The Patriarchs Part 25

It is good for us to listen to this. The heart has been made deeply susceptible of this affection, and Christ is the offered object of it.

He proposes Himself to it. He claims the supreme place in our hearts.

"He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me."

Whatever pa.s.sion of the soul be moved, it is G.o.d's right to have the highest exercise of it towards Himself. It has not treated Him as G.o.d if it have not rendered this to Him. If each of the pa.s.sions of our souls do not give Him its richest and largest offerings, it is not a _worshipping_ pa.s.sion.

This we may readily grant, needing, however, increase of grace ourselves to be worshippers on such a score. In the language of another; "as, among the Jews, there were odoriferous unguents, which it was neither unusual nor unlawful to use themselves or bestow upon their friends, but also a peculiar composition of a precious ointment, which G.o.d having reserved for His own service, the perfuming of others with it was sacrilege, so there are regulated degrees of love which we may harbour for others, but there is too a certain peculiar strain of love which belongs unto G.o.d." Exod. x.x.x. 34-38. It is, I may add, idolatry when bestowed on a creature, but it is worship when rendered to Him.

This may sound a solemn truth, but it is a happy one. Is it not blessed to know that our Lord claims our hearts and their affections? Have any of us, beloved, read "the first and great commandment" without, at least, sometimes rejoicing in the grace that would make such a demand upon us? Mark xii. 30. Is it nothing to us that G.o.d Himself values our love, that He says to us, "My son, give Me thine heart"? The wise virgins delighted in such truth. Many had gone out with them, professing the common expectation. The foolish had lamps. They took their place in the common profession. But the wise counted the cost of the Bridegroom's absence, and the hope of His return. In the spirit of their minds they had said that, let His delay be long or short, they must still wait, for that nothing could satisfy them but His presence. The night of His absence might be long or short--they could not tell--they would not undertake to say. It might be, as to its length, a summer night, or a winter night. But their hearts deeply owned this--that nothing could close, nothing could turn that shadow of death into the morning, but the restored presence of the Bridegroom. On this their souls were fixed.

And, therefore, they took vessels of oil, as well as lamps. They prepared for a night season, they counted on a darksome time, till Jesus returned. The expectation of their heart so supremely pointed to Him, that nothing could change hope to fruition but His presence; they must be expecting, expecting, and still expecting, till then. "Hope to the end" they purposed to do, for the grace that was to be brought to them at the revelation of Jesus Christ. It was a _worshipping_ hope.

The early freshness faded, I doubt not. This may sustain us who are so conscious of the dulness and stupidity of our hearts. The brightness of that moment when the lamp was first lit is dimmed. "While the Bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept." But the reality of supreme delight in Christ, and desire after Him, had not departed. The vessels were still at the side of the slumbering virgins. The oil had not to be _bought_, but only to be _used_ afresh.

How does all this, as in a parable, tell of the heart cleaving to Jesus!

And our Canticles express the same. And our own poets have sung of this love, as well as these mystic songs of the King of Israel:

"Jesus has all my powers possess'd, My hopes, my fears, my joys, He, the dear Sovereign of my breast, Shall still command my voice.

"Some of the fairest choirs above Shall flock around my song, With joy to hear the name they love Sound from a mortal's tongue."

The Church receives such breathings as not beyond the measure or the melody of the soul. And we want these affections to make us happy, and to set us free. It is a divine method of delivering us from the tyranny of carnal or worldly desires. It is the Spirit's way of spoiling other attractions of their power to seduce and fill the heart, and of lifting the soul above the frettings of low anxieties. Look at the commanding power of such affection in the poor sinner in Luke vii. Working in her heart as it did, she was deaf to the reproaches and blind to the splendours of the Pharisee and his entertainment. She knew only her Object. The feast and the guests were all lost upon her. This was the _power_ of affection in her. And what was the _value_ of it to Christ?

