and pluck the rich clusters that hang around her, or dip her cup in the flowing wine-vat when ready to faint ; for the vineyard is ' not her own,' but she is a mere drudge and slave to cruel taskmasters. No marvel that she should afterwards compare the refreshing of Christ's love to the excellence of wine ; because when she had needed it most, and when she saw it in abundance, ' no man gave unto her,' no cheering wine-cup had been presented to her parched lips. The mother's children in the Old Testament parable, and the citizen of the far country in the New, are the same parties under different designations. Both were seeming friends, both proved to be cruel foes, and the relation to both was not of first origin, but of subsequent adoption ; the union in each case having been formed by the wayward child, who had forsaken a heavenly Father's house. This is evident in the prodigal son, and a careful examination makes it equally clear in the wandering daughter. That Psalm of David which forms the compact model for the Song of Solomon, in one of the most marked of all its passages introduces the Eternal . Father addressing the bride of his Son, 'Hearken 0 daughter and consider, forget thine own people and thy father's house.' The heavenly Father calls her his own daughter, his daughter now by adoption, his daughter now by marriage to his only Son ; but his daughter likewise by recovery, his daughter by regeneration, his own apostate daughter restored, his CH. I. 6. THE SUNBURNT SLAVE-GIRL. 31 daughter found that had been lost, his daughter that was dead alive again. The great charge he lays upon her, is to ' forget her own people and her father's house;' and why forget them except because they ought never to have been her own, and had become hers only by her forsaking her heavenly Father's house. Now these ' own people and father's house' of the Psalm, can be none other than ' the mother's children' of the Song. But further, the unkind mother's children, and the foreign citizen hospitable at first but cruel in the end, are introduced at the very same crisis in the respective parables. His fellow-citizen's cruelty was not that which really re duced the prodigal to want, for he was in want already, j but was merely the scourge that drove home the discovery j of his desperate condition. So likewise, it was not the vine-dressing that first marred the beauty of the bride, for she narrates that ' the sun had looked on her' and blackened her already, before her mother's children sent her into the vineyard. She had forsaken the home of her Father and j her God, and roamed in lawless liberty, till by exposure to ) the sun all her beauty had departed. In her wretchedness she joins herself to a citizen of the country whom she calls her father, and his household her mother's children ; and they send her to what was accounted, like swine-herding, a degrading employment for a man, and would be for a female the work only of a slave. This completes what she had much more than commenced, and burns up every fancied remnant of beauty in the once comely and tender daughter of the Great King, till her ' skin is black like an oven.' But thou sad slave-girl, a welcome and wondrous message sounds in thine ears, all unused to the notes of joy. Thy .j- First-born Brother has ransomed thee at a great price, and 5 has made over to thee a vineyard all thine own ; its fruit 32 THE BRIDE'S PORTRAIT OF HERSELF. CH. I. 6. is excellent and comely, its wine without money and with out price ; and thy heavenly Father calls thee to be Bride to his only Son. Not more sweet to the prodigal son when he came to himself, was the new-born thought arising within his heart, ' There is bread enough in my Father's house ; ' than is to thee the heavenly summons, ' Hearken 0 daughter, and forget thine own people, so shall the King greatly de sire thy beauty,' yes thy beauty, for in that hour he clothes thee with his own divine comeliness. Arise, 0 captive daughter of Zion, loose the bands of thy neck, shake thy self from the dust, cast away the mattock with which thou hast wrought in a vineyard that yields thee only labour and sorrow, put on thy beautiful garments, for thy King cometh unto thee just and having salvation; He is thy Lord and worship thou him. Thus shalt thou be brought unto the King in raiment of needlework, with gladness and rejoicing shalt thou be brought, and thou shalt enter into the King's Palace. But while the chief neglect of the ' own vineyard' was in bondage to sin, to the world, to Satan, in whose service a man's ' own soul' is forgot and cast away; and in bondage to the law, which gives soul-labour in that which is now a fruitless field ; we cannot leave this passage without re membering, that in God's own children there is often sad neglect of the vineyard of their own souls, which also the 'confession includes. Ministers, parents, teachers, members , of churches are tempted so to attend to the interests of other souls, as to forget their own. Abroad the Heathen, the Jew, the Papist, the Greek, the Mohammedan; at home the homeless wanderer in the wilderness of the crowded city, the Ishmaelite in the tents of Kedar hard by the curtains of Solomon ; are all sought out, though not sufficiently, and their vineyards cared for, while the vine yard of our own souls lies neglected, its stone wall broken CH. I. 6. THE SUNBURNT SLAVE-GIRL. 33 down, the fence thereof covered with nettles. But let us all remember, that in the great day no keeping of other men's vineyards will compensate for the neglect of our own ; and that how good or how" urgent soever may seem the cause that induces the evil, ' the ground that beareth briars and thorns is nigh unto cursing, and its end is to be burned.' To fill the heart with grace is not, indeed, within our own power, yet the empty and earthly heart is the product, as well as the source of our own sin. ' Against myself I bear record, That hence my bondage flows : While I neglect to serve the Lord, I 'm left to serve my foes.' ' My own vineyard have I not kept ' is ever a painful and humbling confession ; if made lightly or without grief and shame, the evil owned is aggravated by the very acknowledgment ; and so also, if it is confessed without resolute purpose of immediate amendment. My own vineyard I have not kept, is neither atonement for the past, nor satisfaction for the future. If truth compels us to adopt the confession, let us through grace resolve and commence at once to effect and maintain a thorough order ing, and diligent keeping of the vineyard of our own heart and life. Whatever is neglected let us attend to this, till in measure we are enabled to say to the praise of his grace, ' my own vineyard I have kept ;' not only for the world, nor for the church, but for myself, ' I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith, I have finished my course.' Having adopted this humbling acknowledgment of the Bride in the commencement of her Song, let us not rest till enabled to unite with her at its close in saying, ' my vineyard which is mine is before me ' (viii. 1 2). Let us ever also remember, that the utmost honour man can - render to God on earth is the well-kept vineyard of his I 34 THE BRIDE'S PORTRAIT OF HERSELF. CH. I. 6. own heart and life ; and that the greatest benefit he can bestow on his fellow-men, is to set before them the example, the warning, the attraction, the encouragement, and the holy provocation of his own vineyard well kept ; that is. well walled, well watched, well watered, well dug, well weeded, well planted, well pruned ; a vineyard bearing through Jesus Christ by the Spirit ' much fruit ' to the great husbandman, even the Father. Amen. III. THE SHEPHERD WHOM THE SOUL LOVETH. HIS PASTURE AND NOONTIDE REST — THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE FLOCK AND FEEDING-PLACE OF THE KIDS. Tell me, 0 thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon ; for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions ? If thou know not, 0 thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents.— Chap. i. 7, 8. THE GOOD SHEPHERD'S PASTURE AND NOONTIDE REST. Tell me, 0 thou whom my soul loveth, is the earnest address of the Bride, whose holy desire for divine fellowship in creases in proportion as it is deferred; the lost sheep, returning to the Bishop of souls, loves with all its strength the Shepherd who laid down his life. These words recall the intercourse of Jesus with Peter, penitent and restored. Lovest thou me, the risen Bride groom inquires, and with reason, for how changed was thy visage, Bride of the Lamb, in the hour of trial ! Thou wast first of the children of the bridechamber while the Bride groom was with them, foremost of the lamp-bearing virgins, with swiftest foot and surest eye didst thou meet thy Lord and salute him, Thou art the Christ, ointment poured forth is thy name. Thine was the most earnest prayer, Draw me we will run after thee, so that even the deep waters did not chill thy love, ' If it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water;' and the King had brought thee into his 35 36 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. CH. I. 7. chambers, where ' not flesh and blood but the Father in heaven' had unveiled and revealed his Beloved Son. But in thine own strength didst thou go forth, the watchmen found thee and took away thy veil, the sun of fiery trial looked on thee and smote thee with its rays, and ere thou knewest thy beauty was ' burned as an hearth.' Thy mother's children were angry with thee, when they saw thee in the garden with him, their threats and reproaches brought thee into bondage, and thou wast an unfaithful guardian of thine own vineyard in that hour; its gate, even the door of thy lips, thou didst not keep, and its well of living waters the stranger soiled. Then thy Lord looked on thee in love, and no marvel if thy weeping face was hid, and thy sobs spake for thee, Look not upon me for I am black, for the sun hath looked upon me. But Bride of the Lamb, Lovest thou me, asks thy Lord anew, — Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee ; Simon son of Jonas lovest thou me, — Lord thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee. So here the Bride having confessed her deformity, yet protests that she loves the Lord Jesus Christ, and protests it more earnestly than before. ' The virgins love thee,' she had said more distantly at first ; ' the upright love thee' next, confirming her first declaration ; but now she ardently affirms like Peter, ' my soul loveth thee, yea Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.' The love of the redeemed to the Redeemer, of the saved to the Saviour, is the most real of all affections, is love not in word but in truth. Neither is it a surface affection, but the deepest in the heart ; nor a partial attachment of some of the affections, but the devotion of the whole soul. ' Thou shalt love with all thy heart, and soul, and strength, and mind,' is a devotion which no creature can demand, and which no creature by demanding can obtain. The creature may^ CH. I. 7.. HIS PASTURE AND NOONTIDE REST. 37 indeed, be loved ' more than the Creator who is blessed for evermore ; ' but it can never satisfy, and can never elicit, the whole heart's desire. The attractive loveliness of things seen and temporal consists mainly in the beauty with which the admiring mind invests them ; but in Him self, and not in your imagination, the King is ' altogether lovely,' sufficient to draw forth and to satisfy all your affections. Flesh He is of your flesh and bone of your bone, but likewise your Lord whom you may, whom you can, whom you must adore with all your heart ; the Lord your God whom lawfully you may, whom attractively you can, and whom imperatively you shall love with all your mind, and all your soul, and all your strength. Christ loved by the believer with his whole heart, is at the same time loved above all, alone of all, instead of all. It is not merely ' my soul loveth' thee, but ' 0 Thou whom my soul loveth.' Jesus claims such love, and will accept of nothing less, of nothing else. To the Bride, the little flock, the constant followers of the Shepherd, he declares unequivocally, He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. To the daughters of Jerusalem, the people who crowd around him in multitudes, he turns and protests, that if they desire to be numbered with ' the virgins that love him,' theirs also must be such an affection, If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. The Bride replies by the mouth- of one of the virgins, ' Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the. excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ and be found in him.' Yet how rare is this love, how divided the hearts , 38 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. CH. I. 7. of most professed followers of the Lamb, how few can address him sincerely, Thou whom my soul loveth; not merely whom my soul honoureth, but whom my soul loveth, not whom my soul obeyeth, but whom my soul loveth, not whom my soul ought to love, but whom my soul doth love. Tell me where thou feedest, is the cry of longing desire, but also of earnest and baffled inquiry ; yet different from the midnight search when the Bride has to ask 'the watchmen' for her absent Lord, and still more different from the penitent inquiry in which she has recourse to ' the daughters of Jerusalem.' Here Christ is not so far off, nor does she ask of others, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth; but directly accosts himself, 0 Thou whom my soul loveth, tell me where thou feedest thy flock. It is however no longer ' Draw me we will run,' when the Lord is before, and she only requires to follow ; He is now not merely distant and must be overtaken, but lost and must be found ; yet she has recourse to none but himself, 0 tell me where Thou feedest. It is altogether a singular inter course which Jesus holds with his bride through the misty veil that separates them. Through this mist He constantly ddresses her, as if within hearing but not within sight. Seek and ye shall find, is the word of one not far off; so near that he speaks and we hear his voice, we answer and he hears us, yet himself we cannot reach. ' We go forward but he is not there, backward but we cannot perceive him, on the left hand where be worketh, but we cannot behold him, he hideth himself on the right hand that we cannot see him.' Yet we hear the words of his truth by the hearing of the ear, and the reply ascends into his ears from our lips. In a moment of grace He might unveil himself, yet himself he unveils not ; in a moment of anger he might withdraw himself and be silent, yet he withdraws CH. I. 7. HIS PASTURE AND NOONTIDE REST. 39 not, and he is not silent. But hiding himself he saith, Seek and ye shall find ; directing us to seek, and promising / to reward our search; yet again when we have sought, answering us anew, ' Then shall ye find me, when ye search for me with all your heart.' He answers his Bride, but his reply is not, ' Behold me ;' but ' Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock.' Strange, attractive, trying, • fascinating intercourse for the soul ; wondrous testing of i patience, of submission, of love, of zeal, of perseverance ; ( singular revelation of condescension, pity, love, grace, com- ? bined with holy sovereignty, highest dignity, and inscrutable \ majesty. 0 the height, and the depth, and the length, and ^ the breadth of the love of God ; 0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearch able are his judgments and his ways past finding out !• Tell me where thou feedest, is a confession not only of weakness requiring to be drawn, but of darkness requiring to be enlightened. 'For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; if ye were blind ye should have no sin.' The inquiry implies ignor ance felt and owned. Nor is it a general indication of the kind of pastures where the Shepherd feeds his flock that will suffice his bride, but of the actual pastures into which he is leading them now ; not of the places he is wont to frequent, but of the particular spot in which she may at vpresent find him. Such a general direction is all indeed that he appears to grant, but is obviously not all that she asks. The inquiry refers to the custom of shepherds guiding their flocks to fresh pastures when one spot has been eaten down, to return thither again when the herbage shall have grown anew. The green pastures of Christ's flock are the whole length and breadth of the Word of God, with all its doctrines, all its ordinances, and all its precepts. Throughout these wide ranges the Good Shep- 40 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. CH. I. 7. herd leads his flock from place to place, feeding them with food convenient for them. Many of the sheep, and not a few of the shepherds, overlook this important feature of divine leading; and having fallen on some green spot — it may be the first on which their souls found rest, and haply also the greenest in the wide field of the Word — there they remain, and thence they will not move, though there is now little herbage for them there, and they are feeding on the memory of pastures that once were green. Mean while the Shepherd has gone elsewhere with his flocks ; and your wisdom, once straying and now restored sheep, . is to ask where He is feeding them now, and where you may now find fellowship with him ; for, ' as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.' The inquiry may draw you for a season to pastures less rich and luxuriant, to truths less sweet and pleasant ; but if it be only to pick the grass from amongst the rocks, or to feed on the bitter herbs of reproof and repentance and godly sorrow, you will find the Shepherd there, and shall not want ; and ere long he will conduct your soul to its first resting-place, now grown fresh and green again, he will lead you anew in the paths of his own righteousness, and you shall be satisfied as on Bashan and Gilead in the days of old. And where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon, is not a mere repetition of ' where thou feedest it,' for the one is a season of comparative labour, the other of rest. The one object of both petitions is, that the soul may be always with Christ, ' whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge.' All times are alike to him, but not all alike to us ; and the distinction may refer to periods of work and periods of rest, in both of which it is essential to have the presence and fellowship of Jesus. The shep herdess bride has the feeding of the flocks for her ordinary CH. I. 7. ' HIS PASTURE AND NOONTIDE REST. 41 calling, to which she must attend, and during which her intercourse with the Chief Shepherd must be of an inter rupted character. To converse with Him is not the duty in which we are engaged, although for him all our duty is1 discharged ; but it is gain indeed, if we tend our flock in the pasture where he tendeth his, so that throughout our daily toil He may seldom be out of our sight, or the reach of our voice ; and that from time to time we may snatch passing converse with him, may hear him call ' Look unto me,' may apply to Him and be aided by him in the hourly difficulties of our own vocation. Then the season when he maketh his flock to rest at noon, and ours rests with it side by side, is the hour when there is nothing requiring our earthly care, and the time may be expressly devoted to communion with himself. Blessed are they who find Him at both these times; in the times of daily devotion to enter more fully into his heart and mind, and in the times of daily work to walk up and down in his name, 'two walking together being agreed.' If we miss him on either occasion, we are apt to lose him for both ; if we forget to walk with him in the feeding of the flocks, there is danger of failing to find his resting-place at noon ; and if we fail to converse with him in the noontide rest, and thence to go forth along with him, there is little hope of finding him in the busy pasturing of the flocks while we move from place to place. Virgin daughter of Zion, if you would follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, see that you fix your eye on him continually. For why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions, is an appeal to the heart of Jesus. The companions must be the shepherds under him, for he is a Shepherd King, yet friends admitted to his fellowship as well as his service ; and not only pastors, though these specially, but all his faithful followers, the friends whom 42 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. CH. I. 7. he invites to eat and drink along with him. With the society of these companions, honoured as they might be, she pleads that it is not fit that , the King's Bride should be satisfied, not fit that He should suffer it, nor that she should rest in it. Must she be turned aside from following Him because she has failed to find him, and driven by his absence to this most inferior fellowship ; must she wander. from one shepherd's tent to another when none of them can satisfy; must she even be counted by them as no faithful bride of the Lamb, but as having lords many and gods many, and idols after her own heart 1 ' 0 tell me where Thou feedest thy flocks, for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions ? ' Nor is the fear imaginary, for the wise virgin sees many of her lamp-bearing associates turning thus aside, and she is jealous lest she should be tempted to follow them ; many ignorantly yet contentedly coming short of Christ, and resting in sermons, in sacraments, in ministers, in duties ; preferring those to Christ because they cannot try the heart and reins, nor demand the single homage of the whole soul. Reader, have you discovered for yourself the green pastures of the good Shepherd, have you found his resting-place at noon, and heard him say to your soul, Come unto me and I will give you rest 1 Or have you risen to seek Him, and afterward turned aside, not turned back to the world and sin, but turned aside to the flocks of the companions 1 Safer far if you had found no rest at all, than rest so deceptive and ruinous. ' Arise, for this is not your rest, it will destroy you with a sore destruction.' Pray, and never rest till you find the answer to your prayer, ' 0 tell me where Thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon.' CH. I. 8. THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE FLOCK. 