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Song of
Solomon Chapter Four
Song of Solomon 4
Chapter Contents
Christ sets forth the graces of the church. (1-7)
Christ's love to the church. (8-15) The church desires further influences of
Divine grace. (16)
Commentary on Song of Solomon 4:1-7
(Read Song of Solomon 4:1-7)
If each of these comparisons has a meaning applicable to
the graces of the church, or of the faithful Christian, they are not clearly
known; and great mistakes are made by fanciful guesses. The mountain of myrrh
appears to mean the mountain Moriah, on which the temple was built, where the
incense was burned, and the people worshipped the Lord. This was his residence
till the shadows of the law given to Moses were dispersed by the breaking of
the gospel day, and the rising of the Sun of righteousness. And though, in
respect of his human nature, Christ is absent from his church on earth, and
will continue to be so till the heavenly day break, yet he is spiritually
present in his ordinances, and with his people. How fair and comely are
believers, when justified in Christ's righteousness, and adorned with spiritual
graces! when their thoughts, words, and deeds, though imperfect, are pure,
manifesting a heart nourished by the gospel!
Commentary on Song of Solomon 4:8-15
(Read Song of Solomon 4:8-15)
Observe the gracious call Christ gives to the church. It
is, 1. A precept; so this is Christ's call to his church to come off from the
world. These hills seem pleasant, but there are in them lions' dens; they are
mountains of the leopards. 2. As a promise; many shall be brought as members of
the church, from every point. The church shall be delivered from her
persecutors in due time, though now she dwells among lions, Psalm 57:4. Christ's heart is upon his church;
his treasure is therein; and he delights in the affection she has for him; its
working in the heart, and its works in the life. The odours wherewith the
spouse is perfumed, are as the gifts and graces of the Spirit. Love and
obedience to God are more pleasing to Christ than sacrifice or incense. Christ
having put upon his spouse the white raiment of his own righteousness, and the
righteousness of saints, and perfumed it with holy joy and comfort, he is well
pleased with it. And Christ walks in his garden unseen. A hedge of protection
is made around, which all the powers of darkness cannot break through. The
souls of believers are as gardens enclosed, where is a well of living water, John 4:14; 7:38, the influences of the Holy
Spirit. The world knows not these wells of salvation, nor can any opposer
corrupt this fountain. Saints in the church, and graces in the saints, are
fitly compared to fruits and spices. They are planted, and do not grow of
themselves. They are precious; they are the blessings of this earth. They will
be kept to good purpose when flowers are withered. Grace, when ended in glory,
will last for ever. Christ is the source which makes these gardens fruitful;
even a well of living waters.
Commentary on Song of Solomon 4:16
(Read Song of Solomon 4:16)
The church prays for the influences of the blessed
Spirit, to make this garden fruitful. Graces in the soul are as spices in these
gardens, that in them which is valuable and useful. The blessed Spirit, in his
work upon the soul, is as the wind. There is the north wind of conviction, and
the south wind of comfort. He stirs up good affections, and works in us both to
will and to do that which is good. The church invites Christ. Let him have the
honour of all the garden produces, and let us have the comfort of his
acceptance of it. We can invite him to nothing but what is his own already. The
believer can have no joy of the fruits, unless they redound some way or other
to the glory of Christ. Let us then seek to keep separate from the world, as a
garden enclosed, and to avoid conformity thereto.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Song of Solomon》
Song of Solomon 4
Verse 1
[1]
Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes
within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount
Gilead.
Behold —
These words are evidently spoken by the bridegroom.
Fair —
Being clothed with my righteousness, and adorned with all the graces of my
spirit.
Fair — He
repeats it both to confirm his assertion, and to shew the fervency of his
affection.
Dove's eyes —
Whereas the beauty of the spouse is here described in her several parts, we
need not labour much about the application of each particular to some distinct
grace of the church, this being the chief design of the description to shew
that compleatness and absolute perfection which the church hath in part
received, and shall more fully receive in the future life.
Goats —
Which in these parts was of extraordinary length, and softness, and comeliness.
Mount Gilead — A
very fruitful place, fit for breeding all sorts of cattle, and especially of
goats, because it was an hilly and woody country.
Verse 2
[2] Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up
from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them.
A flock —
Numerous, and placed in due order.
Even —
Smooth and even, as also clean and white.
Twins —
Which seems to denote the two rows of teeth.
Barren —
Not one tooth is lacking.
Verse 3
[3] Thy
lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are
like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.
Thy speech —
Which is added as another ingredient of an amiable person; and to explain the
foregoing metaphor. The discourse of believers is edifying and comfortable, and
acceptable to God, and to serious men.
Temples —
Under which he comprehends the cheeks.
Pomegranate — In
which there is a lovely mixture of red and white.
Verse 4
[4] Thy
neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a
thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.