Nothing that it dictated or did pa.s.sed His notice. He appeared to be silent, and but the pa.s.sive Receiver of her offerings; but He had noted them all. The tears, and the kiss, and the ointment, and all, had been noted in the book of His remembrance, and they are read therefrom, when the time for the opening of that book had come.

And look at the same in Mary at the sepulchre. She sees the angels. And they were dazzling, beautiful in their generation, and wondrous to the eye of flesh and blood. But what was all splendour to her then? The dead body of her Lord was her object, the fond image of her heart, and even heavenly glories can be pa.s.sed by in the pursuit of it. So with David of old. His soul was full of joy in the Lord. He will dance before the ark, he would "play before the Lord;" and if such were shame, he purposed to be viler still. As with Zaccheus too, not a king like David, but a mere citizen of Jericho (for the Spirit links rich and poor, high and low, gentle and simple, as we speak, in one affection), he would press through the crowd, and without seeming to give the strangeness of the deed a thought, climb into a sycamore tree in pursuit of the desire which then commanded his heart.

Would that this, beloved, were more shed abroad in our hearts! How should we learn to entertain Christ, as this pa.s.sion entertains or embalms its object! And what a heaven it will be, when He is ours in this way, feeding this fire in our souls, and giving us to know, in Himself and in His beauties, this seraph love without chill for ever and ever!

Would that our hearts were longing for Him! This is what we find breathed in the Canticles. It is not _filial_ love or _grateful_ love that would ever send this message, Tell him that "I am sick of love." It is more than that. Such is not the language of those affections, but such is the language of the Canticles. And, therefore, we cannot say less of this book, than that it is, after a mystic manner, the utterances of Christ and of a living, espoused soul--all springing from the faith which gives the soul the happy a.s.surance of acceptance and favour with G.o.d through the Lord Jesus Christ.

As to the structure of it as a composition, I doubt not, for a moment, the correctness of those who treat it as "a collection of distinct idyls or little poems perfectly detached and separate from each other, with no other connection than what they derive from a common subject, the peculiarities of the style of a common author, and perhaps some unity of design in the mystic sense, which they are intended to bear." The spiritual senses of the saints are to be exercised in discerning the beginnings and endings of these different canticles or little songs, and in interpreting the holy mysteries they express. Different light, and different enjoyment in doing it, may surely be expected among us. But that these songs or little poems are allegories, we will none of us doubt. The intercourses of an espoused pair are the imagery; the love of Christ and the saint, the mystic sense. And warranted, I am sure, are the suggestions of another on this subject, "that there are those manifestations of His love, and those affections kindled in the heart towards the person of the Son of G.o.d, which may well borrow their allusions from the tenderest and most powerful affection which subsists among men." "As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall thy G.o.d rejoice over thee." "The Lord thy G.o.d in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing." "So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty." "Thou shalt abide for me many days ... thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee." "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church." These and kindred pa.s.sages, with many typical histories in Scripture, and some ordinances of the law, all warrant this thought, as well as the character of the Spirit's inworking at times in the souls of the saints.

The divine authority of this book has never been questioned in any way worthy of the least regard from those who walk simply in the light of G.o.d, refusing man and his thoughts and his wisdom. "Where is the wise?

where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world?" It was ever reverenced by the Jews as a part of the oracles of G.o.d, and in that character, we may a.s.sure ourselves, received the sanction of Christ, and of the Holy Ghost in the Apostles. No one should pause for a moment to admit its value to the soul of the saint. "We may," as has been well said, "form but a guess concerning some of its beauties, but, in the hands of a Christian, it is invested with a brighter l.u.s.tre than they could have discerned, who read it in the days of Solomon. For though, in regard to the exterior imagery of the allegories, some of their beauties may be lost, the hidden mystic sense is brought more to light, and manifested with fuller a.s.surance to the believer under the Gospel dispensation. 'For I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them.'"

