Bride again, though in a different character. Here we find the one who
was to own and enjoy her, travelling and toiling for her. And this is
just as true, in the mystery, as the other. For, in one sense, Christ
has only to receive His Bride at the hand of the Father and the Holy
Ghost, the gift of the one and the workmanship of the other--but, in
another sense, He has Himself gone into the distant land, and (as I have
already been observing on the Bridegroom) laboured and been put to
reproach and wrong for her. In all this, Jacob sets forth the true
Bridegroom. The Lord Jesus personally has borne the heat of the day _all
alone_. He had not where to lay His head, like Jacob--absent from His
Father's house, and the place of His inheritance--wronged again and
again in a world which, like Laban and his house, ever seeks its own;
and yet, enduring all this, and willing to endure all this, for the love
that He had to her whom His eye had rested on; as Jacob's seven years of
service seemed to him but as a few days, because of his love for Rachel.
This is as striking a picture of the truth as we have yet seen; here the
same mystery of the Bride is still published to us, though still in a
distinct part of it. In Eve, we had her full personal fitness for her
Lord--in Rebecca, we had her as the object of the Father's election and
the Spirit's care, in order to give her to Christ--in Rachel, we see her
as the prize, whom the Lord sets before His own eye, for the sake of
which He will give Himself to exile and toil and wrongs. As reflected in
Isaac, He has nothing to do for her; as reflected in Jacob, He has
everything to do for her.
_Asenath_ closes these wonders. She is the woman of the fourth
generation of the Patriarchs. There is the Sarah of Abraham, the Rebecca
of Isaac, the Rachel of Jacob, and the Asenath of Joseph. She now in her
turn takes up the same mystic tale. She was a Gentile, and in nowise,
like the rest, connected in the flesh with Joseph. The enmity of his
brethren had cast Joseph among her people. And he is honoured there, and
with these strange and Gentile honours gets a Gentile bride and family;
and in the bosom of this unexpected joy he is willing to forget, for a
season, his father's house, and to account himself fruitful or happy,
though among strangers.
This, in its season, is as full of meaning as any of our previous pages
in this tale of the Bride. For here we get the Bride in her Gentile,
heavenly character. Here we are told a great secret; that this same
personage, whose beauty and personal characteristics we saw in Eve,
whose election by the Father and conduct under the hand of the Spirit we
saw in Rebecca, and whose purchase for Himself by the personal toil and
sorrow of Christ we saw in Rachel, is a _Gentile_, a _Stranger_, one
brought into union with the Lord, after His own kindred in the flesh had
refused Him.
All this speaks clearly in the ear of the scribe that is instructed unto
the kingdom of heaven; he traces the mystery of the Bride in all this,
and listens to Eve, to Rebecca, to Rachel, and to Asenath telling out
separate parts of it. And how does all this witness to us _the delight
which Christ takes in His saints_! It is not merely that He has saved
them by His blood, but they are His crown and His joy, His glory and His
delight. His own love and workmanship have been displayed in us, more
highly than in any scene of His power. And this joy of Christ in His
saints is strongly expressed in each of these cases. We love Him for the
sorrows He has endured, and He loves us who thus prize His love. John
xiv. 21. And if these affections be not understood as passing between
Christ and the saint, if we do not, without reserve, allow this
satisfaction in each other, our souls will not enter into much of that
communion which the Scripture provides for. The Canticles will not be
understood, if we do not allow and entertain the thought of Christ's
delight in the saints, with the same certainty that we allow the thought
of His having purchased and sanctified them by His blood.
But this communion must spring from intelligence of the soul, or it will
be mere natural fervour. When Ruth sought the feet of Boaz, and did not
again go to the gleaning-field, it was because Naomi had been
instructing her further about him. Her soul had passed through the light
of Naomi's words, and, thus taught, she desires more intimate fellowship
with him than she had yet enjoyed. She seeks _himself_. The
gleaning-field, where she was less than his handmaids, is deserted, and
the place of a suitor for himself is assumed. She cannot call herself
less than one of his handmaids any longer. She seeks a kinsman's love,
for she knows him to be a kinsman. And this is truly blessed.