Thy neck —
This may represent the grace of faith, by which we are united to Christ, as the
body is to the head by the neck. By which Christians receive their spiritual
food, and consequently their strength and ability for action.
The tower —
Upright, firm, and strong; and moreover adorned with chains of gold or pearl,
or the like ornaments.
Of David —
Some tower built by David, when he repaired, and enlarged his royal city, and
used by him as an armory.
Bucklers —
Such as are reserved for the use of mighty men. A thousand is put indefinitely
for a great number.
Verse 5
[5] Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among
the lilies.
Lillies — In
the fields where lillies grow.
Verse 6
[6]
Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain
of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.
Until —
These words are uttered by the bride, chap. 2:17, and here returned by the bridegroom as an
answer to that request. And this place may be understood of the day of glory,
when all shadows and ordinances shall cease.
To the hill — To
my church upon earth, which was typified by the mountain of Moriah and the
temple upon it. This in prophetic writings is called a mountain, and may well
be called a mountain of myrrh and frankincense, both for the acceptable
services which are there offered to God, and for the precious gifts and graces
of the Holy Spirit, which are of a sweet smelling savour to God and men. Thus
Christ directs believers, where they may find him, namely in his church and
ordinances.
Verse 8
[8] Come
with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of
Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains
of the leopards.
Come —
Unto the mountains of myrrh.
Look — To
the place to which I invite thee to go, which from those high mountains thou
mayest easily behold.
Of Leopards —
From these or other mountains, which are inhabited by lions and leopards. This
seems to be added as an argument to move the spouse to go with him, because the
places where now she was, were not only barren, but also dangerous.
Verse 9
[9] Thou
hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with
one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.
My sister — So
he calls her to shew the greatness of his love, which cannot sufficiently be
expressed by any one relation.
With one —
With one glance.
One chain —
With one of those other graces and perfections wherewith thou art adorned.
Verse 10
[10] How
fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine!
and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!
Fair —
How amiable and acceptable to me.
Ointments — Of
the gifts and graces of God's Spirit, wherewith thou art anointed.
Verse 11
[11] Thy
lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue;
and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
Thy lips —
Thy speeches both to me in prayer and praises, and to men for their
edification, are highly acceptable to me.
Milk —
Words more sweet and comfortable than honey or milk.
Garments — Of
that righteousness wherewith I have adorned thee.
Lebanon —
Which was very sweet and grateful in regard of the great numbers of
sweet-smelling spices and trees which grow on that mountain.
Verse 12
[12] A
garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
A garden —
For order and beauty, for pleasant walks, and flowers, and fruits.
Inclosed —
Defended by the care of my providence: and reserved for my proper use.
Shut up — To
preserve it from all pollution, and to reserve it for the use of its owner, for
which reason, springs were shut up in those countries where water was scarce
and precious.
Verse 13
[13] Thy
plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with
spikenard,
Plants —
Believers, which are planted in thee, are like the plants or fruits of an
orchard, which are pleasant to the eye, and delicious to the taste or smell,
whereby he signifies the variety and excellency of the gifts and graces in the
several members of the church.
Spikenard —
Which he mentions here with camphire, and in the next verse with saffron,
because it is mixed with both these, and being so mixed, yields. the more
grateful smell.
Verse 14
[14]
Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense;
myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:
All trees —
Such trees as produce frankincense.
Verse 15
[15] A
fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.
Living water —
Though my spouse be in some sort a fountain shut up, yet that is not so to be
understood as if she kept her waters to herself, for she is like a fountain of
living or running water, which flows into gardens, and makes its flowers and
plants to flourish. The church conveys those waters of life which she receives
from Christ to particular believers.
Streams —
Like those sweet and refreshing rivers which flow down from mount Lebanon, of
which Jordan is one.
Verse 16
[16]
Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices
thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant
fruits.
North wind —
These winds may signify the several dispensations of God's spirit.
My garden —
This verse is spoken by the spouse. And he calls the garden both hers and his,
because of that oneness which is between them, chap. 2:16.
May flow — That
my graces may be exercised.
Let —
Let Christ afford his gracious presence to his church.
And eat —
And let him delight himself in that service which is given him, both by the
religious worship, and by the holy conversation of his people.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Song of Solomon》
04 Chapter 4
Verses 1-16
Verse 8
Come with Me from Lebanon, My spouse, with Me from Lebanon.