43 THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE FLOCK, AND FEEDING-PLACE OF THE KIDS. If thou know not, 0 thou fairest among women ; the answer is kind and helpful, rather than cheering, far less satisfying. Yet the personal address is full of comfort, 0 thou fairest among women. Look not on me for the sun hath looked on me, saith the Bride ; Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee, saith her Lord. Fairer than the sons of men is the character of Christ ; the fairest among women, the character of his Bride the Church. Admira tion is not in the first instance necessary, either as the seed or as the fruit of love ; for God loved us with a great love, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, ' loving us because he loved us.' Yet grace is ever linked with God's eternal purpose to make the Church lovely, ' according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.' Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it, that he might present it to himself a glorious church with out spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Looking on the Church as washed in his own blood, He sees already no * sin in Jacob, nor transgression in Israel ; and on his Church he never looks, without also regarding and admir ing her as finally presented to himself, the fairest among women, 'without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. 'y If thou know not, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock. — In Moses the chosen shepherd of Israel, these words had a remarkable fulfilment according to the letter. None of the sons of men ever prayed more earnestly ' Let Him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,' or in his own lan guage ' I beseech thee show me thy glory ;' and the kiss of the King of kings is bestowed on him, as scarcely on any other of the human family, for the Lord speaks to him 44 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. CH. I. 8. ' face to face as a man talketh with his friend;' and the Jews say that he died ' by the kiss of God.' But these prayers from the shepherd of the people and these answers, were the fruit of earlier cries when he preferred the re- i> proach of Christ to the treasures in Egypt, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and became the pastor not of men but of sheep in the desert of Sinai. This Moses outwardly ' exceeding fair,' and morally a fit type of the Bride the ' fairest among women,' must oft in the midst of these solitary years, and amongst those few sheep in the wilderness, have raised the earnest cry, ' 0 Thou whom my soul loveth, tell me where thou feedest thy flock.' The answer is, ' If thou know not, 0 thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock.' He goes forth, and following the flock he comes ' to the mountain of God, even to Horeb ;' the Angel of the Lord appears in the bush, he turns aside to see this great sight, he learns that he has lighted on the chosen spot of noontide rest for the Lord's flock, he hears the great Shepherd declare, ' When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall worship God in this mountain.' Ever since the Good Shepherd began to gather his lost sheep around him, he has put great honour on ' the little flock,' and on every sheep belonging_it. The first of "all — the flock that was slain by the evening wolf, ' being dead yet speaketh,' and his steps have left everlasting footprints /for a guide to all the sheep that were Jo follow. While" the first and the last appeal is to the infallible Word in all matters either of doctrine or of duty, our faith is confirmed by knowing that our reception of the word is according to the 'faith of God's elect' in all ages of the world; for if we are members of Christ we are members of all his flock, • ' standing in the ways, asking for the old paths, walking L. therein, and finding rest to our souls.' In the practical CH. I. 8. THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE FLOCK. 45 also, quite as much as in the doctrinal, the faithful find help by becoming ' followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises;' and especially in the daily recurring questions about the ' all things lawful, but all things not expedient.' In these cases it is important and incumbent to inquire what is of 'good report' in the Church, and to follow the footsteps of the flock, and not the wanderings of the children of this world. In such paths the true sheep of the fold will not select for imitation some straggler outside the flock, pertaining to it yet scarcely -, walking with it ; but will cleave to the close-gathered and Jf compact body of the little company that hear the Shepherd's , -¦ ^ voice and follow him, knowing not the voice of strangers ; or better still, will endeavour to tread in the footsteps of / the very leaders of the flock, following Paul ' even as he / followed Christ.' In so doing, believer, you have no diffi culty in leaving the theatre, the card-table, and the ball room, where ' the footsteps of the flock' have rarely been found in any age ; and so guiding yourself, you will rather refrain and stand aloof in cases of doubt, than associate and go forward when you discover not the clear footprints before you. ' Keep thou the beaten good old path, Z Yet new and living way ; / Which all the saints have trod by faith, With prayer night and day.' But to follow ' the footsteps of the flock' is likewise to 1 associate with the children of God, and to be ' companion ' to all them that fear him.' You will find it greatly for your soul's benefit, and most conducive to the discovery of Christ's pasture-ground and resting-place, to separate your- r self from the world and the children of the world ; and if ") they therefore hate you and cast you out, Christ himself whom you seek will the sooner find you and walk with i 46 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. CH. I. 8. you in love. In close fellowship also with those who fear the Lord, fellowship of prayer, of godly converse, of ordi nary intercourse ; and in selecting them for associates, not for their earthly attractions but for their abundant grace ; you are in the straight way toward the revelation of Christ himself, for Jesus loves to be where his people are, and where they are valued for his sake. And feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents. — Which shep herds are no doubt the pastors and teachers in the Church, and their tents 'the amiable tabernacles of the Lord of Hosts, in which a day is better than a thousand.' Now to rest in these the Bride greatly dreaded ; it was to turn aside by the flocks of the companions ; and she had learned to her cost in the days of her unbelief, what it was to make an idol and an end of servants and of means. Pos sibly also at her first espousals, she had some foretaste of her future experience in the ignorance and harshness of certain of the watchmen. From whatever cause, she appears to have carried her holy jealousy too far, for Christ directs her to the diligent use of the very means in which she was so afraid of resting. There is no experience more common •*> soon after the outset of the Christian life. The insufficiency ] midst of food fit for lambs as well as sheep, and also of < strangely sweet, marvellously de* licious fruit ; all else but gall and wormwood beside it, all husks, all ashes, all apples of Sodom, all grapes of Gomorrah. This is the fruit which the great Husbandman rejoices to gather ; ' this is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.' God's Beloved he is, and also the soul's Beloved, ' his fruit sweet unto my taste.' How wonderful that my parched lips should ever have tasted such fruit as this, that my guilty hands should ever grasp such fruit to offer to my God. With great delight the soul sits down beneath his shadow ; sits, rests, and remains ; requiring to search for no other tree besides, but obtaining all shelter, all solace, all sustenance, in this single tree of life, this apple-tree in the forest, this Son of Man, this Christ of God. But there are loftier trees by far in the forest, statelier to the carnal eye, and many are saying, Who will ascend for us into heaven, to gather the lost fruit of Paradise 1 There are trees remoter, and many say, Who will go be yond the sea, to fetch for us thence the fruit of life? Meanwhile Christ is ' nigh thee,' beside you, before you ; and this -laden apple-tree stands overlooked because so lowly, and because so near. Nay when you see, your fear CH. II. 3. THE APPLE-TREE IN THE WOOD. 93 to eat, because you did not plant the tree, and cannot boast of the fruit. But it is free, and is yours if you will only eat and live. Of the tree of interdicted knowledge Satan falsely affirmed, It is yours, eat of it, and you shall not die ; and believing the liar, obeying the rebel, kissing the murderer, you stretched your hand to pluck, and to perish. Of this second tree, this Tree of Life, he says, Eat not, it is neither yours nor for you ; if you eat you die ; and you therefore hesitate to eat and live. Your own distrustful heart, also, surmises that there must be some delusion in so rich a prize, some lion prowling near to tear if you venture to touch ; and as you approach you hear his roar, the fiercer as your footstep draws nearer. But ad vance, nay run, trembling soul, and be assured that beneath that tree he is not, for ' no lion shall be there.' Therefore it is that he roareth so loudly now, because within the circle of that shade he dare not enter, to him it is the interdicted shadow of death, but to you the inviting and relieving shadow of rest and of life. But there is some serpent concealed within its roots, or coiled around its branches ? Nay, in that first forbidden tree there was ; you thrust your hand as into a silver basket of tempting fruit, but the deadly aspic lay concealed beneath, in an instant its venom was through all your frame from head to foot, and within that hour you were dead. But there is no serpent here, for this is that tree of goodly shadow and fairest fruit, of which Jesus said ' these things are done in a Green Tree ;' while he bare to Calvary the accursed tree on which he was to hang, accursed for him, but most blessed for you. On that tree he spoiled principalities and powers, triumphing over them and nailing them to his cross ; and hanging on that tree you may still behold the old serpent nailed fast. He cannot deliver himself he cannot injure you ; ' out of the eater has come forth meat, 94 THE APPLE-TREE IN THE WOOD. CH. II. 3. and out of the' strong one sweetness.' Sit down beneath the shadow of Jesus, rest and fear not ; cease to spend money for that which is not bread, hear and your soul shall live, eat that which is good ; sit down and assuredly it shall be with great delight, eat and assuredly ' the fruit shall be sweet to your taste.' V. THE BANQUET-HALL. THE BANNER OF LOVE — THE BANQUET OF WINE — THE HANDS OF THE KING — THE HINDS OF THE FIELD. He brought me to the banqueting-house, and his banner over me was love. Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples ; for I am sick of love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me. I charge you, 0 ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please. — Chap. ii. 4-7. THE BANNER OF LOVE. He brought me into the banqueting-house. — In the New Testament this joy is fulfilled in the birth of Jesus Christ, as when Simeon and Anna, Joseph and Mary, rejoice over him together in the temple of Jehovah, rendering all past manifestations of his presence to the Church only faint and distant in contrast. The words of Mary's own song, and the words of her father Solomon regarding that blessed birth are scarcely different. ' He hath brought me into the banqueting-house' are the words of David's son; 'he hath filled the hungry with good things,' the words of David's daughter after the lapse of a thousand years, both describing the same divine feast. In the history of ancient Israel the banqueting-house of the King was entered, when having sought the Shepherd's noon-day rest they were led to the mountain of God, and beheld his glory. " Then Moses, Aaron, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and ' saw the God of Israel, with a paved work as of sapphire-stone under his feet ; and on the nobles he laid not his hand, 96 THE BANNER OF LOVE. CH. II. 4. but they saw God and did eat and drink.' That sight and that feast opened to the Church Jehovah's banquet-hall, as had never been done before ; yet was it but through a glass darkly, compared with the glory that filled the temple when God was manifest in the flesh in the Holy Child Jesus. ' He brought me to the banqueting-house,' he hath now brought me into his banquet-hall ; the same King who had at an earlier season brought the believing soul into his chambers, which were cherished in memory and an entrance to them entreated again. Draw me and we will run ; Jesus hath heard this prayer of the Bride, and step by step hath answered it. Being secretly enabled she had overtaken and found the King ; at an outer repast He had received her as on a carpet of grass, under the shadow of the cedars ; he had been to her as the rose of Sharon in the scentless wilderness, as the apple-tree in the fruitless forest. But now He has not only suffered the seeking soul to find him, but has brought his follower further, has introduced her into his royal palace, entering along with her ; has spread for her not only a feast of fruits, but a banquet of wine, not a mere noontide repast, but a sumptuous bridal supper. It was all and more than all that had been remembered, or had been asked ; more than had been expressed or con ceived. ' Call unto me and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not,' things known and unknown ; asked and thought, yet above all asking and above all thinking. j And his banner over me was love. — Was and is love, for it continues floating over her still. It is the banner of con quest over you, believer, by which He subdued you to him self; by which he conquered you when you were in hatred, in rebellion, in arms against him. It was He that dis armed you, he that subdued and took you captive. You met command with resistance, righteous anger with unholy CH. II. 4. THE BANNER OF LOVE. 97 enmity, threatened vengeance with servile fear and flight. Law arrested you, fettered you, silenced you, slew you ; with out law you would have made light of all the tenderness of love, but law never completely disarmed you.' Love called to you in your rebellious flight, and turned you to ' reason together' with your Lord; love allured you to look upon the righteousness of law, and to own the justice of judgment ; kindly drew aside the veil of prejudice from your eyes, gently yet irresistibly took the arms of war out of your hands, the arguments of self-vindication from your lips, the gall of bitterness out of your heart. He loved you, you believed the love, and being overcome you loved Him again who first loved you. Having conquered you by love, He erected over you love's triumphal banner. It is the banner also of protection. He has planted it firmly over you, your enemies see it and are afraid, the god of the world and the children of the world fear to touch you beneath this ensign. They often saw it waving - over the holy Jesus, of whom the Father testified ' this is my Beloved Son,' and they trembled to touch him because his hour was not come. When at last they took Him and crucified him, and conscience inwardly gnawed them all the while, their confidence was that the banner of God's love was removed from over his devoted head. 'Persecute . and take him, for God hath forsaken him,' they cried to each other ; ' why hast thou forsaken me,' they heard him cry. They dared to nail him to the tree, only because they dared to think that God's banner of love was over him no more — Let God deliver him seeing he delighted in him. ' God delighteth in him' had been their terror, and now they mock the forsaken banner which once they feared. So believer still, Satan and the world fear that love, and fear you when that banner floateth over you. Thus also within your own soul, the peace of God that G 98 THE BANQUET-HALL. CH. II. 4. passeth understanding keeps your heart and mind in Christ Jesus, guards you, protects you, preserves you more than with a wall of fire. Oh tear hot this banner down, disown it not, but let your soul make her boast in the Lord, be lieving in his love. It is the banner likewise of enlistment, and your glorious ensign of battle; for Christ has chosen you to be his soldier, and the banner under which he has enrolled you to serve is Love. In the legion of love He has inscribed' your name, the warfare of love he has called you to wage, the battles of love he has engaged you to fight. His best soldier is he that loveth best ; who through love ' suffers all things for the elect's sake,' through love ' becomes all things to all men to win some,' through love 'gives his body as the ground and as the street to them to pass over;' who in love ' suffereth long and is kind, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things ;' and by love ' over- cometh evil with good.' The emblem graven on this banner is ' a Lamb as it had been slain ;' the superscription written over the emblem is, ' God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' If you alter this ensign, or if you suffer its tokens to lie furled and hid within its folds, you will neither please the Captain of Salvation nor conquer his foes. But if you display it because of meekness and righteousness, and speak the truth in love, when all other weapons in your armoury have failed, Love will triumph. Only it must ever be His banner over you, conquering and subduing you to himself; if you will wave it as his banner over others to overcome them, you must first of all say for your own soul — His banner over me is love. CH. II. 5. THE BANQUET OF WINE. 99 THE BANQUET OF WINE. Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick 0f 1^. — The soul is now brought by the Spirit into the closest and fullest communion that can be either known or sustained on earth; nor is there the same overflowing fulness of the Holy Ghost in any future portion of the believer's history, as illustrated in this Song; This does not imply that God takes the same order in his revelations in every case or even usually, for ' the Spirit distributeth to every man severally as he willeth.' In some it may be at first conversion and first love, which is past before this song commences ; in others in the mid-day of their course when he giveth them ' rest at noon ;' or as with the aged Simeon, it may come to pass that ' at evening-time it shall be light;' while in most this exceeding great joy is re served for the banquet above; That when bestowed it may sometimes occur comparatively early in the divine life, is evident from the history of Paul, who speaking of ecstatic vision says he knew a man in Christ fourteen years before, caught up into the third heavens and hearing un utterable things ; implying that during all the intervening years nothing in that kind equal had been granted him by the Lord. In the Church in the wilderness, it was when the glory of the • Lord filled the newly-reared tabernacle ; in the Church in Jerusalem, when the glory filled the temple so that the priests could not stand to minister ; in the later Hebrew Church, when the child Jesus was pre sented in the temple ; in the Christian Church, when the rushing mighty wind filled the house, and tongues of fire rested on the disciples. To, the individual believer the ancient promise may be kept in the order, as well as in the substance of the words ; ' they shall mount up on wings as eagles,' flying first ; next ' they shall run and not be weary,' 100 THE BANQUET-HALL. CH. II. 5. swift runners now, yet upon the earth ; then slower and humbler still yet equally sure, and equally good, ' they shall walk and not faint.' The address of the Bride ' stay ye me with flagons' is to more than one, and may be directed either to her fellow- virgins, or to the daughters of Jerusalem; or rather, in the words of one well acquainted with such exercise, ' she shows a ravishment and kind of rapture in this exclama tion, as the disciples did on the mount, not knowing what they said; not observing to whom she speaks, but ex pressing her delight in that which she enjoyed ; yet mainly intending Christ, for it is he who in the next verse applies the case.' The flagons are the vessels which contain the wine in the banqueting-hall, or they are caskets full of aromatic ointments with which she desires to be strengthened ; the citron-apples are the fruit of the tree under which she had been seated, and which she now desires not for refreshing food, but for restoring fragrance. The wine is the new wine of the kingdom, the Word and the Spirit of Christ ; and the apples the fruits of Christ's life and death, his promises and manifold grace. The love of Christ has ' wounded' and overcome the soul, creating such intense desire that nothing can bring relief but a greater abun dance of the same love, as if the heart said — Stay me with love, for I am sick of love. ' The love, the love that I bespeak, Works wonders in the soul ; For when I 'm whole it makes me sick, When sick it makes me whole. ' I'm overcome, T faint, I fail, Till love shall love relieve ; More love divine the wound can heal, Which love divine did give. CH. II. 5. THE BANQUET OF WINE. 101 ' More of the joy that makes me faint, Would give me present ease ; If more should kill me, I'm content To die of that disease.' ' This,' it has been said truly, ' is a mystery to the gene rality, yea even to many who are really godly, and have some glances sometimes of his face ; for every one is not admitted to this length of access, yea but very few, and these but once or twice it may be in their life. Therefore I dare not adventure upon diving too far in this depth, which is one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian's life ; for as I shall not pretend to be so far advanced as to know this case, so if I should attempt it few would under stand me.' It is profitable, however, to read in the words of others even that which for the present we comprehend not, both that we may know by testimony the power of divine love in men of like passions with ourselves, and also that we may be stimulated for ourselves to covet earnestly these best gifts. We shall therefore in illustration of the text transcribe the following passages from Fleming's Ful filling of the Scripture : — ' Now it is known how great a testimony the experience of the godly in these late times, could give to what they have in a large measure felt of the power and refreshing outlettings of the Spirit within their soul ; yea how after sorest downcasting they have been wonderfully raised above themselves, and filled with the consolation of God and joy unspeakable ; I shall name these : — ' Mr. Welch and Mr. Forbes, great witnesses of Christ in this land, when they were prisoners give this account of their case, — " Dear brethren, we dare say by experience, and our God is witness we lie not, that unspeakable is the joy of suffering for his kingdom. We had never such joy and peace in preaching of it as we have found in suffering 102 THE BANQUET-HALL. CH. II. 5. for the same ; we spoke , before in knowledge, we now speak by experience, that the kingdom of God consists in peace and joy." And in another letter thus they say, — " Our joy hath greatly abounded since the last day (which was after passing sentence of death on them), so that we cannot enough wonder at the riches of his free grace, that should have vouchsafed such a gift upon us to suffer for his kingdom, in which there is joy unspeakable and glorious ; and we are rather in fear that our sufferings be not con tinued, and so we be robbed of further consolation, than that they should increase. Surely there is great consola tion in suffering for Christ ; we cannot express unto you the joy which our God hath caused to abound in us." ' I shall also mention that great servant of Christ, Mr. Rutherford, whose letters now published can witness what solemn days- of the Spirit, and sensible outlettings thereof he oft had in his experience, though books can tell but little what, he really felt and enjoyed. I shall only set down some of his last and dying expressions, which I had from those who were then present, and caused write down the same from his mouth ; that may show how lovely also he was in his death, and how well that did correspond with his former life. Some of his words are these : — " I shall shine, I shall see him as he is, and all the fair com pany with him, and shall have my large share. It is no easy thing to be a Christian, but as for me I have got the victory, and Christ is holding forth his arms to embrace me." And a little before his death, after some fainting, he saith, " Now I feel, I believe, I enjoy, I rejoice ;" and turn ing to Mr. Blair then present he said, " I feed on manna, I have angels' food, my eyes shall see my Redeemer ; I know that he shall stand at the latter day on the earth, and I shall be caught up in the clouds to meet him in the air." And afterwards he hath these words,—" I sleep in Christ, CH. II. 5. THE BANQUET OF WINE. 103 and when I awake I shall be satisfied with his likeness. 