There is no inquiry into the fact or the ground or the nature of our acceptance with G.o.d, in this book. Such questions and inquiries are settled beforehand. The communion is _upon_ the settlement of them all, as I have already noticed. Acceptance with G.o.d is known. It is delight in Christ, occupation with Himself, that we get here. It is not the finding of Him out, nor is it the confession of sins. The communion is a _sinner's_ communion, most surely--but it is of a consciously pardoned, accepted, and loved sinner. And when any sorrow or repentance is felt or owned, it is not for any blot or open transgression, but for some spiritual backsliding, some momentary coldness, some infirmity in maintaining or cultivating the soul's due fervour. This is much to be observed. Nothing gross, or even open, in conduct--nothing established as a habit is detected here--nothing that a soul that had not been already in simple and earnest fellowship with Jesus would have been apprehensive of. It is only _a present, temporary slothfulness of heart_. The very repentance and confession is of such a nature as intimates the fine tone of the soul that could feel and make it. The contact or touch is so tender, that the very perception of it speaks the delicacy of the organ which met it and resented it.

But what an element is this! Oh, how coa.r.s.e, beloved, are our sensibilities compared with all this. Our poor souls are rarely here; they are engaged ofttimes in doing first works again, in grieving over the advantages which our l.u.s.ts have taken of us, the surprisals which the heat of wrong tempers has wrought, and such like things. But all such occupation of the soul keeps us below this pure and spiritual delight in Christ, this sickness of love, this breathing on the mountains of myrrh, and this dressing and keeping of the garden of spices, here so blessedly presented. Surely it is but little of this we know. Is G.o.d our exceeding joy? Is it in the chambers of the King, in thoughts of glory, we walk? Is our spikenard greeting our Lord, and are our souls able to call Him nothing less than our "Beloved"? It were well indeed if such affections as these were filling and commanding our hearts. Then should we have weapons of sure victory wherewith to meet our enemies, and to beat down the intrusive desires and thoughts that defile us so often. In the figurative style of another we may say: "As when, in a clear morning, the rising sun vouchsafes to visit us, the bright stars which did adorn our hemisphere, as well as those dark shades which did benight it, vanish." l.u.s.t could not with any power come against a soul thus occupied. This "joy of the Lord" would indeed be our "strength." For what a dwelling-place opens here for faith to enter!

What a banqueting-house for the soul! How far distant from fear and clouds of conscience such regions lie! The land of the turtle is this, the garden of all pleasant fruits.

But where is the precious faith to enter it and walk there? We need to cry for largeness of heart in the bowels of Christ Jesus. It is of influence on the whole soul to be occupied with such affections. It strengthens and sanctifies--for all questions of our _standing_ are antic.i.p.ated, and our energy in _meeting temptation_ is increased, and thus the _liberty_ and _purity_ of the soul are secured. For how can the thought of _condemnation_ or the temptation to _defilement_ be entertained, when the believer is seeking to reach more into the light and joy of such communion as this? Does it not lead him into more than a mere escape from a spirit of bondage, or from practical evil? Is it not the divine method of making him more than conqueror?

As expressing such communion as this, this book of the Song of Songs may suit any saint. Not, however, that I mean, that we may necessarily follow one path of experience, and go from one stage therein to another.

But according to the soul's enlarging knowledge of Jesus, so will, of course, be its enlarging experience. And there ought to be _progress_--as we read, "Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." And as the different relations in which the Lord stands to us are apprehended and embraced by the soul, corresponding experiences will arise, for experience is our entrance into the power of these relations. And the Canticles I judge to be the utterances of the soul at one point of this journey, from the first quickening to the full and final enjoyment. It is not the experience of Rebecca when first awakened to leave Mesopotamia, nor of Ruth, when first made ready, in Moab, to take the G.o.d of Naomi as her G.o.d, nor as afterwards a gleaner in the field--it is the exercise of Rebecca's heart, while on the way to Isaac, listening to the tales of her gracious and wise conductor, and of Ruth at the feet of Boaz, as the suitor of his hand and name.

