But what an element is this! Oh, how coarse, 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 lusts 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 God 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." Lust 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 anticipated, and our energy in meeting temptation is increased, and thus the liberty and purityof 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 God of Naomi as her God, 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 God. 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 assumed 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 relativethese 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 pass 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 assumes 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 God" 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 soIsaac desires her. And so is the Church to be subjectto Christ, and yet love Him with virgin love. Eph. v.; 2 Cor. xi. 2.33
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 passed. 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 pass 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. 41.34
The great moral principles of truth are also strictly and fully understood here, though under very delicate and spiritual illustrations. St. James says, "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts." 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 pass 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. xxxi. 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 God'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, "Grievenot the Holy Spirit of God, 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.
In the imagery here we have Christ as a Suitor at the door, asking of the one He loves admission from "the drops of the night;" and in the New Testament we have Him standing and knocking at the reluctant heart, desiring that entertainment which revived and zealous affection would surely provide Him. Rev. iii. 20. And well for us, beloved, if our lukewarm Laodiceanism do but depart, like the drowsiness of this dear one in this lovely mystic song. Chap. v. 2-16.
And I know not that the constant self-congratulation of the espoused one in this book is a whit beyond that of Paul. She can always talk of her Beloved being hers, and say moreover, "I am my Beloved's, and His desire is towards me." But he can also always, in spirit, sing (let the toil and wear of life be what they may), "The life that I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me." And that is the language of Paul, happy in the assurance of Christ's devoted love to him.35
If, I may also say, in the imagery of this book, the loved saint can say, "I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to my taste," the plainer style of an epistle is not less fervent. "Whom having not seen, ye love; in Whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Surely the heart is equally in possession of an Object which it knows is fitted to answer all its desires.
And further still. We have, in the actions of this book, souls in different elevations, the betrothed one, and "the daughters of Jerusalem." How much is that known among themselves, and contemplated in the illustrations and teachings of the New Testament! All are not fully formed-not fully in the measure of the stature, so to express it. "We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts." All are not alike in the liberty of the dispensation. Such draw out the sympathy of the saint established in the grace of God, and solicitous care, and prayer, and inquiry of the Lord, are made about such, as here. See chap. viii. 8.
Indeed, I know not that anything can be more in the harmonies of the Spirit, in the combined and glowing lights of the Gospel, than the utterance of the betrothed one in this short passage. Chap. viii. 8-10. The actings of her soul, both towards others and towards the Lord, are the Spirit's sweetest and choicest workmanship. She has respect to "the infirmity of the weak," desiring for them strength and edifying in the fuller measure of Christ, and yet all the time owning full oneness and relationship with them in Him, while she rejoices in her own certain, happy assurance, and the fulness of her growth, even to an ecstasy, that her breasts were like towers! and because of that, knowing her Lord's favour towards her, and delight in her. And sure we may be, that all this is purely and richly the way of a believing, renewed soul. Full adoption of the weak, with desires for their larger liberty and assurance, and yet certainty of personal standing in the most undimmed joy of entire assurance, with perfect persuasion that all this liberty and confidence were thoroughly to the heart and mind of Jesus.
Nothing can be more perfect, I believe, than all this in the harmonies and lights of a spiritual mind, according to the strictest sense of evangelic truth.
So again and again, in the gospel history, we find Jesus led to forget His sorrows when beholding faith in a sinner. He found there, as I have already stated, the refreshment of His spirit. He found a transient forgetting of His sorrows among the Samaritans, from the Centurion, from Zaccheus, and from the spikenard and fellowship of Mary. He seeks the same here. He comes to His espoused one, that He might find, in fellowship with her, some other and far different thing than that rejection and refusal which He was ever meeting in the world. And is it not also so, that if the saint be sluggish and careless, the faithful kindred in Christ will help the discipline? If Jesus say, "Could ye not watch with Me one hour?" Paul will say, "Quit you like men, be strong." So in the action of this book. Jesus leaves a memorial of the soul's drowsiness on "the hole of the door," that the conscience may take alarm; and the watchman of the city smite her, and the keepers of the walls draw the veil from her face. Chap. v.
The harmonies of the "one Spirit" are heard in all this. And so, in the course of these little songs, I discern the way of the Lord toward a repentant, recovered soul. See chap. vi. 4-13. She had just refused to open her door to Him, but, through discipline, had been brought to fervent communion with Him again. v. 2-vi. 3. And now His eye and His heart are full of her again. He looks on her as beautiful as ever. She is His "undefiled," and nothing less; no upbraidings pass His lips. Her motion towards Him is comely and graceful in His esteem. And He lets her know that her repentance had given Him pleasant and wondrous refreshment. As soon as she was made willing (Psalm cx. 2), He got into a chariot to bear Him away speedily and joyously to her. vi. 12, margin. She may be a wonder to herself, she may take a place unworthy of any notice (v. 13); but the Lord and angels rejoice over her. As we know in the Gospels, the ninety and nine just ones can be left for the one prodigal; the angels in heaven rejoice; the house makes merry; the friends of the beloved triumph over the returned Shulamite. She is like the returned Jacob: the Mahanaim, the hosts of God, salute them both, wait at the threshold of the land or of the house, to do their Lord's pleasure toward them, and express His welcome and concern for them. Gen. xxxii. 1; Cant. vi. 13.36
And what is the longing here but that the day should break? And what is the longing of the same soul in the words of the Gospel? "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly," – so largely and so exactly do the teachings and the breathings of the New Testament, in these and kindred ways, measure the affections of the heart in this book? Christ dwells in the heart by faith. Christ lies all night between the breasts. Eph. iii. 17; Cant. i. 13. And has not the saint attuned his heart over Jesus in language of like fervour, such as we all use without shame?