0 for arms to embrace him !" and thus full of the Spirit, yea as it were overcome with sensible enjoyment he breathes out his soul, his last words being, " Glory, glory, dwelleth in Immanuel's land." ' I shall instance also Mr. John Welch, whom Mr. Ruther ford in one of his books called that heavenly, prophetical and apostolic man of God; and showeth that from the witnesses of his life he had this account, that of every twenty-four hours he gave usually eight to prayer, if other necessary and urgent duties did not hinder; yea, spent many days and nights which he set apart in fasting and prayer. ' During his last sickness he was so filled and overcome with the sensible enjoyment of God, that he was some times overheard in prayer to have these words, Lord, hold thine hand ; it is enough, thy servant is a clay vessel, and can hold no more.' The Spirit of the Lord is not straitened, nor his mighty working limited to ages past. In oui\ own first evangelistic labours our lot was cast in one of nature's retreats, by whose sandy hollows and rocky caverns there sometimes passed the glory of the Lord. All but alone among its inhabitants there sojourned a man whom God himself had taught, who grew in grace like a tree by the rivers of waters ; and with him week by week we sought the blessing promised unto two agreeing together to ask in the name of Jesus. He was in the prime of manhood, his fine counte nance stamped with the double impression of meditation and intelligence, yet blooming with a glow of ruddy health, the fruit of constant out-door labour. One summer even ing, the "moment the hour allotted to prayer was ended, he went home without uttering a word, and with scarcely any sign of recognition at parting. He appeared unwell, his 104 THE BANQUET-HALL. CH. II. 5. face had sunk, the bright hue- of his cheek was pallid, he looked as a strong man ready to faint, but bearing up against some physical distress that all but overmastered him, as if a grain added to the pressure would have broken him down. Partly from his haste, and partly from his obvious aversion to speak, we parted without exchanging words ; but without any doubt on our part that he was suffering from sickness. The second day following, when we hailed him at some distance in the fields to inquire for his health, it was after much reserve and only by successive questions that we could discover the cause of the apparent distress. You seemed unwell when we parted the night before last — were you sick ? Oh, no. Were you in dis tress of mind ? No. What then 1 Slowly and reluctantly he replied, When we were on our knees I was so filled with a sense of the love of God, that the joy was too much for me ; it was all that I was able to bear, and it was with a struggle that I did not sink under it. The fact itself was obvious, although to us it had not excited the least suspicion of the cause. This divine love, both better and stronger than wine, had remained with him all the night, and though less intensely, throughout the next day and the night following. To him it would have been no strange sound, but the natural utterance of his heart, and the most exact description of his mental condition, Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love. Many will deride both the language of the Song, and the love which it indicates, but ' behold ye despisers and wonder and perish;' for if there are flagons full of the new wine of the kingdom, and if his people shall be filled ' like bowls, and as the corners of the altar,' there are also vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and endured by God with much longsuffering. Take heed that you be not among them, for it is written of them, ' Eveiy bottle shall CH. II. 6. THE HANDS OF THE KING. 105 be filled with wine, and I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the Lord; I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them. Be not proud for the Lord hath spoken ; give glory to the Lord before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and while ye look for light he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.' But for the Lord's poor ones that ' tremble at his word,' and instead of such overflowing joys have scarcely faint gleams of gladness, there are the sure promises that ' to him who hath shall be given, and he shall have more ; ' and that ' blessed are they that mourn, for their sorrow shall be turned into joy;' lasting joy in heaven, for on earth such joy in the Holy Ghost cannot have long con tinuance. ' Great joys are all at once, But little do reserve themselves for more ; Those are at home, these journey still, And meet the rest on Zion's hill.' THE HANDS OF THE KING. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me. — The fainting soul has received from Christ himself the support it requires, for ' his left hand is under the head ; ' the soul is thus sustained from swooning under that excess of joy, and the joy itself is no longer insupport able. The left hand is that which is inferior, by which the love which the Lord cherishes and the honour he bestows is less fully manifested ' than by the right. The hand of providence we may understand it, as distinguished from the hand of grace ; the left hand of outward care, in dis tinction from the right hand of inward love ; and also the left hand of secret support, in contrast with the right of 106 THE BANQUET-HALL. CH. II. 6. open acknowledgment. In reality these two are never divided, and each is near the other, but in appearance and in sensible perception they are frequently separate. Some times there is only the support of the Lord's left hand, his unseen arm protecting outwardly and sustaining spiritually, while there is no joy of love, no free fellowship of the spirit, no right hand embracing. At other times there is the joy of Christ remaining in the soul, and the joy of the soul full ; yet in the midst of such outward trouble and oppression, as if the left hand were scarcely sustaining, but rather smiting while the right hand embraces. But here are both ; there is no outward trouble, or none interfering with the divine consolation, so that the shielding and upholding hand of providence is distinctly and thankfully felt ; while there is the smile of divine love, the embrace of the right hand of the Lord. In such a case what more, what else has the soul to desire 1 Nothing save con tinuance ; nothing except a universal restraint from dis turbing the holy rest of the Lord, and provoking him to arise ere it is his own pleasure to depart. It will not fail to be remarked, that while the charge not to disturb the rest of the Beloved occurs thrice in the Song, ' the left hand under the head with the right hand embracing,' is never found in its fulness except this once ; for although it passes into similar repose, these tokens when repeated in the eighth chapter are not actual but conditional (viii. 3). The Scriptural illustration of this passage, which has been adduced from the earliest ages of the Church, is in the. rapture of the aged Simeon in the temple when he took the infant Jesus in his arms. The outward attitude indeed may appear to be reversed, for it is the prophet's left hand under the Redeemer's head and his right embracing the Holy Child; but he knew well that the real sustaining and embracing arms were not his CH. II. 6. THE HANDS OF THE KING. 107 enfolding Christ, but Christ's enfolding him. Never in all the Gospel history does the Incarnate Word seem quite so nigh as now ; never so fulfilled the prayer, ' Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth ;' never any soul so near to swooning away through excess of joy and love ; never, it may be, eye on earth so satisfied with seeing, ' For mine eyes have seen thy salvation.' But we must not omit a view of the Lord's left hand under the head, taken by some of the early Fathers, from the left hand representing punishment in the great day of account. Understanding the right as honour, favour, love, and the left as wrath, retribution, judgment, we behold the believer in a glorious rest with vengeance itself for the pillow on which he placidly reposes. It is justice satisfied, judgment executed, vengeance fulfilled, curse completed. There is no left hand upraised any more to smite, no left hand to open the door of the bottomless abyss with the doom, Depart from me ye cursed. The transgression is finished, the displeasure removed, the curse exhausted ; and there is no pillow on which the soul can sleep either so safely or so sweetly. Yea, it is the pierced hand of the great Shepherd himself that upholds the head ; the print of the nail is on it, fit rest for the weary and heavy laden sinner. Ah. ! how many rest with no left hand of the Lord beneath them ; what a troubled, unsettled repose is theirs ; how insecure, how unholy, how deceptive ! Awake thou that sleepest thus, and arise from the dead, and ' Christ shall give thee light.' Then first will you dare to grasp the right hand of love and favour, when you have believed and rested on the left hand of judgment executed, or else you will embrace them both together; and then alike in trust and in triumph you will exclaim, 'His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doith embrace me.' 108 THE BANQUET-HALL. CH. II. 7. THE HINDS OF THE FIELD. I charge you, 0 ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and [or] by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor awake my love till he please. — This is no oath by the hinds of the field, but a solemn charge with the strength of an oath, to act as cautiously as with the roes or hinds ; ' I charge you among the roes, or among the hinds of the field, not to awake my love.' The word here translated and is never rendered so elsewhere, but always or, which is its invariable and only meaning. The difference is most important, because and gives the charge the appearance of an oath, which or quite removes ; for an oath might be taken by both the hind and the roe, or by one of them, but a charge giving the alternative of either is no oath in their name, but' an earnest exhortation to the attendants to do by the Beloved as they would by these timid creatures of the field. This is a charge to the attending daughters of Jerusalem, and a charge to herself doubtless as well as to them, with allusion to the great care observed in the East against intrusion upon the sleep of any, but especially of one held in high honour. It is an exhortation not to awaken the soul's ' Beloved till he please,' because there is a limit to his resting in love, and that limit is his own pleasure ; or more exactly, the exhortation is not to stir up nor awake ' Love until it please.' The love that is not to be dis turbed is chiefly that of the Beloved, so that the awakening of this love and of this Beloved is the same. It indicates, however, the soul's love to Christ as well as Christ's love to the soul, and the full meaning appears to be the rest of the Holy Spirit of love, both in Christ upon the soul, and in the soul upon Christ. In the two other repetitions of this charge, this expression is repeated (iii. 5 ; viii. 4) ; while elsewhere in the Song the very same expression is CH. II. 7. THE HINDS OF THE FIELD. 109 not employed, except in the asseveration that ' many waters cannot quench love' (viii. 7). Now the apostle Paul, in a passage exactly parallel on the indestructible character of love, asks who shall separate us from the love of Christ (Rom. viii. 35); which appears to signify Christ's love to us, but the following words, ' for thy sake we are killed all day long,' proves it to include also our love to Christ. So here it is a solemn charge not to grieve the present Holy Spirit in Him communing with us, and in us communing with Him. It is impossible for language or imagery to convey more strongly the care that ought to be taken not to grieve the Holy Spirit, nor offend Christ ; not in any way whatever, not by any provocation however seemingly slight, to move him to leave his quiet rest in the soul. The roes and hinds are remarkably swift to flee from their pursuer, intently watchful to discover his approach, singularly quick to catch the least noise that indicates danger. Men un accustomed to the habits of these creatures have no likeli hood of taking them in hunting, and chiefly because they can form no conception of the exceeding care and the breathless stillness with which they must be approached by the huntsman. Exactly thus is there nothing more observable in young converts who have recently found Christ, or inquirers after him like the daughters of Jeru salem, than their ignorance how easily the Spirit present, or the Spirit waiting to be gracious, is disturbed so as to withdraw. As with most men, to employ the huntsman's watchfulness with the roes and the hinds of the field would be a new art to learn, and a new life to lead ; so with all men, it is much more new to acquire the holy wisdom of not disturbing the rest of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the twenty-second Psalm, descriptive of the sufferings of Christ, the marginal title is, The Hind of the morning 110 THE BANQUET-HALL. " ' CH. II. 7. which is Jesus whom the Psalm describes as hunted to death by the dogs and lions ; in the eighteenth Psalm he says that God has made his feet like the feet of hinds ; and in the next verse of this Song the Beloved is repre sented as a roe upon the mountains. Here it is the same roe, neither pursued by the dogs, nor skipping over the hills, but quietly reposing, yet with a rest most watchful and quickly broken by the slightest sound. Take the case of a huntsman with his family hanging upon him for food, with his arrows all but spent in the quiver, with the roes of the field either seen at a great distance, or suspected to lurk within a certain range. What disregard of everything else but keeping the eye fixed upon the critical spot ! Stones cut the feet, waters chill them, brambles tear them ; he regards it not, he feels it not, he even knows it not. A hundred attractions may surround him, flowers, trees, palaces, songs of birds, but they are all unseen and unheard. Have the hinds been disturbed is the one inquiry, can the eye still discover them, or is the grass or brushwood that conceals them still unmoved 1 ¦ Soul in quest of the hind of the morning, in search of Jesus, even thus must you seek if you would ever find ; heedless of a hundred hindrances and hurts by the way, blind to a hundred attractions, and deaf to a hundred allurements. In such a search either of two errors is certain loss of the prize, presumption or despair. If, presuming that the roe will not see nor hear, the huntsman walks lightly and rashly forward, all is lost. How anxious will he be rather to err in carefulness, when so much rests on the issue. Inquiring soul, presume not ; say not in your heart, I may walk securely for there is no fear of grieving the Spirit, or of losing Christ ; presumption is certain and fatal, loss. Fixed desire there must be, but along with it unwearied CH. II. 7. ;THE HINDS OF THE FIELD. Ill patience; proof against rashness, proof equally against despair. How oft has the huntsman lost all his pains by giving over the pursuit in despair. Careful as long as he hoped ; advancing step by step as cautiously as if life hung on every footstep, he has drawn near and has not found ; now at last he has come up to and passed over the very spot where the roe was thought to rest, and it is not there; he walks heedlessly on, the next moment it starts at his feet, and bounds away into its own liberty far from his unprepared arrow. How many immortal souls have so come short of everlasting life, giving over the pursuit as hopeless, because the place seemed past, or the season past on which they had reckoned, and so losing Christ when almost within their arms ; their sin and folly displeasing and disturbing him, so that he hid himself from their eyes. These remarks, applied to the pursuit of the Beloved when sought, admit of easy transference to the retention of the Beloved when found; which is represented as requiring the very same care, the same breathless lip, the same watchful eye, the same listening ear, the same cir cumspect step ; because though in the text the object is that of retaining Christ, the image is that of capturing the roes and hinds of the field. 0 succoured and favoured child of God, remember the wise man's saying, that ' the sluggard roasteth not that which he took in hunting.' Having spent much time and bestowed hard labour to take the prey, he is too indolent to add the slight addi tional pains requisite to prepare it for food ; but having once secured it, he sleeps and leaves it to be devoured by the dogs. When you have sought hard to find Christ, have pursued swiftly, followed far and overtaken, grudge not the needful diligence and circumspection to retain him when found ; but be assured that such care is as necessary 112 THE BANQUET-HALL. CH. II. 7. to preserve his presence, as your hard labour was to obtain it. Charge therefore all around you, believers, inquirers, friends, strangers, that they rob you not of your prize, that they interfere not between you and your Beloved, that they intrude not with distracting words or wordly ways. Charge your own soul, neither to court nor to suffer the distraction of your heart by other gods, of your seasons of devotion by other pleasures or other cares, of your devotions themselves by other thoughts. ' I charge you, 0 ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor awake my love till he please.' ' I charge you, all ye earthly toys, Approach not to disturb my joys ; I charge my sins not once to move, Nor stir, nor wake, nor grieve my Love. ' THE BRIDE AWAKED OUT OF SLEEP SEEKS THE KING AID CONDUCTS HIM HOME. CANTICLE II. CHAP. II. 8-III. 5. PART I. CHAP. II. 8-15.— CALL TO THE GARDEN OF FLOWERS. I. THE ROE UPON THE MOUNTAINS— THE GLIMPSE THROUGH THE LATTICE. The voice of my Beloved ! behold, he cometh leaping upon the moun tains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved is like a roe, or a young hart : behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at [or through] the windows, shewing himself through the lattice. — Chap. ii. 8, 9. THE ROE UPON THE MOUNTAINS. The voice of my Beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. — The kingdom of heaven as at hand, is the evident subject of this whole passage ; the King of heaven as coming. The Bride of Immanuel has slumbered in a long repose ; first in a quiet holy rest in the Spirit, but that has passed away as on earth it must ever pass ; and the repose of grace has been succeeded by the listlessness and slumber of nature and of sin. After midnight, and along with the first streaks of morning to which sleep renders her insensible, she is awoke by the sudden cry, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh ! It is the H 114 THE ROE UPON THE MOUNTAINS. CH. II. 8, 9. voice of him that cried in the wilderness : Behold, there cometh One after me, prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight. It is the voice of the Bridegroom himself through the lips of the crier, his humble herald, the Bridegroom's friend rejoicing greatly in his own soul because of the Bridegroom's voice, and reporting his words to the slumbering Church ; an awakening voice, breaking the long sleep, and preparing the Bride to welcome her King and her God. In the wilderness of Sinai, it was the voice of the trum pet exceeding loud calling to assembled Israel, the Lord's betrothed, Prepare to meet thy God. Then He came down, his feet touched the mountains, they trembled and shook, the perpetual hills did bow ; like lambs the moun tains skipped, and the little hills like rams at the presence of the Lord, because he came skipping on those mountains, and leaping on those hills. In the wilderness of Judea, it was but the voice of a man with camel's hair for his cloth ing, with leather for his girdle, with the locust and the wild honey for his food. But he came in the spirit and power of Elijah, and before him shook and bowed, not the moun tains of earth, but the harder rocks of earthly and stony hearts. With a voice loud as Sinai's trumpet, yet loving as the jubilee's silver sound, he proclaimed, Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. And why 1 because ' He cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills ; ' for ' the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.' Taking the passage of the individual believing soul, there is no special reason to conclude that the Bride had broken her own solemn charge, and had disturbed her Beloved 'before he pleased;' although his departure in his own time, and according to his sovereign will, has been succeeded by the sleep of sin. It is, indeed, too rarely that Christ's CH. II. 8, 9. THE ROE UPON THE MOUNTAINS. 