This is the general moral of the book. But this being so, I can the more admire the perfectness of the Spirit in making this a short book. It is of too intimate a character to have been much spread out. It lies within. It is the recesses of the Temple. It was called by the Jews the "holy of holies." And that was the smallest place, as well as the most retired. It expressed the deepest character of communion with G.o.d. There was one communion at the Brazen Altar or the Brazen Laver in the courts--another in the holy place, at the Table, the Candlestick, and the Altar--and another in the presence of the Lord Himself, in the holiest. And of this character of communion is that which the Canticles express. It may be that the soul cannot at all times enter into it. Ruth would not have been prepared for laying herself at the feet of Boaz when she entered his field as a gleaner. The teaching she got from Naomi was needed to bring her into the threshing-floor.

And this little book seems to open with the soul expressing all this. It opens with strong and fervent desire toward _Himself_; reaching forth to apprehend Him in some more intimate manner than had been previously understood. It is as though the saint had been conscious of being in a lower condition than would now satisfy. For at times the soul rests itself simply on the firm ground of doctrines; such as "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." It is the simple and sure power of such truth that alone answers, at times, the need of the soul. But again, at times, the ground under our feet, as believers, is understood and rested on, and it is the Lord Himself that the soul desires. And such is its condition here. "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth." She had been keeping the vineyards--attending to things abroad, but now was learning that her own vineyard had been neglected; and the deeper things of personal fellowship are longed for.

The saint is leaving Martha's and taking Mary's place, longing to feed under His own eye and from His own hand, and not another's. And at the close, the soul appears to know that _it had become a keeper of its own vineyard_. At the beginning there had been the grief that the vineyards of others had been kept, but that her own had been neglected (i. 6); but now, it is conscious of being more at home, more about its own vineyard; as though it had left the Martha place, busy about many things, and a.s.sumed the Mary place, at the feet of Jesus in personal communion.

viii. 12.

This is the advance, the conscious, happy advance, which the soul makes through these exercises. It has reached a higher order of communion with the Lord, and it desires that this may continue till Jesus return.

The very style of the writing, too, is just that which suits the heart under the power of a commanding affection. "Let _Him_ kiss me with the kisses of His mouth"--like Mary Magdalene to the supposed gardener--"If thou have borne _Him_ hence"--both _meaning_ Christ, but neither _naming_ Him. For "the heart had been before taken up with the thoughts of Him, and to _this relative_ these thoughts were the antecedent--that good matter which the heart was inditing. For they that are full of Christ themselves are ready to think that others should be so too." Or, it is as the language of the Apostle, who _means_ the day of glory and of the kingdom without _naming_ it, when he says, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against _that day_;" and again, "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at _that day_."

Thus is it, in the very style and manner of the renewed mind, eyeing, as it does, both the Lord Himself and the glory. And blessed are these affections. The truth or the doctrine of the Gospel is no cold, rigid system. Surely our souls must know this. It is at times laid down in propositions, taking the form of an argument, deducing conclusions from adequate and proved premises. But still the Gospel calls for the warmest affections, and abundantly provides for them. _Even the Canticles themselves never pa.s.s beyond the strict bounds of the Gospel--they never exceed that measure which the strictest rules of evangelic truth would prescribe._ So that we should interpret these little songs or idyls in the light of the didactic Scriptures, as we may profitably read those Scriptures in the warmth of these Canticles. The Apostle says, "I have espoused you to one Husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." This a.s.sumes all that is in the Canticles. And in this way, the Gospel, in its strictest meaning, will account for all that is in Solomon's Song. The latter delineates those affections which well suit such truths and revelations as the former teaches or delivers. But this being so important, as I judge, I desire to instance it in a few particulars.

In these idyls, the Lord looks on the saint as altogether lovely. And so in His eyes is the believer. A sinner in himself, he has, by faith, taken on him the beauty of Christ. He is "in Him." He has "the righteousness of G.o.d" upon him. He is "accepted in the Beloved." Faith alone gives him all this comeliness. He has been baptized into Christ, and put on Christ. This is the beauty of the believer; and he is lovely in Christ's eye, as the Canticles again and again express.