"How tedious and tasteless the hours
When Jesus no longer I see,
Sweet prospects, sweet birds, and sweet flowers,
Have lost all their sweetness for me;
The midsummer sun shines but dim,
The fields strive in vain to look gay,
But when I am happy in Him,
December's as pleasant as May.
"His name yields the richest perfume,
And sweeter than music His voice,
His presence disperses my gloom,
And makes all within me rejoice:
I should, were He always so nigh,
Have nothing to wish or to fear,
No mortal so happy as I,
My summer would last the whole year."
These are among the seals set upon this beautiful portion of God's Word by the spiritual mind of the believer, and also by kindred truths and principles found in other scriptures. And it has been happily said, that "if there be no express allusion to this book in the New Testament, the same allegory, as portraying the same truth, evidently appears to have been familiar to the minds of the writers of it, and to the minds also of the people whom they addressed. Not more abruptly does John the Baptist, for instance, refer to our Lord as 'the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world,' as being the character of the Messiah which all would know and understand, than he does to the same blessed Person in the character of the Bridegroom of the Church-'he that hath the Bride is the Bridegroom.'"
And is it not seasonable, in these days of growing irreligiousness and worldliness, to warn one another, beloved, to keep our minds incorrupt in the simplicity that is in Christ? In the preparation-season, which the present age is, and which the Canticles contemplate, Eve was getting ready, under the forming hand of God, for Adam, and for Adam only. Adam slept for Eve, and Eve was made for Adam. So with Christ and the Church. He slept in death for us, and we are preparing, under the Holy Ghost, for Him. "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." As he says also in another place, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again till Christ be formed in you," Christ, and Christ only, Christ in His precious sufficiency for a sinner, in answer to the Hagar or Galatian thought of "days, and months, and times, and years," that other gospel which yet is not another.
But this is assailed. The Gospel, in its claim on the sinner to give his undivided confidence to Christ, has been abroad on the lips of a thousand witnesses, to the gladdening of thousands of souls. The enemy has watched and hated this. Working in the scene in which he goes "to and fro" and "up and down" (Job i. 7), he is busy to seduce the heart from this Gospel. And is not his success far beyond the measure of the fears of any of us? The religion of fleshly confidences or of ordinances is to this hour among us. It admits of worldliness; and worldliness is, at this same hour, flourishing in company with it. There is the erection of temples for worship, and of palaces for the worshippers; stricter care to observe, in its season, due attendance in the sanctuary, together with unparalleled skill and energy and enterprise in advancing the indulgence and elegance of human life, so as to make the world a desirable and safe place to live in-a place where religion may now be seen to be observed and honoured.
This is all seductive from the principle of faith-this is corruption of the mind from the simplicity that is in Christ. The Gospel addresses itself to man, not only as a guilty but as a religious creature. It finds him under the power of superstition or religiousness, as well as of sin. It is as natural for man to refuse to go into the judgment-hall lest he should be defiled, as it is, in very enmity to God, to cry out, "Crucify Him, crucify Him." And the Gospel gets as stern a refusal from the religiousman as from the lustful man. As the Divine Teacher tells us, the harlot goes into the kingdom before the Pharisee.
Religious vanities are deeply playing their part in our day, and fascinating many souls. What answer, beloved, do you and I give them? Is Jesus so precious that no allurement has power? Is the virgin purity of the mind still kept? and as chaste ones are we still betrothed to Christ only? Like the newly-formed Eve, are we in our place of earliest, freshest presentation to our Lord? or have we, apart from His side, opened our ear to the serpent?
The kingdom of heaven is as a supper, a royal, joyous feast got ready for sinners, that they might taste and see that the Lord is good, and that blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. It does not put God in the place of a receiver, for man to bring Him His due; but it puts Him in the place of a giver, and man is called to value His blessing. But the question is, Who listens, with desirous heart, to the bidding? Who wears "the wedding garment"? Who prizes Christ? Who triumphs in His salvation? Who longs for the day of His espousals? John had this garment on him, knowing, as he did, the joy of being the Bridegroom's friend. It was flowing at liberty on Mary's shoulders, as she sat at her Lord's feet and heard His words. Paul tucked it tight about him when he said, "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." The eunuch had just put it on as "he went his way rejoicing" in the faith of the name of Jesus. Every sinner adorns himself with it the moment his heart values Christ. And what joy is it thus to know that when we put on Christ it is not "sackcloth" we put on, nor is it "the spirit of heaviness" we enter into, but "a wedding garment" has clothed us, and with "the garment of praise" we array our spirits!