acceptance with God, 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 God 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 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 _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 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 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 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 _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.[33]
[33] 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
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]
[34] "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 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, "_Grieve_ not 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]
[35] It is commonly interpreted as though Paul, in Gal. ii. 20, were
expressing his _devotedness_ to his Master. But this is not so.
This robs the verse of its exquisite glory. He is rather speaking
of the joy of his soul in the knowledge of what a devoted and
glorious Lover he had.
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.