Indeed in this form of beauty there can be no spot. For it is Christ Himself that the believer is arrayed with. The very "best robe" in the Father's house is on him. It is a spotless beauty he shines in. The doctrine of the Gospel teaches us this, and here Christ utters His delight in it; such harmonies are there between the Gospels and the Canticles.

But further. In the mystery of Christ and the believer, Christ has a mountain of myrrh to which He here invites the believer to turn his steps--and St. Paul exhorts us, "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth." The believer mounts those hills with Jesus as here invited, and as in the Gospel exhorted.

His conversation is in heaven. In Christ he sits in heavenly places. And he savours of the myrrh and the frankincense which are there.

Again, the Lord delights in the graces of His saint. He rests, with the love of complacency, in the believer who walks in the Spirit before Him.

John xv. 10. She is an enclosed garden under His eye, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. As we read, the Spirit is in him, a well of water springing up into everlasting life. He has the savour of the spices, and the flowings of the living water, _in himself_, and the fragrancy and freshness of these gladden his Lord anew. This is the teaching of the Gospel, and this is the language of Christ in the Canticles. He delights in what is _in us_ through the Spirit, as well as in what is _on_ us through faith. He has His joy in the places of communion with His elect here, as in the heaven to which He has ascended.

This is largely told us in Scripture. "Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people and thy father's house, _so_ shall the King greatly desire thy beauty; for He is thy Lord, and worship thou Him." Psalm xlv. Here is something beyond _imputed_ beauty. For here we learn the grace in her which kindles His desire. She has forgotten her own people and her father's house, so the King desires her. And she owns Him as Lord, and worships Him. She will render Him affection and homage. And all of this suited and attractive grace was shown in Rebecca. _She left all for Isaac._ She forgot her own people and her father's house, and came across an unknown desert in company with a stranger, in the singleness and devotedness of an undivided heart. And on reaching him for whom she had consented to all this, _she lights from her beast, and veils herself_. She puts on the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. She arrays herself in shamefacedness and sobriety. She loves, and yet bows. And _so_ Isaac desires her. And so is the Church to be _subject_ to Christ, and yet _love_ Him with virgin love. Eph. v.; 2 Cor. xi. 2.

Affection begets confidence. Rebecca committed herself to Eliezer, _never asking her father or brother for an escort_. So the more singly we love Jesus, the more confidently will our souls trust Him and His supplies for us alone, without confidence in the flesh or anything else.

And in the Canticles we find the Spirit of Christ inviting His saint into the liberty of this present time, into the atmosphere of a house where the cry of adoption is heard. All the darker and colder age is pa.s.sed. All that dispensation which kept the soul in bondage and fear is over. The voice of the turtle is heard; the voice of that perfect love which casts out fear. "The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth," says St. John, as though he had the Canticles in mind. The saint should now arise, taking his place as the _loved_ and the _fair_ one, being in the full consciousness of personal unspottedness and beauty, through grace, and of his Lord's perfect favour and delight. He should come away from "the spirit of fear," and pa.s.s over into the spirit of love and of power "and of a sound mind." For all in the dispensation is gladdening. The flowers appear on the earth, and the singing of birds is heard. All is promise, all pledge, and earnest, and seal, and unction.

And again, if the betrothed one of the Canticles _say_, "While the King sitteth at His table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof," the disciple in the gospel _does_ this. John xii. 3.

And, according to all this, we may observe how some of the tenderest utterances of this book are warranted by the simple narratives of the Gospel. If the beloved watch over the restored soul with the fondest jealousy, not allowing the busy foot of others to disturb the silent, hidden rest of the loved one, what does Jesus do in the favoured house at Bethany less than this? How does He check the motions of Martha? Ch.

ii. 7; Luke x. 41.4

4 "Till _she_ please," it ought to be, as the "love" is the female in this book. Ch. ii. 7; iii. 5; vii. 4.

The great moral principles of truth are also strictly and fully understood here, though under very delicate and spiritual ill.u.s.trations.