115 own pleasure is made by the Bride the rule of this holy repose ; for his rest in the souls of his people is disturbed by the restlessness of sin, of vanity, of fickleness within them. Yet he is sovereign in his gifts, and at his own time he does withdraw irrespectively of provocation on their part. But there are few that wait patiently on him when he has withdrawn, and therefore the common result of his absence is spiritual torpor. - This coming of the Lord Jesus is very distinctly of his own free grace, ' I am found of them that sought me not ;' yet such finding is always either preceded or followed by inquiry, for 'he is sought for by them that asked not after him.' The Bride is suddenly visited and called upon by Christ, not undesired yet not earnestly sought ; but ere he is fully found again at the close of this particular song, there is the searching for him with the whole heart, and soul, and strength. Meanwhile, even in this slumber, there is no such deadness of sleep as to prevent the soul hearing the voice of the great Shepherd, recognising it, and re sponding. In the second and far more sinful sleep, the voice is also heard and known, but sleep for the moment is sweeter than Jesus ; but hot so here, for the recognition is alert and joyful, according with what the Beloved him self declares, ' My sheep hear my voice, know my voice, and know not the voice of strangers.' It is the voice of strangers that awakens the world, and that awakens the Bride of the Lamb when she has become the friend of the world. The voice of your Beloved, what is it; who is your Beloved, and what is his voice 1 How quick in the worldling's ear, and how awakening sounds the voice of gain, the voice of honour, the voice of pleasure, the voice of rivalry ; and how soon the soul is up and in action in answer to such a call. Blessed are you if you swiftly hear, quickly recognise, and alertly respond to the word of Jesus 116 THE ROE UPON THE MOUNTAINS. CH. II. 8, 9. when it greets you, exclaiming, The voice of my Beloved, and rejoicing greatly because of your Bridegroom's voice. Leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills, my Beloved is. like a roe or a young hart. — ' What elegant crea tures those gazelles are, which we have started up and sent leaping over the plain ; how gracefully they bound ! " My beloved is like a roe or a young hart ; behold he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills." We meet those graceful gazelles all through Syria and Palestine, and the more you see them the greater is your admiration. These lovely harts are very timid. They are celebrated for their activity; and I have often stopped to admire the grace and ease, and fearless security with which these pretty animals bound along the high places of the moun tains.' (The Land and the Book.) The emblem of the hart or roe is not only used after wards by the saints of themselves, through their likeness to the Lord, as when Habakkuk expresses his confidence that God will make his feet like those of hinds, but had already been applied in the Psalms to the Lord Jesus Christ. The ' Hind of the morning' is the marginal render ing of ' Aijeleth Shahar,' in the title of the twenty-second Psalm, and presents a beautiful emblem of Jesus in the day of his sorrow ; sought out and hunted by a multitude of dogs, encircled by the bulls of the mountains, and the unicorns from the rivers, tossed and goaded by their terrible horns, and then roared upon with open mouth by the de vouring lion. The same ' Hind' of the morning' who was then beset by the wild beasts of the night, is here described as appearing on the mountain-tops with the first dawn of day, and like the sunbeams themselves glancing from hill to hill. In like manner in the eighteenth Psalm, in which he speaks of himself as the Lord's King and Anointed, and the Head of the heathen, the Messiah employs the same CH. II. 8, 9. THE ROE UPON THE MOUNTAINS. 117 image as in the Song. ' It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect ; he maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon my high places ; thou hast enlarged my steps under me that my feet did not slip.' The figure implies intense desire indicated by corre sponding speed towards its object. It is, 'lo, I come, I delight to do thy will ; ' it is, ' with desire I have desired to eat this passover with you.' Superhuman strength, energy, activity, are found in Him ; he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills, overcoming all obstacles, mountains inaccessible for height, ravines impassable for breadth and depth. The course set before the first man was straight and level, though it called for strength to overtake the distance, and for watchfulness to run between its even lines ; but before the Second Man was placed a course in which sin had raised dark moun tains, and cut deep gulfs of separation between the human family and their God. Jesus the Son of Man took man's position, and started in the race from the very point where man now stood, or rather where he now lay fallen and helpless ; without the camp, without the gate, amongst the unclean, numbered with transgressors. Beneath our curse, and from our distance the Strong One rejoicing started for the race ; first to go thence to God for us, and then to return from him with good tidings for all people. Sinai's mountain with thunder, and lightning, and earthquake of Jehovah's wrath ; Sinai's wilderness with fiery serpents of Satan's darts ; Jordan's deep floods of cold heartlessness and hatred in us, and of accursed death with its dark and bitter waters, all lay between the starting-point and the goal. But lo, he cometh rejoicing for the race, delighting to do the will of God unto sacrifice and death, desiring to eat the passover with his own blood for its wine-cup, con- 118 THE ROE UPON THE MOUNTAINS. CH. II. 8, 9.. sumed by the zeal of his Father's house, despising the shame for the joy set before him in the redemption of his chosen Bride. Well indeed may she exclaim as she sees him approach, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills, My beloved is like a young roe or a young hart. Simply, yet not without deep meaning, has one of the bridal virgins expressed the gratitude of the rescued soul : — ' When manifold obstructions met, My willing Saviour made A stepping-stone of every let That in his way was laid.' This combination of strength, zeal, and activity is finely illustrated by a kindred figure in these words of the 110th Psalm, ' He shall drink of the brook in the way, therefore shall he lift up the head.' The image seems to refer to Gideon's famed three hundred, who ' bowed not down on their knees to drink;' but like soldiers ardent for the battle, alert and strong, merely drank of the brook by the way without resting or stooping, or almost halting to re fresh themselves. It is impossible to witness the Gideon like act and attitude, without being struck as with a most lively token of warlike activity. The faithful messenger from the mountains of a southern land is seen hasting as with the feet of hinds under a burning sun, and parched with thirst crossing a brook in the way. He stoops not his head, rests not on his knees, but bends one limb beneath him ; in the attitude not of repose, but of a leaper or runner ready to start ; and with his face still erect towards the heavens, he dips his right hand in the flowing brook, and lapping with it rapidly, ' as a dog laps' with his tongue, he pours through his opened lips a continuous stream of water that quickly quenches his thirst. The moment before, he had caught your eye when hastening toward the brook ; and while you wonder at the action and try to CH. II. 9. THE GLIMPSE THROUGH THE LATTICE. 119 observe its process, he is already onward and away as on the feet of hinds ; for he had not stooped on his knees to the water, but had ' drunk of the brook by the way.' Even such, so zealous and so swift a messenger of the Lord of hosts, coming suddenly, was Christ Jesus in the days of his flesh ; the Bride's Beloved like a roe or a young hart, with his meat and his drink to do the will of his Father, and finish his work. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; so loving to come down from the hill of Zion for the least of all his little ones, so speedy to inter vene between us and every evil : — ' The voice of my Beloved sounds Over the rocks and rising grounds ; O'er hills of guilt and seas of grief He leaps, he flies to my relief.' THE GLIMPSE THROUGH THE LATTICE. Behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice. — The Beloved is first heard by his voice awaking the soul out of sleep, next he is beheld on the distant mountains, then the interven ing space is surmounted with the swiftness of the roe, and he is seen close at hand behind the wall, for ' he cometh suddenly into his temple.' It is ever the Lord's way ; his visit, long promised, long expected, long deferred, but sudden at the end. So is it in the day of his coming in the flesh, in his coming in the Spirit at Pentecost, so in glory coming at the last day like a thief. In like manner he often comes in his first entrance into the lost soul ; the wind hath blown where it listed, the Spirit as he willed, the sound is heard, and the soul is already born again; but it marvels at the vast and sudden change, at the blessed command, ' Zaccheus, come down, to-day I must abide at 120 THE GLIMPSE THROUGH THE LATTICE. CH. II. 9. thy house.' So also in future visits, denied, delayed, almost despaired of, then the voice suddenly heard, the distant form seen, and in a moment the soul's Beloved at the very wall of the dwelling, knocking at the door and entering within the heart. ' The vision in the end shall speak, and not lie (not disappoint) : though it tarry, wait for it ; be cause it will surely come, it will not tarry' (Hab. ii. 3) ; or more exactly, 'it will not be behind' its time, making up for its delay by its swiftness in the end. The figurative wall is taken by some interpreters for a hedge, through whose interlaced branches the Bridegroom can be partially seen; but is certainly rather a wall of stone beside the openings or gates of which, or even over its cope, he is discovered appearing and then disappearing. Next ' he looketh forth at the windows,' or rather looketh through them, for he is obviously without ; ' showing him self,' or literally 'blooming,' like a flower-bud bursting through its sheath ; ' through the lattice,' being still par tially concealed by the lattice- work, which in the absence of glass served for a protection, and in the heat of the sun for a screen. So the voice of Jesus was heard by the ancient Church speaking through the prophets; so his form was seen afar off by Abraham with the eye of faith, through mountains of intervening ages, making him glad ; and by the patriarch of Uz, when (he knew that his Redeemer lived, and that he should see him for himself and not for another.' But at intervals He drew nearer, and as by glimpses from behind the wall he was seen like a wayfaring man; taking to him the human or angelic form, and talking with Abraham, with Joshua, with the wife of Manoah. So likewise through the latticed window of types and shadows, of ceremonies and sacrifices, He showed himself to Israel. Even in the cloud of glory that went before them, and rested over the Ark of the Covenant, CH. II. 9. THE GLIMPSE THROUGH THE LATTICE. 121 he was both seen and hid ; more glory, indeed, was seen than could be looked upon, yet he was himself only par tially revealed in that brightness. Then beside the waters of Jordan, more nearly and more brightly far than ever, He begins to reveal himself, and the Baptist to discover and proclaim his approach. But it is not yet in the broad light of day, walking and teaching in the midst of the Church; but rather hid than seen, more unknown than recognised. ' There standeth One in the midst of you whom ye know not, and I knew him not.' He is standing, also, behind a wall which he is soon to break down, the middle wall of partition, the law of commandments against us ; which he is to remove by his cross, and through the rent veil of his flesh open a way to the Father within the holiest of all. When at length the Church on earth beheld the Beloved, she saw indeed 'His glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth ;' but even then, the flesh which he took was a veil partially concealing the Godhead that dwelt within it, in the very hour and by the very means which made that invisible glory manifest. And now in all our communion with him, our King and Bridegroom and Beloved visits us at transient intervals ; a little while seen by us, and again a little not seen, because he hath gone to the Father; the Spirit breathing as he willeth, coming we know not whence and revealing Jesus, but going we know not whither and leaving Jesus hid. Now likewise, it is only through latticed windows that we see Him at all, even when the vision is brightest. By the eye of faith we discern him through the word, through the sacraments, through prayer ; yet these are but lattices of divided light, that yield a glimpse but no full vision of the Beloved, at once disclosing and concealmg the Desire of our eyes. But therefore do we see him now through a glass darkly, that we may the more earnestly long to be- 122 THE GLIMPSE THROUGH THE LATTICE. CH. II. 9. hold him face to face, and be constrained to say, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Yet beauteous windows they are through which the Beloved looks, windows of agates and gates of carbuncles, bordered with pleasant stones ; lovely lattices, when by them the Bridegroom shows him self. Through the dim glass and the grated window, how glorious is the glimpse of His countenance and how sweet are his smiles, like sunbeams after rain ; even ' when He looketh with glory shining bright through the windows of -his word, and grates of his sacraments.' 0 that these glimpses were more desired, more frequent, and more abiding ! ' Through lattices that light divide, Through glorious gospel lines, Through veil of flesh, through pierced side, His love, his beauty shines.' II. THE GARDEN OF FLOWERS— THE SONG OF BIRDS— THE VOICE OF THE TURTLE. My Beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth. The time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. — Chap. h. 10-13. THE GARDEN OF FLOWERS. My beloved spake, and said unto me, Bise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth. The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. — This is the first vineyard or garden of the king described in the Song, for the previous references have been only to the unkept vineyard of the Bride, and to her servile dressing of the vineyard of strangers. Her own vineyard in the garden of Eden she had not kept, and the tempest of the Lord's anger had laid it desolate ; but He has now prepared a new Paradise on her behalf, a garden let down from heaven to earth, enclosing ' every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden.' Looking down from above he pronounces it 'very good;' through the opened curtains of his chambers in the heavens he declares him self 'well pleased.' Not matured as yet is this new garden's ample fruit, but already blooming in all the 123 124 THE GARDEN OF FLOWERS. CH. II. 10-13. beauty and with all the promise of a most genial spring ; and the Bride is invited not merely to visit, but to enter and possess it as her own. 1. The invitation announces that winter with its dead ening cold is past, and that its stormy blasts and sweeping rains are over and gone. By general consent from the earliest times, ' the winter' is referred to the law of the covenant of works. Holy and just and good the law is in itself, but framed with no design, and possessing no efficacy, to call dead souls into new life; having no reviving warmth to clothe the leafless vineyard with the beauty of resurrection; but binding all the barrenness and death of the apostate heart with the icy bands of per petual winter. How cheering to souls sealed in hopeless death is the wondrous announcement, Lo the winter is past; how beautiful upon the mountains the feet of the first great herald that proclaimed the fact to a benumbed and sleeping world ! ' The law and the pro phets were until John, since that time the kingdom of God is preached.' The other element of winter likewise, the desolating rain, is over and gone. Clouds and darkness were gathered about an offended God ; thunder, and lightning, and tem pest, burst all round in terrible explosion from the secret fires of a trampled law. On the stony tablet was engraven, Thou shalt not touch, lest thou die ; but the surface of the marble pavement was smooth, no frame of barbed iron encompassed it, nothing betokened death to the intruding transgressor but the words of the living God, ' The soul that sinneth it shall die.' In a fatal moment man pre sumptuously touched the forbidden ground, transgressed the guarding word of the Living One ; and on the instant the sleeping fires of Divine jealousy burst forth, and the lightning, the tempest, and the rain drove man to hide CH. II. 10-13. THE GARDEN OF FLOWERS. 125 himself beneath the trees from the face of an angry God. Not outwardly visible, indeed, to the carnal eye on earth is the kindled wrath of Jehovah, but brought forth from time to time in the fiery sword of Eden, in the waters of the Deluge, in the flames of Sodom, and most of all in the clouds, the thunder, the lightning, and the tempest that encircled Mount Sinai at the proclamation of the holy but trespassed law. But all the indignation was to rest on the head of Him who was made of a woman, made under the law in order that without knowing sin himself he might become sin for us, and be made a curse in the room of the condemned. The long gathered waters of the winter's flood were together to burst upon him till He cried — I sink in deep waters, thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. And now because he has already come, though his work is yet unfinished, his .herald proclaims the joyful sound of the ' rain over and gone.' But who to this day believeth the report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed 1 How few believe that the wintry death is past; how few apprehend that in Christ Jesus God breathes more than summer's warmth on dead souls, raising them into life; how many still vainly endeavour for themselves to thaw the frozen ice of their hearts, and melt it into the love of God, while abiding within the region of nature's winter, and refusing to come forth into the summer of grace and free Divine love. For a moment the cold heart seems to melt by the effort, but is quickly frozen harder than before, as in the midst of an eternal winter. Ah ! poor soul, enclosed within the arctic circle of cold and darkness, will you not hear and live ; shut up in your icy heart of sin and aliena tion, will you not look out and come forth from yourself and your benumbed and torpid sleep ? Your God has spread for you a green Paradise beside the very snows 126 THE GARDEN OF FLOWERS. CH. II. 10-13. that cover over your cabin — come out and see. All was winter with you, and all was winter for you, when you gathered yourself within yourself and laid you down to sleep in death ; with you all is winter still, but for you all is changed into summer if you will but advance into its beams. Your God announces the winter past, and calls ' Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light;' for during your deathlike sleep the Sun of righteousness has arisen with healing and reviving warmth beneath his wings. The voice of the Beloved awakes you, 0 sleeping soul, assures you that the rain is over and gone, and invites you forth. Awoke by the voice of strangers, you have some times arisen to open, but the unrelenting blast has beat upon your face, and you have shrunk backward and inward again, closing your doors. But now ' the Master is come and calleth for thee ; ' the voice of the Beloved, the word of Jesus the faithful witness, calleth you. The Beloved, you reply, but not my Beloved ; yes, yours if you will listen to Him ; awake and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light. In the hour in which He summons and awakes you, he pronounces you both beloved and lovely, ' calling her beloved that was not beloved ; ' and He in vites you to come away unto him, and along with him into his vineyard, his garden, his prepared Paradise; saying — Rise up, my .love, my fair one ; or in the words of an old translation — ' My Fellow-friend, my Beautiful, Arise and come thy way ; ' 'for lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone — arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.' But, 2. Not only is the assurance given of winter past, but the fruit is presented of returning spring. It is not how- CH. II. 10-13. THE GARDEN OF FLOWERS. 