The invitations of Christ
The whole idea is that the Shulamite Virgin who is sought as a
bride lives in high, craggy, cavernous regions--amid inhospitable scenes--and
close to the mountain haunts of beasts of prey. Such words as Amana, Shenir,
Hermon, and Lebanon are used to typify a region of mountain, rock, fastness,
forest, and jungle. There the fair Shulamite has her native home, That is one
side of the picture. On the other side is the King, who lives in Jerusalem, the
royal city, the city of peace, far away from the haunts of leopards; and He
goes forth to invite the bride to leave the crag and the den, the forest and
the danger, saying, “Come to Jerusalem, to the centre of civilization, to the
home of beauty, to the King’s palace, to the splendid and inviolable home,--no
lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast go up thereon,--come, O My dove,
that art in the clefts of the rock, whose lips drop as the honeycomb, and the
smell of whose garments is as the smell of Lebanon, come! How is all this
sustained by collateral Scripture, and made to apply to the Son of God? Christ
calls men away from what may be regarded as the nativities of the present
scene. There must be no division, no holding on with both hands: the attitude
must not be that of one who has the right foot in the caverns and the left foot
in the metropolis: there must be a complete detachment from all that is native
and original, and a clear coming away with all trust and love and hope to the
new abode. Christ is calling us away from our animalism--the first condition of
our birth. He will not have it that the body is the man, that the flesh is the
immortal part of humanity. So Christ calls the Church, which is His Bride, the
Lamb’s Wife,--He calls her away from stony places, and from low associations,
and from connections with lions’ dens and mountain haunts of leopards,--calls
humanity away from flesh, and earth, and time, and sense, and prison, into all
the upper spaces, where the blue sky is unclouded, and where the infinite
liberty never degenerates into licence. What does Christ call us from?
Precisely what the Shulamite was called from--from stony places and desert
lands and mountain fastnesses--from “desolation desolate.” When does Christ
ever call men from knowledge to ignorance? from abundance of spiritual
realization to poverty and leanness of soul? When does Jesus Christ ever offer
men an inhospitable welcome? The great offers of the Gospel are in such terms
as these: Eat and drink abundantly, O beloved! He, every one that thirsteth,
Come! We are called not only from desolateness, but from danger. If we have not
entered into the spirit-life, the faith-life, that higher life which sees the
invisible and realizes the eternal, then we are simply walking through
perils without number, and as for seductiveness or subtlety or power of
involving us in mischief and in suffering, no language can express the reality
of the situation. We are called not only from desolateness and from danger, but
from incongruity. What a background was the mountain region to the fair and
lovely Shulamite! Surely that fair dove was made for Jerusalem, and not for
some region of caverns or mountain haunts of leopards. Save her! This sense of
incongruity afflicts men who profess to be under the spell of refined and
elevating taste. What shocks do men receive who profess to be refined and large
in their culture! A musician feels as if he were staggering under a blow of
insult when he hears a false note. Is there no law of incongruity in morals, in
spiritual relation? “What doest thou here, Elijah?”--why wanderest thou in
these desert places, O thou child of the king, meant to adorn a palace? Why
estranged and ragged and humiliated and debased, thou child of fortune? Explain
the ghastly incongruity! Christ ever calls men to home, to security, to honour.
Herein he is like the man who seeks the Shulamite for his bride: he calls her
to the palace, to Jerusalem, to all beauty and comfort and security. Jesus
Christ says, “I go to prepare a place for you.” When Jesus Christ prepares a
place, who can describe its largeness, its beauty, its completeness? “Where I
am, there ye shall be also;” and where He is, heaven is. But, there is on the
road a cross? We cannot enter into the city unless we understand the cross, and
die upon it. The cross is not an intellectual puzzle; it is a cross on which
every man must be himself crucified with the Son of God. After the cross the
crown--the pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of
the throne of God and of the Lamb. After the cross, the city in the midst of
whose street, and on either side of the river, is the Tree of Life. (J.
Parker, D. D.)
Christ’s invitation to His bride
This world was never designed to be the fixed abode of the
children of men, and therefore there was a restraint laid upon our first
parents in paradise, as to the forbidden tree, showing that they behoved to
look to another world for their happiness. Man was once set fair on the way to
the land where glory dwells, but he lost his way, and now poor sinners are
found wandering on the mountains of vanity. The first Adam managed ill, and
brought us into this condition. But behold, the second Adam came to gather the
dispersed of Israel, and to lead them on their way to the better country. Hear
His voice in the text, calling His people to leave the weary world and go
homeward with Himself.
I. Take notice of some things
supposed in this kind call and invitation.
1. It supposeth that Christ’s bride is yet in the world. Though
brought out of Egypt, yet not come to Canaan, but still in the wilderness.
2. Though she be there, and perhaps has been there many years since
she was united to Christ, yet He has not forgot her, but kindly remembers, her
still, whatever she may think otherwise.
3. The world is not a place for Christ’s spouse to rest in, she is in
great danger there.
4. Yet sometimes the foolish creature lies down even among the lions’
dens, and being charmed with the deceitful mountains is averse to come away.
5. Our Lord takes notice of and is concerned for the soul’s danger
from the deceitful world. And therefore He cries with earnestness to come away.