St. James says, "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your l.u.s.ts." In this book we read, "By night upon my bed I sought Him whom my soul loveth; I sought Him, but I found Him not." The great moral principle, that _there is a seeking which does not find_, is equally owned in each of these scriptures; but the one has a much more delicate exhibition of it than the other. Jesus is here sought _on the bed_, that is, in some listlessness of mind. The bed may be the place of _meditation_ (Psalm lxiii.; Isa. xxvi.), but not of _seeking_, which demands action. And thus the seeker _on the bed_, the listless, drowsy inquirer after the Lord, will not, till he pa.s.s through discipline, as here (iii. 1-5), find Him.

If Christ again and again express His deep satisfaction in her, through this book, what have we less than this in the strict teaching of Scripture? Did He not find, at the beginning, that His "delights were with the sons of men"? and at the end, when He sees of the travail of His soul for us, will He not be "satisfied"? Prov. viii.; Isa. liii. If the sinner be content with Him, so is He equally with the sinner. The woman at the well, it is true, forgot her waterpot for Him; but He forgot His _thirst_ for her, and that was greater. And then, in like enjoyment of spirit, He said, on the very same occasion, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of." John iv.

From the first to the latest moment of our Christian history, our power to refresh the mind of our Lord is deeply and fully owned in Scripture.

Our earliest confidence in Him as sinners sets Him at once at a feast (as we have just seen, John iv. 32), there to make merry with his friends (Luke xv. 9); for angels rejoice. The recovery of a wanderer has like joy for Him. Read the utterance of the divine affection over repentant Ephraim, in Jer. x.x.xi. 20. And what under the eye, and to the heart of our Lord, are the comely walk of the saints, and their goings in the sanctuary? Is not "a meek and quiet spirit" in G.o.d's sight "of great price"? Does not the pure behaviour of the believer _please_ Him, convey complacency or delight to the divine mind? 1 Thess. iv. 1. And how is such complacency in us witnessed again and again by the promise that He will manifest Himself to us, and make His abode with us! John xiv.

Does not all this make good the suggestions of this book? And so, in the Gospels as well as in the Canticles, is not Christ borne away in the chariots of Amminadib, the chariots of His willing people? Where, I ask, did the report of the seventy bear Him? Luke x. 17, 18. Where did the desire of the Greeks translate Him? John xii. 21-23. And the faith of the Gentile soldier could, for a moment, hold His spirit in delight and admiration, and then bear Him onward to the glory, when the East and the West shall send home the children of the kingdom with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Matt. viii. 8-11.

But the affection which can be thus _gratified_ may be _wounded_. These are among the properties of love. You may grieve as well as refresh the loving heart. And so it is with our Lord, both in the Canticles and in the Gospels; as we read also in the Epistles, "_Grieve_ not the Holy Spirit of G.o.d, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption."

And again. The betrothed one here knows that the heavens (symbolized by hills and mountains) have received her Beloved. But she knows also that though He be _at home_ there, like a roe or a young hart upon its _native_ hills, yet that He delights in communion with her, and visits her, desirously looking through the lattices. And further still; she knows that her duty it is to watch against intrusion and disturbance, as the keepers of a vineyard would watch against the young foxes. And I ask, Is not all this the truth, the enjoyment, and the practical energy, again and again recognized and enforced in the teaching of the Gospel?

We know that the heavens have received Jesus until "the times of refreshing." We know that He makes His present abode with the saint, and manifests Himself to him, as He does not unto the world. And we know that there is to be energy and watchfulness that we "walk in the spirit," and not "in the flesh," if we would taste and enjoy these manifestations of His name to our souls.

So, still further, there is a garden, in this book, under the tillage of the north wind and the south wind, that it may yield its fruits and its spices to the Lord. And does not the severer style of the New Testament abundantly admit the idea? The Father Himself is the Husbandman of a vine which He digs about and dungs; and the saint is as a field that drinketh in the rain from heaven, to yield herbs meet for Him by whom it is dressed. John xv.; Heb. vi.