127 ever the fruit of autumn, but the first produce of the summer's sunbeams, for nothing in all the garden is ripe. The flowers are in bloom, the fig-tree is swelling and sweet ening the green figs that had hung upon its branches through the winter, and the tender grape is forming out of the fragrant blossom. The flowers are emblems and assurances of joy, created only for beauty and delight ; and the tender figs and grapes give the sure promise of abundant fruit. The flowers are tokens of anger past, of grace and favour come, and the summoned bride is wel come to weave from them garlands of beauty wherewith she may adorn herself to meet the King (Tres Patres). The swelling fruits are pledges of ample provision against all want in the kingdom of heaven. It is the kingdom of heaven as proclaimed by the Baptist, commenced and established yet not matured, but with its doors thrown widely open, and all men invited into it. To Israel of old it was the land of promise, that noble type of the king dom ; but it was the promised land not yet possessed, but with its fruits, its figs, its grapes of Eschol presented ; ripe indeed, but a mere evidence and earnest and foretaste of the land of covenant. Sinai's thunder and tempest and rain were over and gone; the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts was set before the people ; and though they knew not the day of their visitation, the gracious invitation of the Lord came to them, Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. So again the invitation came in the days of John, but unto a people made willing in a day of power, who pressed and entered in. Now if the garden is the kingdom of heaven, what is its 'flower' but the Lord Jesus Christ/! the one fair flower that ever sprang from earth, the Rose of Sharon, the Lily of the Valleys, and the Garden's perfect flower ; one in deed, yet springing manifold through all the garden, and 128 THE GARDEN OF FLOWERS. CH. II. 10-13. beautifying all its borders with whatever things are pure, or lovely, or of good report, or of any virtue, or of any praise. The ' fig-tree,' what is it but the ' Green Tree,' fair and of goodly fruit, nobler far than that beneath whose shade sat the Israelite without guile when the eye of Jesus was upon him ; or rather the very Fig-tree unseen, under whose ample shadow Nathanael worshipped. And 'the vine with the tender grape,' is it not the stem out of the root of Jesse, the tender plant that grows up before the Lord of Hosts, and bears the still swelling, yet ample cluster that hath the new wine in it and the blessing ; "the True Vine of which the Father is the husbandman, whose ripe grapes are soon to be bruised in the wine-press of Jehovah's wrath for the life of a perishing world. Into this garden filled with flowers and figs and grapes, not of our planting nor of our watering nor culture, we are in vited freely to enter, and to rejoice in the Lord and in his great goodness. ' The immortal Vine of heavenly root, Blossoms, and buds, and gives her fruit ; Lo, we are come to taste the wine, Our souls rejoice, and bless the Vine.' But also in this heavenly vineyard are innumerable off shoots from the Plant of Renown, believers planted together with him, bearing flowers and figs and grapes, precious before the Lord of Hosts, and not uncomely or unattrac tive to the eyes of men. In a season of the Lord's re turning presence, such produce springs forth abundantly. Roots really dead are made alive in Christ, and send forth buds and blossoms ; branches of the true vine, not dead but withered, flourish again and fructify; and happy is the man who discerns such a time, and obeys the divine call, and comes forth into the fragrant vineyard. CH. II. 12. THE SONG OF BIRDS. 129 THE SONG OF BIRDS. The time of the singing of birds is come, the season when the feathered songsters of the wood and of the sky express the fulness of their joy in sweetest melody. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the spring and summer of a returning and smiling God, and its invitation is, 0 sing a new song. to the Lord for he hath done wondrous things. There is in the universe no subject of song like redeeming love, within the bounds of creation no music equal to the song of the redeemed ; like the noise of many waters breaking' forth in praise, Worthy is the Lamb. It is a song mingled with holy awe, yet not the less joyful on that account, its deepest tones only swelling the volume of mirthful melody. It is a hymn in praise of the slain Lamb, yet mingled now with no sadness for that death, but all the more converted into gladness. In going forth to the last agony, Jesus ' sung a hymn ' with his disciples ; and when he was risen from the dead and had poured out his Spirit, ' they ate their meat with gladness, praising God.' The believer in heaviness through manifold temptations- hangs his harp upon the willows, and asks ' How shall I sing the Lord's song in a strange land 1 ' and when in no sadness for him self, he has great heaviness for his kinsmen according to the flesh, and cannot sing' when they are dying. Yet, heir of heaven, there is nothing in which you more misjudge., Did not Paul and Silas sing praises in chains at midnight, till all the prisoners heard them 1 and the jailer himself joined in the song before the day had dawned, believing in God with all his house. There is nothing in the Gospel more attractive to men than the joy it imparts to believers in their greatest trials ; and when for the sake of perishing souls you are refusing to sing to your Lord, you are with- I 130 THE SONG OF BIRDS. CH. H. 12. holding not only from Him the praise that is due, but from them one of the likeliest means for their conversion. ' Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be con verted unto thee.' Let us therefore not return to our old rebel ranks amongst the evil and unthankful ; but let the very singing of the birds of the air, and the bursting buds of the flowers of the earth, remind us of the debt of joyful gratitude that we owe for the great salvation. ' All creatures of the eternal -God but man, In several sorts do glorify his name ; Each tree doth seem ten thousand tongues to have, With them to laud the Lord omnipotent ; Each leaf, that with wind's gentle breath doth wave, Seems as a tongue to speak to that intent, In language admirably excellent. The sundry sorts of fragrant flowers do seem, Sundry discourses God to glorify, And sweetest volumes may we them esteem ; For all these creatures in their several sort Praise God, and man unto the same exhort.' Neither should the vocal melody of praise be neglected, for we are exhorted to ' admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,' as well as to ' make' melody in our hearts' to the Lord. The song of your heart, be liever, may edify yourself, but the song of your lips will edify your brother ; you are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and your spirit which are God's. Your tongue is purchased and is not your own. When your lips were your own, your unsanctified tongue greatly dishonoured the Lord ; and now let your tongue redeemed sing forth the honour of his name. Around the family altar and in the sanctuary, your song is the confession of Christ before men ; and in refusing to render such praise through shame and fear of man, take heed lest your Lord CH. II. 12. THE SONG OF BIRDS. 131 write it against you as a refusal to bear his reproach and proclaim his glory. In all seasons of abounding grace and spiritual liberty, the heart seems moved to praise with the lips ; when the winter of the Church is past, it is ever succeeded by ' the time of the singing of birds ;' and the voice of holy song is one of the sweetest tokens of the rain being ' over and gone.' ' 0 sing unto this glittering glorious King, 0 praise His name let every living thing ; Let heart and voice, like bells of silver, ring The comfort that this day did bring.' We must not, however, omit to note that what we translate ' the time of singing,' is in our older Bibles ren dered ' the time of pruning.' The season of the singing of birds, is the season also of the growth and the pruning of the vine's luxuriant shoots ; the branch that is pruned for fruit, and the song that is pruned for beauty, are expressed in the same terms by the Hebrews; and it is therefore difficult to determine whether ' the time of the singing' of birds, or ' the time of pruning' the vines is intended. But as they are not remote in nature, so neither are they dis tant in grace ; for in the kingdom of heaven the season of spring, the season of growth, the season of song, and the season of the sharp knife of the vine-dresser are the same. Wonder not if you were left alone while your branches were dead, but have felt the edge of the knife so soon as they have lived again. ' Has not your Lord said, that ' the branch in him that beareth not fruit his Father taketh away, and the branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit' 1 Pruneth ever the husband man the lifeless tree 1 If toward it he stretch forth the iron at all, it is not the pruning-knife but the axe that fills his hand. But when the shoots spring forth luxuriantly, he repents of the threatened yet deserved stroke of exci- 132 THE SONG OF BIRDS. CH. II. 12. sion, lays down the lifted weapon of destruction, and loses no time in applying the pruning-knife, the token now of a recognised place in the vineyard. ' When fading trees of righteousness Renew their fruitful life ; Thou dost the branches lop and dress, I bless the pruning knife.' THE VOICE OF THE TURTLE. And the voice of the Turtle is heard in our land, the voice of Elias according to the Jews, the voice of John the Baptist according to some early Christian interpreters. The kingdom of heaven preached by John was like the melodious singing of birds ; it was good tidings of great joy, like summer songs after wintry tempests. His testi mony also remarkably resembled the voice of the turtle, and his appearance was like its coming. (1.) As the turtle is one of the doves, and the dove the emblem of peace plucked the olive leaf when the rain was over and gone, and presented it to the rescued human family in token of divine reconciliation : so John, the first on earth honoured to tell of the now approaching summer of grace and truth, was the true turtle-dove bearing in its mouth the olive branch of mercy to men. (2.) The turtle among the doves is selected in Scripture for its returning to meet the return ing sun, neither ignorant nor forgetful of the season, and as a standing reproof to man for not discerning the gracious return and coming of the Lord. ' Shall he turn away and not return ? yea the stork in the heaven knoweth her ap pointed times, and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming, but my people know not the judgment of the Lord' (Jer. viii.) The Baptist, than whom none greater had been born of women, was selected CH. II. 12. THE VOICE OF THE TURTLE. 133 as the ' turtle-dove,' that first of all should recognise and welcome the return of God to man in the person of Jesus Christ ; should know it for himself, as the turtle knowing the time of its coming, and should publish it to others, as the turtle making its voice heard in the land ; ' the voice in the wilderness' testifying that in the desert is now found the vineyard of the Lord, on earth the kingdom of heaven. (3.) The turtle with its tender and mournful note is a scriptural emblem for repentance. ' They refused to re turn, no man repented, yea the turtle observeth the time . of its coming.' ' The low sad plaint of the turtle-dove may be heard all day long at certain seasons in the olive groves, and in the solitary and shady valleys among the mountains. It is always mournful; so subdued, so very sorrowful among the trees.' John came preaching the baptism of repentance for remission of sins ; his testimony was, Repent ; it was the plaintive ' voice of the turtle heard in the land' along with the song of birds, and both of them on account of the kingdom of heaven come ; grief and joy together, ' affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost ;' heaven rejoicing over penitents on earth, and earftdy peni tents praising God for the heavenly grace. But as 'the ox knowing his owner, and the ass his master's crib,' reprove Israel ignorant and inconsiderate ; so does the time-observing turtle convict the forgetful and self-blinded sinner. Look at the turtle or the crane, or at the swallow more familiar to your sight. Did it sleep in summer, did it not discern the smiling flowers and budding grapes, but suffer spring and summer to pass away in slumber or in joyous idleness, and then turn toward our shores when the season was past ; what a miserable death would await the ill-timed wanderer, either cast into the deep by the angry tempests, or landing on our coasts only to be frozen to death. So fruitless and so fatal, 0 sinner, 134 THE VOICE OF THE TURTLE. CH. II. 12. is your late and unseasonable seeking of the kingdom of heaven. ' They who seek early find,' and why does the Saviour of sinners weep over lost souls, but because ' they know not the day of their visitation,' their season of grace, their time of opportunity ? Is He not saying even now, ' 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her brood beneath her wings, and ye would not.' Are not his com passions stirred over you and his repentings kindled together, and is it not the utterance of his heart, 0 that thou hadst known, even thou at least in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace, ere they be hid from thine eyes. Let your voice be heard, even in this hour, as the voice of a weeping penitent returning to your God, as the voice of a believing suppliant calling on the name of Jesus, as the voice of the turtle knowing its season and improving it ; for now is your accepted time, now your day of salvation, and in returning to your God you will meet him already returning unto you, falling upon your neck and kissing you as a son, lost but now found, dead and alive again. ' The legal wintry state is gone, The mists are fled, the spring comes on ; The sacred Turtle-dove we hear Proclaim the new, the joyful year. And when we hear Christ Jesus say, Rise up, my Love, and come away, Our hearts would fain out-fly the wind, And leave all earthly joys behind.' III. THE DOVE IN THE CLEFTS OF THE ROCK— THE FOXES THAT SPOIL THE VINES. O my Dove that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice ; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines ; for our vines have tender grapes. — Chap. ii. 14, 15. THE DOVE IN THE CLEFTS OF THE ROCK. 0 my Dove that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice ; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. — The Church is so often described by the emblem of a dove both in the Song and throughout the Scriptures, that we shall note the leading ideas which the term is employed to convey. Here it is a term of endearment used by Christ of his Church, and this may be regarded as its principal meaning throughout the Song, 'my Sister, my love, my dove.' In like manner exactly, the Church applies it to herself in the Psalms when she prays, 0 deliver not the soul of thy turtle-dove unto the multitude of the wicked. Both with Asaph and with Solomon, the dove is an image and term of affection of precisely the same significance as the lamb in Nathan's parable of the poor man ; the one little ewe-lamb that grew up with his children, that ate of his own morsel and drank of his own cup, and was unto him as a daughter. Such also to Jesus, and so cherished an object is his Church, ' his sister, his dove, his only one.' Nor need we exclude the common interpretation, which 136 136 THE DOVE IN THE CLEFTS OF THE ROCK. CH. II. 14. connects the image with the constancy of doves to each other ; the dove being noted for its lifelong attachment to its mate. The following account given by James Melville in his diary, of the death of his infant son, may serve to illustrate both. ' The bairn was fallon (very) beautiful, loving, and merry, but by the space of a quarter of a year he consumed and dwined away, keeping always the pleasantest eye that could be in any head. He was my first propine (pledge) and handsel to heaven. I cannot forget a strange thing at his death : I had a pair of fine milk-white doves, which I fed in the house ; the one whereof, that day of his death, could not be holden off his cradle, but crept in and sat under it and died with him ; the other at my home-coming on the morrow came, lighted at my feet, and crying piteously ran a little away from me. I took it up and put food in its mouth ; but it shook it from its throat, and parting from me with a pitiful piping, within two or three hours died also : ' 0 first like pleasant flower on earth thou grew, Then dwined to death, with doves to heaven thou flew.' This passage affectingly illustrates what requires no proof, that like the ewe-lamb brought up with the children the dove is a natural emblem for a cherished object of affection, and shows likewise the faithful attachment of doves between themselves. But besides being emblematic of affection, the image is associated with many other ideas in Scripture. (1.) The dove is the emblem employed for the Holy Ghost, who descended on Christ ' like a dove and abode upon him;' and every soul united to Christ has this dove-like Spirit dwelling in him, for if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his. (2.) Broken hearts repenting towards God are compared to doves ; ' for they CH. II. 14, THE DOVE IN THE CLEFTS OF THE ROCK. 137 shall be like doves of the valleys, every one mourning for his iniquity.' (3.) Saints are likened to doves for simpli city and gentleness, in Christ's command ' be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.' (4.) They are like doves also in beauty, according to the promise, ' though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver and with gold.' (5.) Dove-like again they are, in congregating rapidly and in great multitudes into the house and kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, 'flying as a cloud and as the doves to their windows.' (6.) They resemble doves in carrying messages of peace and good-will from God to perishing men, as the dove bare to Noah the olive branch, in token of the waters of wrath upon a guilty world being now assuaged. (7.) And finally, they are like doves in timidity, ' trembling like a dove out of the land of Egypt ;' fearing and fleeing from sin, the world, and self; fearing and fleeing to him that is able to cast both soul and body into hell, and ever hiding them selves within the clefts of the Rock of Ages, even that Rock which is Christ. ' 0 my dove that art in the clefts of the rocks, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice ; for sweet is thy voice and thy counte nance is comely.' There are three ideas, different yet not inconsistent, which may be conveyed by these rocks, and ' the stairs' which are the cavernous precipices of the rocks resembling stairs; for they may be understood of the natural, of the . spiritual, or of the outward refuge of the dove of Christ. 1. The beauty of the dove is determined by the text, and also the call on the part of Christ to come forth to himself, but not the character of her hiding-place. This secret refuge is therefore understood by some as the rock of nature, in which the trembling sinner has hid himself, 138 THE DOVE IN THE CLEFTS OF THE ROCK. .CH. II. 14. and from which he is invited to come forth to Jesus ; or as the hiding-place of sadness and despondency, to which the believer has returned in a Wintry season of the soul. In the very first effectual call of Christ he addresses the soul, 0 my dove ; and in the first forthcoming of the soul to him the ' countenance is comely,' already reflecting the. image of Jesus. In the first emerging of the dove from among the soiling pots of Egypt, her wings are covered with silver and her feathers with gold ; and as the counte nance is comely through his beauty, so the voice is sweet in the first utterances of repentance, of faith, of love. ' They were all of them snared in holes, and hid in prison- houses, and none said, Restore.' But John the Baptist in the wilderness of Judea, when the winter of the law was past, called the people out to meet a coming Christ ; and they came forth confessing their sins, and asking, ' what shall we do V This voice of repentance Christ heard, as of the turtle that knows the time of her coming, and ' it was sweet;' he saw their countenance washed in purer waters than those of the Jordan, and ' it was comely.' So now Jesus ' says to the prisoners; Come forth, to them that sit in darkness, Show yourselves ;' and in coming forth to him, benighted sinner, and in showing yourself, how vile soever or offensive before, your voice likewise is sweet to his ear and your countenance comely in his sight. 