Love, or desire towards another, takes different forms in the heart.
There is the love of _pity_, the love of _gratitude_, and the love of
_complacency_. The love of pity regards its object in some sort as
_below_ it, and is full of tenderness. The love of gratitude, on the
contrary, regards its object as _above_ it, and is full of humility. The
love of complacency does not necessarily look either above or below, but
simply at its object, and is full of admiration. But, in addition to
this, there is the love of _kindred_. It has its foundation in nature,
and hence it is called "natural affection." And this love of kindred has
a glory which is peculiarly its own. _It warrants the deepest
intimacies._ There is no settling of one's self for the other's
presence. There is full ease in going out and coming in. _Expressions_
of love are not deemed intrusive--nay, they are sanctioned as being due
and comely. The heart knows its right to indulge itself over its object,
and that, too, without check or shame. This is the glory of this
affection. The love of pity, of gratitude, or of complacency, must act
decorously, and in proper form. But the love of kindred, the love of
those who dwell in one house, and whom nature or the hand of God has
bound together, feels its right to gratify itself, and is not fearful of
being rebuked. See, for instance, Canticles viii. 1. This is its
distinguishing boast. Nothing admits this but itself. This is, in a full
and deep sense, "personal affection."
Parents and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives (and I
might add, friends), know this. They know their title to indulge,
without scorn or rebuke, in the warmest expressions of their mutual
love. And it is the richest feast of the heart. The love of pity has its
enjoyment, and so have the love of gratitude and the love of
complacency; but they do not, in themselves and alone, warrant these
_personal_ fervours. Personally, their objects may be below, above, or
at a distance, and should be approached with a due respect to all their
rights. But not so with our kindred, because it is their _persons_ and
not _their qualities_ or _conditions_, that form the ground of our love.
We may deal with them without apology or reserve. In such cases it is
_himself_ that the heart embraces. It is not his sorrows, his favours,
or his excellencies, but it is himself, which this affection handles and
converses with.
We may receive a benefit from a person, and be assured of a hearty
welcome to it, and yet feel ourselves ill at ease in his presence.
Nothing is more common than this. Gratitude is awakened in the heart
very deeply, and yet reserve and uneasiness are felt. It calls for
something beyond our assurance of his good-will, and of our full welcome
to his service, to make us at ease in the presence of a benefactor. And
this something, I believe, is the discovery that we have an interest in
_himself_, as well as in his _ability to serve us_.
This delineates, as I judge, the experience of the poor woman with the
issue of blood. Mark v. She knew the Lord's ability to relieve her
sorrow, and her hearty welcome to avail herself of it. She, therefore,
comes and takes the virtue out of Him without reserve. But she comes
_behind Him_. This expresses her state of mind. She knows her welcome to
His service, but nothing more. But the Lord trains her heart for more.
He lets her know that she is interested in _Himself_, as well as in _His
power to oblige her_. He calls her "daughter." He owns kindred or
relationship with her. This was the communication which alone was equal
to remove her fears and trembling. Her rich and mighty patron is her
kinsman. This is what her heart needed to know. Without this, in the
spirit of her mind, she would have been still "behind" Him. But this
gives her ease. "Go in peace" may then be said, as well as "Be whole of
thy plague." She need not be reserved. Christ does not deal with her as
a patron or benefactor. Luke xxii. 25. She has an interest in _Himself_
as well as in His _power to bless her_. And so as to the Canticles. It
is the love which warrants _personal intimacy_ (after this manner of the
nearest and dearest relationships) that breathes in this lovely book.
The age of the union has not yet arrived. But it is the time of
betrothment, and we are His delight. Nay, it was so ere worlds were.
Prov. viii.