2. This hiding-place is understood by others to represent the dove's true refuge, Christ himself; from which in that case she is invited to come forth, not as forsaking it but flying abroad on the wings of faith and holy liberty, to return again and rest in the rock; as the sheep of the good Shepherd, entering by him, go in and out and find pasture. ' 0 that I had wings like a dove, I would fly away and be at rest ; I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.' Such a use has this dove of CH. II. 14. THE DOVE IN THE CLEFTS OF THE ROCK. 1 39 Christ made of her wings ; the winter blast was howling, the torrent of rain descending, and she fled to the rock like Noah's dove to the ark. But as when the rain was over and gone, that dove was the first to leave the ' secret places of the stairs,' in that floating palace which had been a tower of safety when earth's highest rocks were the bed of the ocean ; so the dove of Christ is now invited by himself to come forth from the rocky refuge, to confess the name of Jesus, to pray to him, to praise him, to bear for him messages of peace throughout the earth. Or we may retain the image of the rock, not merely as a con stant refuge of resort and return, but of continual abiding. Then it is within the rocky clefts, yet in holy liberty within, with opened lips confessing, praying, praising, testifying; within the clefts yet in holy boldness, and instead of merely casting down the eyes in shame, ventur ing in faith to look openly on Jesus, and to stand as accepted before Him. ' 0 dove in the clefts of the rock,' what a refuge • thou hast found ; a rock and therefore sure, a cleft rock and therefore open for you. Clefts and openings enough you saw and tried ; and there was no rock within them, but refuges of lies quickly failing. One rock you beheld, vast, beautiful, eternal, awful ; but on its glittering surface there was no seam or rent wherein to hide yourself. The Law giver smote with the iron rod of Sinai that Rock of Ages for you, and rent it with harbouring clefts, when it pleased the Father to bruise his Beloved Son. How quickly then did you flee for refuge to the hope set before you, and how deep did you hide yourself within the wounded Saviour, ' your life hid with Christ in God.' Once within that Rock, you have loved to hear the tempest howl, and the billows roar without, beneath, around, till the earth shook with the swelling thereof, that you might prove your safety 140 THE DOVE IN THE CLEFTS OF THE ROCK. CH. II. 14. the more, and with a louder hymn might sing to Jesus, ' God is our refuge, therefore will we not fear though the earth be removed, and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.' Thither you have fled from every foe, thither from every fear, thither from hell, thither from earth, there is your dwelling, your home there; not your home for a season, not your tabernacle of exile during life, but your eternal refuge which neither life nor death can for a moment shake. Wben the Jordan shall swell around you, and the waters rise so high as to bear away on their bosom the frail bark of this earthly frame in which you were when betaking yourself to the refuge ; even then, will you calmly look upon the shattered wreck floating from you on the stream, but yourself hid and held securely within the Eternal Rock. ' Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee ; Let the water and the blood, From thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Cleanse me from its guilt and power. ' While I draw this fleeting breath, While mine eyelids close in death, When I soar to worlds unknown, See thee on thy judgment throne, — Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee.' 3. But a special reference may well be allowed to the persecuted Church of Christ, wandering in deserts and in mountains, hiding in dens and caves of the earth, to whom most of all must these words of the Bridegroom have been sweet, 0 my dove that art in the clefts of the rocks. ' The timid dove seeks to hide itself in such recesses from CH. II. 14. THE DOVE IN THE CLEFTS OF THE ROCK. 141 the birds of prey ; and how oft has the Church been glad to hide herself in woods and solitary places, yea in caverns and in clefts of the rocks, to escape the storms of persecu tion ; and in these retirements to worship God, and enjoy communion with him, out of the reach of the talons of the persecutor. Ah, ye Waldenses, ye Albigenses, ye Pied- montese, how often was this your case ! Yes, and ye ancient British Nonconformists, of whom the world was not worthy, how often have ye retired to some solitary cottage in the wood, how carefully have ye closed the door, the chimney, and every avenue of sound that the listening informer might not hear ! But the Lord hearkened and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him.' — (Williams.) More literally still did the mountain dove of the Church of Scotland hide herself ' in the clefts of the rock ; ' and oft from ' the secret places of the stairs ' within the craggy precipice, whence she could see afar yet herself unseen, has her voice of prayer and praise ascended to heaven and mingled with the songs above. Nor does the dove's earthly rock overshadow or displace, but only illustrate and recommend the Rock that is higher. Most admirably has Solomon's noble father exhibited this truth ; for no man on earth was better acquainted with the character of both these rocks, and none knew better how to distinguish between them. Wings like a dove he had taken, and had hid himself in the Rock of Ages ; as with the feet of hinds also, he had scaled the high places of the precipice, and hid himself in ' the rocks of the wild goats.' His foiled foes taunted him by this very image of the dove in the clefts of the rock ; and proudly bade him fly like a trembling bird to its craggy refuge, as if that earthly rock had been his real stronghold. Listen to his magnificent reply to the cruel taunt, ' In the Lord put I 142 THE DOVE IN THE CLEFTS OF THE ROCK. CH.II. 14. my trust, how say ye to my soul, 'flee as a bird to your mountain;' for the real rock in which that mountain dove had hid itself was the Rock of Ages, whom alone in his securest stronghold his song ever celebrated, ' The Lord is my rock and my fortress, my strength, my buckler, my high tower.' THE FOXES THAT SPOIL THE VINES. Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines ; for our vines have tender grapes. — This injunction was given most emphatically to John the Baptist in the first blossom ing of the Lord's vineyard, in the opening of the Gospel dispensation when the kingdom of heaven was proclaimed as at hand. In that kingdom foxes are both subtle sins, for the deceitfulness of sin is ever one of its darkest brands in the Word of God ; and deceitful workers, fox-like men who corrupt others. Never were the two more resolutely taken and dragged to the light of day, than by the hands of the herald who prepared in the wilderness the way of the Lord. He preached the kingdom of heaven, the winter past, the day of sunshine from heaven come, and he in vited all men to press into the vineyard. But mark how vigilantly he took the vine-spoiling foxes, the subtle sins : ' He that hath two coats let him give to him that hath none ; exact no more than is appointed you ; do. violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages ; repent, and bring forth fruits meet for repent ance.' With the same determined hand he caught the subtle fox-like men that would enter the blooming vine yard, branding them openly by the kindred figure of the cunning * serpent.' '0 generation of vipers,' said he to the Sadducees and Pharisees coming for baptism, ' who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come 1 ' Nay CH. II. 1 5. THE FOXES THAT SPOIL THE VINES. 143 further, the crafty and cruel Herod whom the lowly One spares not to designate as ' that fox,' this friend of the Bridegroom at the cost of his life caught with iron grasp in his own den — for even around it there were vine-blos soms, when he did many things gladly — and told him face to face, ' it is not lawful for thee to have her.' The season of spring and summer, both in the Church and in the soul, has its own peculiar dangers, and its own special labours. The winter of spiritual death contains within itself all possible evil; yet certain forms of evil seem often to be frozen up along with the good. When the vineyard is by the returning sun full of tender grapes, then the foxes which were either few or elsewhere before, find shelter under the abundant foliage, and increase rapidly in number. There are noxious heresies which spring up less readily while the Church is dormant, for though doubtless the seeds of those tares are sown while men sleep, yet when the wheat springs up the tares appear along with it. In a season when men's minds are moved about divine things, false teachers arise with the craftiness of the fox, ' prophets in Israel like the foxes in the desert,' and by subtlety they beguile unstable souls, deceiving and being deceived. These as ' men that are heretics,' after the first and second warning are to be rejected, and cast out of the Church, lest like foxes they should spoil the tender vines. So likewise, errors in doctrine and sins in life are fraught with special danger at such a season ; they are roots of bitterness springing up to trouble, and defiling many; drinking in the abundant rains then falling from heaven, only to bring forth the wormwood of malice and hypocrisy. Indifference towards such errors or tenderness towards such sins may soon lay a pleasant vineyard waste. Because the pastors and elders of the Church will only hearken to the singing of the birds, and the voice of the turtle, and 144 THE FOXES THAT SPOIL THE VINES. CH. II. 15. admire the swelling and sweetening of the fig, and will not grapple with and destroy the foxes, the little foxes, that are spoiling the vines ; these are left to grow large, and are taken with difficulty, and after much mischief already perpetrated. So in the spring and summer of the individual soul, both plausible fox-like errors and subtle fox-like sins will make sad havoc in the vineyard, if not timeously crushed. Remember, living soul, that the joy of the Lord is your strength both to root out old sins that have always beset you, and to cut down new sins that spring up under the shelter of the very joy and peace that are now within you. Pride, vainglory, worldliness ; selfishness, envy, strife ; self-confidence, uncharitableness ; sloth, levity, and lust; fickleness, rashness, covetousness, and other sins innumer able, will creep in like foxes to waste the vines, and often like little foxes in small and seemingly weak beginnings. Now mark what these little foxes will work, if you leave them alone. They will burrow beneath the vine roots, they will gnaw the bark, they will break the shoots, they will scatter the sheltering leaves ; or if they forbear for a time, yet ere the vintage arrive they will fatten themselves on the ripening fruit, and leave the wine-press idle, and the wine-vat empty for want of grapes. Foxes are said to make sad havoc in a vineyard ; the name however designating other animals of kindred species besides our own carnivorous fox. ' Jackals prove very destructive to the gardens and fields, and especially so to the vineyards. Being very fond of green grapes, in pick ing them they often break the vines in their robbery.' ' Foxes abound in Judea, and are observed' by abundance of authors to love grapes, and make great devastations in vineyards ; insomuch that Aristophanes compares soldiers CH. II. 15. THE FOXES THAT SPOIL THE VINES. 145 to foxes, spoiling whole countries as they do vineyards.' This desolation of the vineyard, leaving it leafless and fruitless, is like the return of a second winter, but more unsightly by far than the barrenness of the original winter itself. Have you never seen such a soul 1 with the vine- stem peeled and bare, the boughs broken, the leaves strewn and withered, the fruit gone ; and not for want of a noble vine-plant, a rich soil, genial showers and a smiling sun ; not for want of knowledge, or ample privileges, or sur rounding grace ; but the vineyard devoured and laid waste, its goodliness devastated, because of errors and sins, or of one error or one sin, suffered to creep in subtly like the fox till the garden of the Lord had become a desolation. If you think you stand, take heed lest you fall; arise quickly and ' take the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines.' But the taking of these foxes will demand various graces in vigorous exercise. Thy Lord calls you to take them for Him and for you, ' for us ; ' he taking them along with you and you along with him. You lay hold of his strong arm, and entreat him to take them for you ; and he grasps your hand, and employs it to take them for him. Diligent searching is called for to find out their lurking-places, for there is no limit to the deceitfulness of sin, and patient watching to discover their outgoing and incoming ; so that while it grieves you to have them in your vineyard at all, you may sometimes rejoice at their appearing, in order that they may be caught and destroyed. Then it requires courage to put forth your hand to seize them, for Satan that evening wolf is growling round them in defence of his offspring ; and it demands stern resolution to resist the plea of tenderly sparing the sin ' because it is a little one.' There is however no doubt of their destruction, great or little, if we bring them before the Lord of the vineyard to K 146 THE FOXES THAT SPOIL THE VINES. CH. II. 15. be slain ; for 'if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' ' The foxes' tender brood destroy, Their cries for pity hush, Else they thy buds of grace and joy, Thy tender branch will crush.' CANTICLE II. PART II. CHAP. II. 16, 17 ; III. 1-5. THE BRIDE'S RESPONSE TO THE KING'S CALL. THE NIGHT BEFORE DAYBREAK. THE BRIDE'S INTEREST IN HER ABSENT LORD — THE EVEN ING PRATER — THE MIDNIGHT SEARCH — THE KING CONDUCTED HOME. My Beloved is mine, and I am his : he feedeth among the lilies. Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved, and be Thou like a, roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether. By night on my bed I sought Him whom my soul loveth : I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth : I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me : to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth ? It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth : I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought liim into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that con ceived me. I charge you, 0 ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my Love, till He please.— Chap. n. 16, 17 ; m. 1-5. THE BRIDE'S INTEREST IN HER ABSENT LORD. My Beloved is mine. — Christ had come suddenly, or rather had suddenly spoken and partially appeared. The bride hearkens to his welcome voice, and endeavours to obtain a steadfast sight of his form, as He glances flittingly from behind the wall, and shows himself for an instant through the lattice. But while she looks and listens He w 1 48 THE NIGHT BEFORE DAYBREAK. CH. II. 1 6 is already gone, and is feeding elsewhere ' among the lilies.' In the next verse she calls aloud to him as absent, and beseeches him to return ; but here meanwhile, she comforts herself with the assurance that whether present or absent to sense, He is bound to her by a union that can never be dissolved, 'My beloved is mine and I am his.' In the third chapter of Hosea, the Lord in a season of absence employs language which in the original is strikingly similar, ' thou shalt abide for me many days, thou shalt not be for another, so will I also be for thee.' So likewise in the verse before us, the words may be rendered either, My Beloved is for me and I am for him ; or My Beloved is mine and I am his. He has come leaping over the mountains, and showing himself through the lattice ; he has addressed words of awakening and encouragement; has invited the Bride to come forth into his vineyard, and along with him enjoy its luxuriant promise of fruit. But He has left his gracious words with her and not his own presence ; yet he is never so distant as to be without the reach of her voice ; and his words are a stay and an assur ance to the soul, and warrant the believing heart to affirm of an absent Lord, My Beloved is mine. Our Beloved may not with assured certainty be ours ; Christ may be longed for and loved with the whole heart, yet the heart that cleaves to him as the limpet to the rock may be unable to say, He is mine. Yet the truth is in fallible, that '' if any man love God the same is known of him,' and that Christ ' loves them who love him.' There fore, 0 trembling soul, if you love him you have him ; if your heart cleaves to him as your choice and delight, he is also your possession ; if he is beloved by you, he is yours, and your beloved. My Beloved is mine, is no mean con solation to the mourner. Hopeless pining after Christ takes strength away ; but because He whom you truly long CH. II. 16. BRIDE'S INTEREST IN HER ABSENT LORD. 149 for is assuredly yours, take courage and in his own strength go forward seeking him. Cleaving and longing soul, what a possession you have ! All you love, all you adore, all you admire, all you seek is already your own. What relief, what rest, what power, what glory this truth contains. On earth the'sons and daughters of men often sigh hope lessly concerning manifold objects of desire. Their beloved wealth, beloved power, beloved wisdom, beloved fame, beloved beauty, or the beloved choice of their hearts' affec tions, is not in their possession ; and their language is, My beloved is not mine, never was mine, and may never be mine. In eternity all who rise to shame and confusion of face will say regarding all their desires, My beloved is not mine ; all I cared for, lived for, it may be died for, is lost for ever. Poor, disappointed, ashamed, lost soul ! But it is true of every follower and lover of the Lord Jesus Christ, whether you know it or not, that your Be loved is yours ; for ever and ever you shall sing, My Beloved is mine, and you may sing it as assuredly now. He is mine by the free gift of himself to me ; he is mine to look on, to lean upon, to dwell with ; mine to bear all my burdens, mine to discharge all my debts, mine to answer all my accusers, mine to conquer all my foes; mine to deliver me from hell, mine to prepare a place for me in heaven ; mine in absence, mine in presence, mine in life, mine in death, mine in the grave, mine in the judg ment, and mine at the marriage of the Lamb. And I am his. — I am His, by him created ; I am his, by him redeemed ; I am twice his, by original right, and by purchase when I was lost. I am his by the ransom of his blood, his by the conquest of his Spirit, his by my own free consent ; his in body, in soul, in estate ; his entirely, his exclusively, his irrevocably. I am his and he will defend me, his and he will correct me, his and he will 150 THE NIGHT BEFORE DAYBREAK. CH. II. 16. make use of me ; but his and he will love me, his and he will delight in me, his and he will claim me against all rivals and opponents ; yea rather his and he doth love me, his and he doth delight in me, his and he claims me now against all adversaries. I am not my own, not the Church's, not the world's, not man's, not the law's, not Satan's ; but his, Christ's, my Beloved's. I am not the property of time, nor of care, nor of business, nor of necessity; but of Christ, for ' I am his.' All things, believer, are yours in Christ ; yet you are no one's but his. All things pertain to you ; but you pertain to none but Jesus. You are the property of no man, the property of no creature, the pro perty of no uncreated yet mighty reality like sin. I am my Beloved's, and none else possesses either right or power over me, except according to his will and sufferance ; and if I am my Beloved's and he is mine, then all that is mine is his, all my sin, my weakness, my condemnation, and my misery ; and all that is his is mine, all his strength, his righteousness, his wisdom, his holiness, his salvation, his glory. His God is my God, his Father my Father, his brethren my brethren, his heaven my home. ' Lord thou art mine, and I am thine, If mine I am ; and thine much more, Than I or ought or can be mine. If I without thee could be mine, I neither should be mine nor thine. ' Lord. I am thine, and thou art mine ; So mine thou art, that something more I may presume thee mine than thine ; For thou didst suffer to restore, ' Not thee but me ; and to be mine, Since thou in death wast none of thine. 0 be mine still ; still make me thine, Or rather make no thine and mine.' Herbert. CH. II. 17. THE EVENING PRAYER. 151 He feedeth among the lilies. — This feeding is either of a roe pasturing amongst the lilies, or of a shepherd tending his flock in the rich valleys where they abound ; the flock not feeding on the lilies, but among them. These lilies are ' the pure in heart who see God ;' they are those ' who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb;' they are 'the virgins following the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.' Jesus feedeth among the lilies on earth, lilies among thorns though they be, and all the more because they are in the midst of the thorns. He is ever among them, he delighteth in them, he leaveth them , not; among them he pastures, among them he taketh his ' rest at noon. If I am one of them He cannot be remote from me ; and he is mine and I am his, whithersoever he may have gone. But he hath not gone far, for he never goeth out from amongst the lilies that he has gathered ' ' into his garden ; or if he do, it is only to gather another and return with it. If he leave the ninety and nine sheep, it is only to make up the number of the flock by restoring the sheep that he had lost. But if you are one of the thorns, He is not yours and you are not his ; you know neither his pasture, nor his resting-place, and his feeding among the lilies is only the more distant from you. Yet many a thorn has he transformed into a lily, many a lion into a lamb. Wilt thou not also be made clean i when shall it once be ? ¦*) THE EVENING PRAYER. - Until the day break and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved; and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether. — These mountains of Bether are sup posed by some to have been the mountains of-Eithron, separated from the rest of the land of Israel by the river 152 THE NIGHT BEFORE DAYBREAK. CH. II. 17. Jordan; and if so, they could not be remote from the place where Jesus was first manifested to Israel, ' in Beth- abara beyond Jordan where John was baptising.' Dr. Thomson describes what he takes to be the mountains of Bether, and states that he had himself seen beautiful roes leaping upon those mountains, and that the whole region is rough and rocky in the extreme. If the name of Bether is taken allegorically, as in the marginal explanation, they are mountains intersected with deep rents, and difficult to pass over; or mountains of division separating between the Bride and the Beloved, between the soul and Christ. As regards the meaning of the passage, whether Bether is literal or figurative, is of no consequence; because the name in either case is selected as signifying broken and dividing mountains, in express distinction from the ' moun tains of spices' in the last chapter. The prayer is the same as in the closing petition of the song, ' Make haste my Beloved;' but the mountains there are hills of spices on which the roe is supposed to feed, and here they are hills of separation whose craggy pinnacles and sepulchral gulfs must be surmounted to meet the Bride. In -Christ's second coming to the marriage of the Lamb he has only to descend from the hill of Zion, the mountains of spices above, to meet the ransomed and prepared Church; but in his first coming to betroth her to himself He had to overpass the mountains of Bether, the whole height and depth and breadth of divine law unchanging, divine law broken, divine law condemning. The ' breaking ' is literally, as in the margin, ' the breathing ' of the day ; with reference to the gentle breeze of early dawn, or rather as has been happily suggested, in allusion to the life that distinguishes the morning from the death of night, as if all nature dead were beginning with the dawn to live and breathe. The Bride has been CH. II. 17. THE EVENING PRAYER. 