Do we believe this? Does it make us happy? We are, naturally, suspicious
of any offer to make us happy in God. Because our moral sense, our
natural conscience, tells us of our having lost all right even to His
ordinary blessings. The mere moral sense will therefore be quick to
stand to it, and question all overtures of peace from heaven, and be
ready to challenge their reality. But here comes the vigour of the
spiritual mind, or the energy of faith. Faith gainsays these conclusions
of nature. It refuses at times to think according to the moral sense of
nature, as it refuses at times to act according to the relative claims
of nature. In their place, the dictates of the moral sense and the
claims of nature are sacred---as we read, "Doth not even _nature_ itself
teach you, that if a man have long hair it is a shame unto him?" But
still they are not supreme. If God put in His claim, or make His
revelation, the _relations_ of nature and the _moral sense_ of nature
are to withdraw their authority. "He that loveth father or mother more
than Me is not worthy of Me." And in the revelation of God, faith reads
our abundant title to be near to Him and happy with Him, though natural
conscience and our sense of the fitness of things would have it
otherwise. Faith feeds where the moral sensibilities of the natural mind
would count it presuming even to tread.
I ask, then, Do we ponder, without reserve or suspicion, the thought of
such love towards us in the heart of Jesus as this book suggests? Does
it make us happy? We owe the love of children to God as our Father, the
love of redeemed ones to God as our Saviour, the love of disciples to
Jesus as our Master and Lord. But what is the love that we owe for this
way of Christ's heart to us? How are we to meet it in a way worthy of
it? This book, I believe, tells us. But this conducts the soul into the
holiest. And what grief, and shame, and trouble of heart arise, when we
reflect how little we are there, and how many tales against us all this
is ever telling!
The Canticles do not give us the ways of filial affection, or of the
affection due to a benefactor. But they give us, I believe, the actings
of the love of espousals, in both Christ's heart and ours. The joy of
hearing the Bridegroom's voice, I may say, is fulfilled here in the
heart of the saint, as it was in the soul of the Baptist. And what, I
would ask, are the attributes of a commanding affection like this? What
do we find the power of it to be, when it seats itself in us?
As to _service_, it makes it welcome. To say that service for the object
of this affection is "perfect freedom" is far too cold. It makes service
infinitely grateful, even though it call for self-denial or weariness.
And it can render its offering without caring for any eye or heart to
approve it, but that of the one whom it has made its object. It cares
not that others should be able to esteem its ways. It has all the
desired fruit of its service, if its object approve it, and give but its
presence at the end of it. As to _society_, this affection wants none
but that of its object. If there be no weariness felt in service, as we
have been saying, so is there no irksomeness known in solitude. All that
is cared for is the presence of that one who commands the heart. There
is no sense of solitude, if that one _alone_ be present; there is no
sense of satiety, though that one be _always_ present. As to _authority
in the soul_, it holds its place, I need not say, unrivalled. It is the
man of the heart. It breaks the bands and cuts the cords of other
desires. It makes us undervalue all things but the one. It may take
other things up, but this is only by the way. It is ever glancing at its
own thing, even if others be for a time in the foreground. It looks
through the lattices at it. Other things are esteemed according to their
connection with it. And it will control the wrong and cultivate the
right tendencies of the heart; for occasions which might wound vanity or
gratify pride are not valued or pursued, while we retain it; and yet to
approve ourselves there, we will nerve the heart and the hand to great
and generous ways.
What intenseness is here! and what purity also! It refreshes the soul to
think that we have been created susceptible of such affections. But the
warning of another is in season. "Wherever a passion has these
properties, or any of them, conspicuous in it, it cannot, but by being
consecrated to God, avoid becoming injurious to Him and to itself. The
very nobleness of it entitles Him to it." But the same one tells us that
we should seek, not to _annihilate_, but to _transfigure_ it. He says,
"I would not have it swallowed up by death, the common fate, but be
ennobled by a destiny like that of Enoch and Elias, who, having ceased
to converse with mortals, died not, but were translated to heaven."
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 passion of the soul be moved, it is God's right to have the
highest exercise of it towards Himself. It has not treated Him as God if
it have not rendered this to Him. If each of the passions of our souls
do not give Him its richest and largest offerings, it is not a
_worshipping_ passion.
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 God 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 God." Exod. xxx. 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 God 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 passed His notice. He appeared to be
silent, and but the passive 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 passed 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 passion 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 assurance of acceptance and
favour with God 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 God, 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 God
rejoice over thee." "The Lord thy God 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
passages, 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
God, 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 God, and in that
character, we may assure 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 lustre 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 assurance 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.'"