153 awakened by the voice of the Beloved, and has caught a glimpse of his fleeting form, as of a roe on the mountains. Obedient toj his summons she has come forth into the vineyard, has found the winter past, has heard the song of birds and the turtle's voice, has seen the tender grapes and caught the crafty foxes. But she has not found the Beloved himself, for the call was not to come along with him, but to come forth to meet him. In the following song, even on the summits of Lebanon and Amana, it is ' Come with me my spouse, with me from Lebanon ;' but hitherto the summons is only, Rise my love, my fair one and come away. Having come forth and spent the day in the vineyard, the night has supervened. But there had been an implied promise by the Bridegroom of his pre sence. With the morning dawn He had approached, had found the Bride shut in for security from the storms of winter, and asleep as in the depth of night, had awaked her with the intelligence of returning summer, had appeared for an instant, but had vanished ere she was ready to accompany him. She now beholds the dark night ap proaching ; He is still absent, and she earnestly implores him to return, and abide till all the darkness is past. The prayer is to return now, and to return as swiftly as the mountain roe, and to abide till the morning light ; ' until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved ; (make haste) and be thou like a roe, or a young hart on the mountains of Bether.' Before Christ's first appearance on the banks of the Jordan, and after the proclamation of his coming by the Baptist, the evening must have seemed long to all that looked for redemption ; and ' more than they that watch for the morning must their souls have waited for the Lord.' The cry must oft have been presented that He would ' make no tarrying,' but overleap all the dividing barriers ; 154 THE NIGHT BEFORE DAYBREAK. CH, II. 17. until the day break, turn my Beloved, and be like a roe upon the separating mountains. The Christian Church, having now obtained the first, is looking for the second appearing of the Lord of glory, and for the dawning of the eternal day. It is but moonlight at best, with much dark ness, sin, and misery within and without, through all this night of time. The shadows of the evening are indeed wearing away, the night is far spent, the day is at hand ; yet often the coldest and the darkest hour of the night is the hour before the day begins to breathe; and the Church's cry is, Until the day break, turn my Beloved upon the mountains .of Bether. In the night of nature's daily rest when the labours of the day are done; when Christ has awaked us in the morn ing as with the foot of the mountain roe, and called us to our allotted work and care and joy, and we have gone forth to our labour till the evening; when the twelve hours' work in the vineyard has not been without the song of birds on the right hand, and the annoyance of foxes on the left ; and when now the shades of evening have gathered again, how seasonable is it in retiring for rest to entreat His special presence, and with the evening of night closing in to present the prayer, ' Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn my Beloved ; and be thou like a roe or a young hart on the mountains of Bether.' In the gathering night of providential or spiritual trial there should be earnest prayer for Christ's coming, as with the swiftness of the roe; to abide with us during the watches of the night of sorrow, and till the dawn of ' joy that cometh in the morning.' But specially when the shades of evening are both gathering thickest, and fast preparing to disperse in the near approach of death, we should earnestly beseech the Lord Jesus to come quickly till the shadows have for ever fled. The night is far spent, CH. 11.17. THE EVENING PRAYER. 155 and the dawn of eternal day at hand, but the thickest of the darkness has still to be passed through ; Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn my Beloved and be thou like the roe or a young hart on the mountains of Bether.Among the shadows that flee at dawn of day are to be included, likewise, the types and ceremonies of the Jewish Church, which were not the substance but the shadow of him that was to come, and which passed away for ever when the Sun of righteousness arose. As those rites dis appeared like evening shadows at the first coming of the Lord, so the precious means of grace which we now enjoy will vanish when he comes the second time to receive us to himself. For illustration of this truth we must recur to Ralph Erskine, to whose metrical paraphrase we have been often indebted, and whose breath is so fragrant of the gospel as to make us forget the occasional uncouthness of his garb ; although' we are compelled in this instance to alter certain of his words, which would no longer fitly convey his thoughts : — ' Even word and sacraments shall pass, Which darkly show Him here ; For then He '11 break the misty glass, And face to face appear. ' Hence shall dividing hills and rents Between my soul and Thee, Be to my faith but arguments To haste thy march to me. ' Welcome, the great, the glorious store, Adieu, sweet earnests all ! I'll doubt, I'll fear, I'll sin no more, Christ doth to glory call.' Erskine. 156 THE NIGHT BEFORE DAYBREAK. CH. III. 1. THE MIDNIGHT SEARCH. By night on my bed I sought him. — This instructive narra tive is an inspired expression by Solomon of the thoughts of his father David, when ' his soul waited for the Lord as they that watch for the morning.' With David the coming of the Lord is the rising of the morning light ; and with Solomon the breaking of the day and the scattering of the shadows are nothing else than the appearing of the Sun of Righteousness, gilding the mountain-tops with his beams. For this morning the Bride has longed; waiting for it she passes a sleepless night ; and when it lingers and dawns not, she rises and goes forth to look for and to meet its earliest rays, ' the soul waiting for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning.' In the bridal imagery of the Song this is set forth by her calling at evening to her absent and distant Lord, who is on the further side of the lofty mountains ; and now she narrates the history of the desolate night that followed. She has prayed, ' turn my Beloved;' her spirit has made diligent search, I sought Him whom my soul loveth. She has expected a response to her earnest call, and counts that he must be already on the way traversing the mountains, and bringing morning with him. But there is no echo of his voice, no sound of his footsteps, no ray through the gloom — I sought him but I found him not. Then since he does not come to her, she must go forth in quest of him ; she rises, goes about the streets, inquires at the watchmen as for One whom she need not name, because he ought to be well known to them all, passes them, and finds the King. In the light of the morning now — for his presence is the morning light — she conducts him ' to her mother's house,' prevails on him to rest beneath its roof, and as having the Heir of all things CH. III. 1. THE MIDNIGHT SEARCH. 157 for her guest, she charges the daughters of Jerusalem gathering round in the daylight, not to abridge by any intrusion the period of the prized sojourn, nor hasten by one moment the hour of his departure. Historically the parable describes the close of the ministry of John the Baptist. It is impossible in the language of allegory more exactly to depict the state of the people on whom the light of Jesus first shone, than by this image of ' night.' The term is the very same as the gospel narrative constantly employs ; ' the people sat in darkness, under the shadow of death.' Nor could figurative and literal language more completely tally, than the search upon the bed for the absent Lord agrees with the record of ' all men musing in their heart concerning John, whether he were the Christ or no.' The ' musing in the heart,' and the ' meditating on the bed,' alike express thought without external effort ; in the one case reclining but not reposing by night, and in the other sitting in darkness. Then follows the active and public inquiry by sending Priests and Levites to John to ask for Christ ; the disappointment when they ' seek and find Him not' in the person of the Baptist; the speedy discovery ' but a little way' onward when Jesus himself comes to be baptised ; the open entrance of Christ into our mother's house to dwell in the midst of us ; the dove-like descent and abiding on him of the Holy Ghost ; the rest of the Beloved not ' to be stirred up nor awaked till he please.' Practically and in reference to literal earthly night, the believer may retire to rest without the presence of Christ ; to outward rest, but with neither spiritual comfort nor bodily repose. If possible he had acted better otherwise ¦ if more entreaty would have found Christ before resting, it had been not only holier and safer, but would have secured more quiet slumber. But the duties of the day were done the prayer of the evening over, and the season of rest had 158 THE NIGHT BEFORE DAYBREAK. CH. III. 1. arrived. Another coming' day demands this night's repose, and Christ found or Christ beyond the mountains of Bether, the repose must be taken. Now it cannot always be ex pected that the soul by effort, or volition, or patience shall obtain Christ's presence within an allotted time; yet through grace the believer will often, and usually be suc cessful. If repose is preferred to Christ, or if rest and Christ are in equal balances, we gain or seek to gain the chosen sleep ; but it is not the rest of the Lord's beloved, for we have lost Him who is better far than rest. But if Christ is first and best and most necessary, if he is more to us than food or sleep, he is commonly soon found, without actual loss either of the time or of the sleep which we were wDling to sacrifice for his sake. Our sleep then is sweet unto us and refreshing, for the Lord himself is dwelling in us, and resting with us. But if the Bride is capable of seeking repose without Christ, she is not able to find it ; for none but Christ will satisfy the child of God. There is nothing easier than to deceive the natural mind with an imaginary saviour ; it is easily deceived and easily satisfied. But there is nothing harder, than to satisfy the soul that is taught of God with out Christ himself, or to beguile that soul with a false comforter ; ' by night on my bed I sought him, I sought him but I found him not.' Solomon, now or afterwards, knew well both the midnight seeking, and the midnight finding of the Lord. In a dream by night God said to him at Gibeon, Ask what I shall give ; and by night upon his bed Solomon prayed ; ' 0 Lord my God, I am but a little child, give therefore thy servant an understanding heart.' In this instance it was of the Lord's giving with apparently brief asking at the moment, as is often the case with divine blessings ; but both the promise and the prayer were doubtless in connection with much previous supplica- CH. III. 1. THE MIDNIGHT SEARCH. 159 tion and inquiry. ' My son,' saith he in words which must have been the fruit of experience, ' if thou criest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding, if thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as for hid treasures, then shalt thou find the knowledge of God.' So likewise of the word if constantly embraced, he declares ; ' when thou goest it shall lead thee, when thou sleepest it shall keep thee, and when thou awakest it shall talk with thee;' discoursing as one well acquainted with midnight and morning communion with his God. In the case of the Bride in this song, the word had talked with her when she awoke, for she heard the voice of her Beloved calling; when she walked it had led her through the vineyards ; and now she desires to bind it about her heart by night that it may ' keep her while she sleeps,' and talk with her when she awakes again. But she has lost the word and cannot recover it, she cannot now hear the voice of the good Shepherd, and therefore by night upon her bed she cannot rest. Him whom my soul loveth. — Four times over in these four verses she calls Christ by this name ; and both here and elsewhere it is always in absence that he is so designated. ' He loved me,' is the language of gratitude and joy ; ' he whom my soul loveth,' is the language of earnest desire. ' To him that loved us and washed us in his own blood,' is the song of heaven ; ' I sought Him whom my soul loveth,' is the preparatory longing on earth for singing that song above. I sought him whom my soul loveth ; loveth now, but Him whom I once neglected, despised, forsook, hated, betrayed, sold for thirty pieces of silver, crucified. I sought Him with all he is and all he has, with his lips dropping sweet-smelling myrrh, and with the two-edged sword in his mouth ; I sought Him and would object to nothing that pertains to him, if I could only find himself. 160 THE NIGHT BEFORE DAYBREAK. CH. III. 1, I sought him, but I found him not. — Disappointment and desolation are the result of the search, the unanswered prayer, Turn my Beloved, has been repeated now but with no better success, nay with a result more distinctly adverse. When the Bride had called on Jesus to return, she did not know that the petition had not prospered ; he had heard it doubtless and might be coming ; but the lapse of time at length induces the fear that there will be no response. Therefore she begins again to pray, and her spirit to make diligent search; but the result is disappointment, definite and decided failure ; ' I found him not.' She does not therefore deny nor doubt that she had sought him, but owns it — I sought Him — certainly and sincerely. But on the other hand, she does not deceive herself with the sup position that she may have found, when she has no token to prove it ; rare truth and honesty — I found Him not. Thousands of self-deceived and self-satisfied souls might yet be saved in the day of the Lord, were they only faith ful enough to themselves to confess — I found Him not, I have never found him, I have never seen him neither known him. Dying yet undying soul, it brings you no safety, no real peace or comfort, to flatter yourself with a false hope, ' to boast yourself of a false gift, and become like wind and clouds without rain.' It is as much as your life is worth to speak the truth to your own heart, and say — I found him not. You have then some opening feature of the Bride of Christ. The same case but more fully expounded, with a larger mingling of sorrow, and in fuller detail altogether, is de scribed by Asaph in the seventy-seventh Psalm : ' I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord, my sore ran in the night and ceased not ; my soul refused to be com forted ; I remembered God and was troubled ; I-complained CH. III. 2. THE MIDNIGHT SEARCH. 161 and my spirit was overwhelmed : Thou holdest mine eyes waking ; I call to remembrance my song in the night, I commune with mine own heart, and my spirit made dili gent search.' I will rise now and go about the city. — The rising and going about imply the shaking not only of all slumber away, but of all temptation to slumber, that the whole man may be awake for God ; the devoting of the un divided energies of mind and soul, and of the body itself so far as it can co-operate, to seek the Lord Jesus Christ ; and allowing no other object to take any place in the heart, or to engage any part of the entire man. I will rise now — a good resolution ; the weakest of all things, or else the strongest of all. Son go into my vineyard — I go sir, is the answer — I go, the intention ; but other objects intervene, and he has not gone. I will arise and go to my father — and ' he arose and went ' with active, prompt, instantaneous repentance. The whole repentance and return of the prodigal son were contained within the kernel of that resolution. There are two resolutions distinct and radically dif ferent ; one kind of resolution that costs nothing and comes to nothing ; another which endures all the conflict, and contains all the conquest. The first deceives and destroys ; it is a mere good desire, or at best a good in tention. It counts not the cost, but goes forth with ten thousand against the enemy with twenty thousand, is overthrown in the battle, or turns at the mere sight of the sword. The difficulty does not consist in forming, but in keeping it. The earth is full of the leafy twigs of such resolutions, and the fire that is not quenched is fed with their fruitless branches. The other resolution, in the strength of the Lord God, is sure to conquer, because it has fought and conquered already. The difficulty consists 162 THE NIGHT BEFORE DAYBREAK. CH. III. 2. not in keeping, but in forming it ; the whole elements friendly and adverse are gathered together at its first formation ; there the whole conflict mingles, and there is seldom a second battle. ' I will arise and go to my father ; ' there was no difficulty in rising nor in going, but such as was easily surmounted, for the whole contest lay in the question, Shall I arise or shall I not 1 When once the heart, yielding to the Spirit, resolved, ' I shall arise,' the chain was broken, the slave sprang to his feet a freeman, the servant arose a child, the famished weakling stood up a strong man nerved for the race. In the homely but significant image of an old divine, ' an honest resolution is often to duty, like a needle that draws the thread after it.' As when the sharp needle firmly threaded has perforated the fabric, the thread passes without a second effort, so does the needle's eye of a true resolution carry within itself the purposed action which quickly follows ; ' I will arise and go — and he arose and went.' In the streets and in the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul loveth. — Let the wise man explain his own words, let the preacher interpret the Song. ' Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets, she crieth in the chief places of concourse, in the opening of the gates ; in the city she uttereth her words; Turn ye at my reproof; behold I will pour out my Spirit upon you, I will make known my words unto you. Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars, she hath killed her beasts, she hath mingled her wine, she hath also fur nished her table ; Come eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled.' The streets and the broad ways are doubtless the places of concourse, where Christ the wisdom of God publishes by his messengers the good tidings of great joy ; the gathering of two or three together in the name of Jesus with himself in the midst of them, CH. III. 2. THE MIDNIGHT SEARCH. 163 the preaching of the Gospel in the house of God, the eat ing of bread and drinking of wine at the sacramental table. It must not be overlooked that this is the first time the Bride speaks in such a strain. She had never been separate from the entire Church of Christ ; and could say along with others, ' We will remember thy love ; ' but in her difficulties she had sought deliverance directly from Christ, and was jealous of the tents of his companions. In reply he had counselled her to go forth by the footsteps of the flock ; and in these returning trials she has not forgot the command, but without a second injunction goes forth into the streets of Jerusalem, to the outward ordinances of the Gospel. The more the soul grows in grace and the less it leans on ordinances, the more will it prize them, need them, and profit by them. The recorded experience of Asaph will be opened in the great day, with ten thou sand times ten thousand concurring signatures adhibited. Grieved and perplexed, with his footing all but lost, and with his own heart-searchings vain, he finds no key to the baffling mystery till he enters the sanctuary of God, and there has the secret unlocked not by special revelation, but by the opening of his heart to apprehend the word of truth. In the present case the result is not so immediate ; for the Bride adds, I sought him, but I found him not. — In these same streets and broad places of Jerusalem multitudes never find Christ, with whom the reason is simply that they never seek him. ' I found Him not ' is true of tens of thousands every Sab bath, of whom haply not one in a hundred confesses the truth which the Bride owns. They go with no definite object to the house of God, with no express purpose of finding Christ ; and if they seek the praise of man or the approval of conscience, they find what their soul loves, and they are satisfied. Others join the company of worship- 164 THE NIGHT BEFORE DAYBREAK. CH. III. 3. pers and really seeking Christ for themselves ; but without faithfulness enough to test and own the result, and to con fess, ' I sought Him, but I found him not.' But in the Bride there is the same sincerity as before ; the same clear reckoning of the result of public means of grace, as there had been of secret efforts ; and the same sad disappoint ment, I found Him not. There is nothing in the beautiful gates of Jerusalem, or in the highest places of its paths, that can compensate for the absence of the Beloved, and she wanders mournful and desolate. But, sorrowing Bride of the Lamb, your search will not be fruitless, for the pro mise to the seed of Jacob is yours, and you shall ' not seek His face in vain.' The watchmen that go about the city found me, to whom I said, Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth ? — The Bride had been directed to have regard to the shepherds, as well as to the footsteps of the flock, and she forgets not the injunc tion, but resorts to them personally or in the ordinances of the Lord's house. In the place of prayer and under the preached word, her inquiry at the shepherds is, Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth ? How easy to preach, how impossible not to preach Christ and him crucified, were there many such inquiring worshippers in our assemblies ; many eagerly looking through ministers and means to Christ himself. But how different oft the various occu pants of the same pew ; the fool with his eyes to the end of the earth ; the formalist thankful that he is not hke other men ; beside them and unknown to them, the Bride of the Lamb come to seek, to find, to worship Him, with the heart silently yet intently calling, Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth 1 With such hearers there is nothing more common than the experience, The watchmen found me, they spoke to me individually, and described my own character and case. Or failing in the public ministrations, CH. III. 4. THE KING CONDUCTED HOME. 165 this longing soul seeks the man of God, the pastor or teacher, and is not ashamed to confess both her love to Christ and her want of his presence. Watchman, what of the night 1 is the demand. These watchmen are stars in the right hand of Jesus ; and by God's blessing, they oft become to the inquiring soul like the star that showed to the eastern pilgrims the spot where the infant Jesus lay. ' When my Beloved 's hid from you, What paths, what means of grace, What course do ye yourselves pursue, To see his lovely face ? ' Tell me, ye watchmen of the night, I pray you tell me where Did ye espy my soul's delight, That I may seek him there V ' 0 happy stars, if ye might be My guides to Jesus now ! Seers, did ye my Saviour see ; Pray tell me where and how ? ' THE KING CONDUCTED HOME. It was but a little that I passed from them. — These watch men appear to have been faithful, wise, and tender, although the Bride found not in them the resort of the Beloved. They injured her not, upbraided her not ; but seem both to have directed her to Christ, and themselves to have been very near Him, because she has passed them but a little, only a few steps, when she finds her Beloved. But the best of servants is not the Lord, the first of the saved is not the Saviour, the star that points to Bethlehem is not the Sun that has risen there; and those who have most of the Spirit of Christ cannot impart that Spirit to reveal Him to another. I passed from them, — they are guide-posts points 166 THE NIGHT BEFORE DAYBREAK. CH. III. 4. ing to a further goal, and past them toward that goal she hastens. But I found Him whom my soul loveth. — What an exceed ing great reward of all her seeking ! I found Him, the pearl of great price hid from all the rich among men ; I found Him, the treasure of all wisdom and knowledge hid from all the wise in this world ; I found Him, the power of God hid from all the potentates of earth. I found Him; I a man found the Lord of Glory ; I a slave to sin found the great Deliverer; I the child of darkness found the Light of life ; I the uttermost of the lost found my Saviour, and my God ; I widowed and desolate found my Friend, my Beloved, my Husband. Go and do likewise sons and daughters of Zion, and He will be found of you, for ' then shall ye find when ye search with all your heart.' I held him and would not let him go. — Unheld, the King will go away ; he is willing to be held, yet not willing to remain without being held. ' Jesus made as though he would have gone farther,' but I held him, and would not let him go ; he pleaded ' let me go for the day breaketh,' but I held him and said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. A child may hold the chariot wheels of a king ; for while a weak cause enfeebles the strongest of the sons of men, a cause strong and urgent imparts strength and courage to the feeblest. A child with a message of life and death, with the knowledge of a broken bridge ready to engulf the secure travellers, has stood in front of the smoking chariots that rush along their polished pathways with the swiftness of the wind, has planted himself firmly between the iron lines, has with outstretched hands called on the conductors to pause, has arrested the carriages in their full career, and saved a multitude of precious lives. A child in the kingdom of grace, with an errand of life and death for himself or for others, with the boldness and CH. III. 4. THE KING CONDUCTED HOME. 167 energy of living faith, may arrest the chariot of the King of kings till the King has received his petition, answered his prayer, granted pardon to the condemned, and salvation to the lost. The conclusion of this Song is not dissimilar to the last, its charge not to awake the Beloved is exactly the same, yet how different the process. There the King leads the Bride into his chambers, brings her into his banqueting- house. Here it is the Bride that leads the King, and con ducts him to her mother's house ; conducts him willingly, yet seemingly against his will — I would not let him go. The worm Jacob grasps the arm of the Almighty ; stirring himself up he takes hold on it, and wrestles with the Captain of the Lord's host, the angel of the Covenant. Suppose angelic strength confined within the form of a worm, how would every fibre of that weak frame be stretched and tried to the uttermost in the forth-putting of the gigantic might lodged within it. So the weak Jacob filled not with spirit angelic, but with the Holy Ghost, working in him mightily, has every faculty of mind, soul, and spirit within him moved and energised to its utmost limits to wrestle with the mighty One of Jacob. Clinging to the Lord of hosts with a strength in him, and yet not of him — working through him, put forth by him, yet not his own — he says, I will not let thee go ; he holds the King and does not let him go ; and the King yields, goes not away, but suffers himself to be conducted by his weak conqueror whither he willeth. ' In freedom great without offence, And help'd to wrestle still ; With holy, humble violence, I won Him to my will.' Until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. — As the manner in 168 THE NIGHT BEFORE DAYBREAK. CH. III. 4. which this divine repose is introduced in this second Song is different from the first, so is likewise the reason on account of which that holy rest is desired. There it was eminently personal, 'his banner over me was love;' yet by no means exclusively, for the resolution had been, ' we will run after thee.' Here the personal is not excluded, but strongly marked, I sought him but I found him not ; but the reference to others is very special, and their wel fare occupies a large place in the result, I would not let him go till I had brought him into my Mother's house. But who is this Mother ? Every child of God has two natures, the old and the new ; two births, the first after the flesh, the second after the Spirit ; and two mothers, Eve who is in bondage with her children, and the New Jerusalem, which is free and is the mother of us all. Doubtless first, it is this New Jerusalem, the Church of the living God, the spiritual Zion where this man and that man was born, who is our mother ; and her chambers are the gatherings together of the saints in the name of Jesus. Her we own, we claim, we glory in as our honoured mother ; and better that our right hand should forget her cunning, than we should forget Jerusalem, or prefer her not above our chief joy. Christ found by us ought never to be let go, without an earnest effort to bring him within the walls of the Christian congregation, the Christian community, the commonwealth of all the Israel of God. Blessed are they who thus love Zion, and blessed would Zion be of the Lord, did all her daughters so love her and so plead on her behalf. In remembering Zion, however, we must not forget Jerusalem that is still in bondage with her children, and from whom as a mother we are all descended. Some of the Christian fathers specially interpreted these words of her, taking them to intimate the conversion of the Jews to CH. III. 4. THE KING CONDUCTED HOME. 169 Christ ; for her firstborn son is our elder brother who has been angry with us, and will not come into our Father's house, on account of the music and dancing that have greeted our reception. Blessed for ever shall they be among the Gentiles and honoured in Israel to all genera tions, who finding Christ for themselves shall so retain him as not to let him go till he return again to Abraham's children ; till He, and we, and they dwell together within one mother's house ; one flock, in one fold, with one Shepherd. ' The Gentiles once got to the height of sin, And fulness of the saved come to light ; The elder brother Jew, shall straight come in, And mourn for that he had no sooner sight. Their coming in shall be the Gentile's light, Nor till that time will sun again be bright.' But we have another mother and other brethren, in the human family from which we are sprung. The Church has the first, not the only claim on our affections; the perishing world has its right to a large share of our pity and our prayers. ' God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever beheveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life ;' and our love ought to be large like that of our heavenly Father. His elect uncalled are in the world, for them the world is to Him an object of incessant regard, and for their sakes the world should occupy ho narrow room in our thoughts. On their own account besides, for the flesh clothing them which is our flesh and the bone sustaining them which is our bone, we should have ' great heaviness and continual sorrow of heart' over their perishing condition. Com paratively it is not hard for us to bring Jesus into the Church, which is His mother's house as well as ours, in which he delights to dwell, and into which if true to her- 170 THE NIGHT BEFORE DAYBREAK. CH. III. 4. self she rejoices greatly to receive him. But the world hates Christ, has nothing in common with him, is aware that He rightfully claims the dominion, is sensitively jealous of the claim, and lives with its doors barred against him night and day. No criminal keeps so vigilant a watch against the officers of justice, no lonely widow makes her gates so fast against the midnight robber, no miser spurns so haughtily the beggar from his door, as the unrenewed heart keeps watch and ward against the entrance of Jesus, and scornfully sends Him away when he asks for a lodging in the soul. To introduce Him, therefore, into this home of our mother is a work demanding effort, watchfulness, patience. There is much to provoke him to turn away ; we must plead with him, hold him, and not let him go ; and with our mother's children we must also plead with 'the soft tongue that breaketh the bone,'kfor they are offended with us as well as with Him. So sought and prevailed the Bride of the Lamb, till she brought her own Beloved into the midst of her mother's children, by whom she had been herself so hardly entreated, requiting evil with good. Have you attempted this, are you engaged in the effort now 1 if not, rise and commence such a work of faith, and labour of love on behalf of the lost. i" charge you, 0 ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my Love till he please. — The same charge we have considered already at the close of the first Song ; but there is this difference, that here it conveys a solemn warning to the daughters of Jerusalem, as they value their own soul's salvation, not to disturb or offend the Spirit of Christ now resting in the Church. For her own sake, for her fellowship with Jesus, the Bride had desired that none should give him the slightest provocation. But now it is likewise for the sake of the living in Jerusalem, and the dying in the world ; CH. III. 5. THE KING CONDUCTED HOME. 171 for the sake of her brethren and her companions, of her mother's children both according to grace1 and according to nature. There is nothing on earth more important than not provoking Christ to withdraw till he please, when he has once entered a church, a community, a family, in the power of his Word and Spirit. Grieve not then the Holy Spirit of promise ; let no living daughter of Zion, let no inquiring daughter of Jerusalem disturb the Spirit's dove like rest ; but let fear come on every soul, that great grace may be upon all. At such a season above all others, the salvation of many is trembling in the balance. Then emphatically vast eternal issues hang on the careful avoid ing of all sin, all levity, all heedlessness, all strife, of every thing by which the Spirit may be grieved or may be quenched. All impatience must then be anxiously watched against, lest through want of perseverance in the use of means the sowing of the good seed should cease, while the dew from heaven is still falling plenteously on the parched ground. Bride of the Lamb, seek to find him and bring him into your mother's house ; and ye daughters of Jeru salem, see that when He is come ' ye awake him not until He please.' THE BRIDEGROOM WITH THE BRIDE. CANTICLE III. CHAP. III. 6; V. 2. PART I.— THE BRIDAL PROCESSION. THE PILLARS IN THE DESERT— THE ANGELIC SWORDMEN— THE KING'S CHARIOT— THE CROWN OF ESPOUSAL. Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant ? Behold His bed, which is Solomon's ; threescore valiant men are about it, of the valiant of Israel. They all hold swords, being expert in war : every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night. King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon. He made the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold, the covering of it of purple, the midst thereof being paved with love, for the daughters of Jeru salem. Go forth, 0 ye daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart.— Chap. hi. 6-11. THE PILLARS IN THE DESERT. Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars, of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant ? — The scene now opened is new ; and the speakers are either the daughters of Jerusalem, or the friends of the Bridegroom, • who are supposed to see a travelling litter or palanquin approaching from the desert. Clouds of sand and dust seen in the distance, and raised by the tread of the numerous bearers and royal guards, 172 CH. III. 6. THE PILLARS IN THE DESERT. 173 are conceived by some to suggest the image of columns of ascending smoke. But the speakers are represented not as spectators far remote, but within the compass of the fragrant odours that perfumed the magnificent procession. It is therefore better to interpret the smoky pillars as arising from the rich perfumes which were burned around the Bridegroom and the Bride, which at once formed a bright cloud before the eye, and filled the air with fra grance, and therefore drew forth the admiring inquiry, ' Who is This that cometh up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense V The reference is evident to the marching of the Children of Israel through the wilderness, with the pillar of cloud before them, and with the pillars of smoke ascending from the altar of incense in the sight of the priests, and from the altar of atonement in the sight of all Israel. The tabernacle was a remarkable type of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is of the entire human nature, consisting of true body and reasonable soul, which the Eternal Word took to himself. ' The Word was God, and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,' literally ' tabernacled,' or dwelt as in a tabernacle among us, full of grace and truth. ' Destroy this temple,' said Jesus, ' and I will raise it up in three days ;' ' but he spake of the temple of his body.' The tabernacle and the temple were substantially the same; for the tabernacle was simply a movable temple in the midst of a pilgrim people, and the temple with all its glory and all its solidity was only a tabernacle, that was soon to be shaken and taken to pieces. The body of Jesus on earth was the true taber nacle of the living God ; that body buried, risen, exalted, is the tabernacle taken down, and raised again as the everlasting temple of Jehovah. The sight of Jesus return ing from the wilderness^ awakens the inquiry, who is this 174 THE BRIDAL PROCESSION. CH. III. 6. that cometh up 1 who or what is this 1 for the reference is to the bridal palanquin. Behold His bed or chariot, is the reply. It is Jesus, but not simply the Eternal Word, but the body in which that Word is dwelling. It is Jesus, yet not exclusively, but the tabernacle of his body contain ing likewise all his ransomed ones as members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. The full meaning of the inquiry is, What and who is this; what is this chariot, and who is in it coming up from the wilderness ? The chariot is described afterwards; let us consider its occu pants now, Jesus and the Church. 1. Jesus returning from the wilderness full of the Holy Ghost. And well may the question be moved, Who is this that cometh from Edom, glorious in his apparel 1 and well may we weigh the answer, I that speak- in righteous ness, mighty to save. At the approach of the Prince of peace, the King coming in the name of the Lord, the whole city was moved saying, Who is this ? and blessed is the soul that is inwardly moved to repeat the inquiry, Who is this? Jesus has been anointed by the Father with the Holy Spirit in exhaustless fulness, God giving not the Spirit by measure unto him. As prophet, priest, and king He has been anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows. But the consecration of the high priest is that which is chiefly described in the word, and his anointing oil, like to which none other was to be compounded on pain of death; human art being forbid to fashion it, because that which is typified could not be produced by human wisdom or power. The Spirit is given by measure to Abraham, to Moses, to Paul; to Gabriel also, and to every holy creature only in measure. ' On Jesus our great High Priest, the Spirit is shed immeasurably. Into this ' vessel of honour fit for the Master's use,' the Spirit is poured without limit; abiding in himself in all fulness, CH. III. 6. THE PILLARS IN THE DESERT. 175 and ["as an exhaustless fountain ever overflowing for his people; the vessel being divinely fashioned to receive, retain, and impart every grace that is in the Spirit of grace. But while every good and perfect gift that cometh down from above rests on the Son of Man, these heavenly graces gather in the wilderness a fragrance which is not else where found ; Jesus himself ' learning obedience,' not in its spirit or in its principles yet in its exercise, ' by the things which he suffered.' The sweetest odours of earth are gathered, not amid rich and cultured fields, but amongst the rocks and sands of the desert; and heaven is filled with sweet perfumes gleaned in the wilderness of an apostate world. These are ' powders of the merchant,' sweet spices from a far country, which the unfallen inmates of heaven can appreciate, but which were never seen grow ing in the Paradise above; or rather the plants which contain the odorous gums are there, but they cannot flow from the unpierced bark. Such are, trust in utmost want, ' man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word of God ;' forgiveness of deadly enemies, ' Father forgive them, for they know not what they do ;' and many kindred graces, or exercises of grace. Jesus came from the wilderness of Judea ' perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, and all the powders of the merchant ;' and when his work was finished he entered his Father's mansion above, coming up from the wilderness of earth, fragrant with every grace which it ever yielded, for none knew like him how to gather all its myrrh and all its spices. But as perfumes of fragrant oil anoint the garments of the high priest, so pillars of fragrant smoke ascend from his hands. He fills his hands with incense, every grain most precious, and every part ' beaten small,' that the whole may ascend from the burning censer. So Jesus, at 176 THE BRIDAL PROCESSION. CH. III. 6. once the priest and the offering, presents his own body, bruised by the Father and broken for us, a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour acceptable unto God. The Angel of the Covenant offers ' much incense,' which ascends to God out of his hands, like pillars of smoke from the wilderness arising to the throne above. 2. But who is this coming up out of the wilderness 1 It is not Jesus alone, but the Church along with him ; it is God walking with Israel through the desert, but Israel also walking with God, going after him in the unsown land. It is the Bride, the Lamb's wife ; and Who is this ? a hundred voices inquire. Who is this so weak, trembling for dangers future, unseen, unreal ; who is this so foolish, sacrificing solid present good for a distant dream of bliss ? Who is this so sullen and morose, looking away from the world and its pleasures ; so censorious, setting herself up for a judge of men and their ways ; so meddlesome, taking charge of other men's souls and turning the world upside down 1 But who is this, saith the discerning human eye, yea saith the Spirit of God himself, ' who is this that cometh up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke, per fumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant,' so beauteous, so glorious, so pleasant, so fragrant ? Who is this like pillars of smoke, with the pillar of cloud guiding by day and the pillar of fire by night ; so guided in the trackless wilderness and sure to reach the city of habitation, so sheltered from the burning sun, so safe from the destroying foe, so glorious through the mid night gloom 1 It is the Bride following the Lamb. But who is that, wandering through the desert with no guiding, guarding, enlightening pillar before him ; walking through dry places seeking rest, but finding none, and not knowing whither he goeth ? It is the soul that ' for a while be- CH. III. 6. THE PILLARS IN THE DESERT. 177 lieved,' but in time of temptation fell away. Who else is that, following the pillar once, but sleeping now while it advances onwards and leaves her ? It is one of the wise virgins fallen into sinful sleep. Who is that other, hasting so troubled and breathless through the burning sands, in eager desire or in trembling fear, while the pillar is stand ing still far behind him 1 It is the believer not waiting the Lord's time, and not ' possessing his soul in patience.' Who is this hke pillars of smoke, with fragrance arising to heaven from the altar of burnt-offering, and the altar of gold ; who is this ' bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,' with a sweet savour of his sacrifice ever ascending to the Father ; who is this with a constant cloud of prayer coming up from the altar of atonement, and along with it a continual cloud of thanksgiving from the altar of incense 1 It is the virgin Bride of Jesus. But who art thou with no smoky pillar seen from the altar of the closet, or the altar of the family ? You reply : Man searches not the heart, to the unseen God I may pray, unseen by man and unknown. Unseen certainly you may, but never wholly unknown. Let there be a fire lighted by the lonely widow within her humble cottage in the most retired wood, with neither husband nor child to witness the gathering of the fuel, or the kindling of the flame. It cannot be hid ; for presently the pillar of smoke is beheld afar ascending to the skies, and indicating life and warmth within the dark recess of the forest. And without telling your neighbour of the fire you are kindling on the altar of your soul or of your household, the cloud of incense arising hefavenward will soon mark both you and your dwelling with the sure sign of heavenly light within. Who art thou again, once a burning and shining light, but with thy fire as if dead out upon thine altar now ? Oh quickly stir the gift that is in you, quench not the Spirit, M 178 THE BRIDAL PROCESSION. CH. III. 6. strengthen what is ready to die. Or who art thou, not with pillars of smoke like the true Bride of Jesus, but with only one ; a cloud from off the altar of atonement, but none from the altar of incense ; a constant column of prayer ascending, but no breath of praise ? But you cannot praise. Are you making the attempt ; endeavouring to turn suppli cation into thanksgiving? Go try; the fire that kindles coals will more easily burn odours. Take the living coal from the altar of sacrifice, put it into the censer, cast the incense on it ; and although you think it all too cold to burn the perfume, you will presently see the cloud rise freely to heaven ; and men will ask of you, ' who is this now coming up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke?' Who is this that cometh out