II. Explain this
coming from the world, or show what is implied in it. There is a twofold coming
away from the world,
1. There is a natural coming out of it. By the course of nature, we
are all on our way out of it.
2. There is a spiritual coming out of it, namely, in heart and
affection. This is what Christ is calling you to this day.
III. Show the import
of coming away with Christ from the world.
1. Our Lord has a better place for your reception, than the world can
be in its best dress. This is the new Jerusalem. There His Father’s house
stands. And in that house are many mansions. The society of saints, angels, and
to be ever with the Lord constitute the felicity of the place.
2. Our Lord can assuredly bring you into this glorious and happy
place. But oh! will I obtain admission? Why, come with Me, says Christ, there
will be no hindrance if you enter along with Me.
3. That place is His own choice.
4. Christ is in His way thither, out of the world to His Father’s
house, the better country. What, is not Christ there already? True, Christ
personal is there, but Christ mystical is not there yet.
5. Our Lord is very desirous of your company by the way, yes, and to
have you away with Him for altogether.
6. Our Lord displays His glory to you in the Gospel, to win your
hearts and get you away with Him.
7. Our Lord offers you, not only better in hope, but better in hand
than the world can give you.
8. If you will come away, you shall go as He goes, you shall go
together. Go as He goes in point of duty. Esteem all things as He does. Let His
choice be your choice. Rejoice in those things in which He rejoices; and be
grieved for what grieves His Spirit. Love what He loves, and hate what He
hates.
9. He will lead you and support you through the whole of the way. You
are now in the fields of the world, and there will be difficult steps in your
way to the city; these will not be easily discerned, but come with Him, He will
keep you from stumbling on the dark mountains.
10. He will be all to you in all. Leave all the world and “come with
Me,” for all, as the espoused bride goes with her husband. Whatever comfort,
pleasure and delight you drew out of the muddy streams, you may now draw in a
far superior manner from the fountain. Thus it shall be your duty and privilege
too, to live as people of another world. “For our conversation is in heaven;
from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (T.
Boston, D. D.)
Verse 10-11
How fair is thy love, My sister, My spouse! how much better is thy
love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!
Christ’s estimate of His people
I.
Christ
first praises His people’s love. Dost thou love God, my hearer? Dost thou love
Jesus? Hearken, then, to what the Lord Jesus says to thee, by His Holy Spirit,
from this Song! Thy love, poor, feeble, and cold though it be, is very precious
unto the Lord Jesus, in fact it is so precious, that He Himself cannot tell how
precious it is. He does not say how precious, but He says “how fair” Pause
here, my soul, to contemplate a moment, and let thy joy wait a while. Jesus
Christ has banquets in heaven, such as we have never yet tasted, and yet He
does not feed there. He has wines in heaven richer far than all the grapes of
Eshcol could produce, but where does he seek His wines? In our hearts. Not all
the love of angels, nor all the joys cf. Paradise, are so dear to. Him as the
love of His poor people compassed with infirmity. The love of the believer is
sweet to Christ.
II. Do not imagine,
however, that Christ despises our faith, or our hope, or our patience, or our
humility. All these graces are precious to Him, and they are described in the
next sentence under the title of ointment, and the working of these graces,
their exercise and development, are compared with the smell of ointment. Now
both wine and ointment were used in the sacrifice of the Jews; sweet smelling
myrrh and spices were used in meat-offerings and drink-offerings before the
Lord. “But,” saith Jesus Christ to His Church, “all these offerings of wine,
and all that burning of incense, is nothing to Me compared to your graces. Your
love is My wine, your virtues are My sweet-smelling ointments.” Yes, believer,
when you are on your sick-bed and are suffering with patience; when you go
about your humble way to do good by stealth; when you distribute of your alms
to the poor; when you lift up your thankful eye to Heaven; when you draw near
to God with humble prayer; when you make confession of your sin to Him; all
these acts are like the smell of ointment to Him, the smell of a sweet savour,
and He is gratified and pleased. O Jesus, this is condescension indeed, to be
pleased with such poor things as we have. Oh, this is love; it proves Thy love
to us, that Thou canst make so much out of little, and esteem so highly that
which is of such little worth!
III. Now we come to
the third, “Thy lips, O My spouse, drop as the honeycomb.” Christ’s people are
not a dumb people, they were once, but they talk now. I do not believe a
Christian can keep the secret that God gives him if he were to try; it would
burst his lips open to get out. Now it is but poor, poor matter that any of us
can speak. When we are most eloquent in our Master’s praise, how far our
praises fall beneath His worth! When we are most earnest in prayer, how
powerless is our wrestling compared with the great blessing that we seek to
obtain! But Jesus Christ does not find any fault in what the Church speaks. He
says, “No, Thy lips, O My spouse, drop as the honeycomb.” You know the honey
that drops out of the honeycomb is the best--it is called the life-honey. So
the words that drop from the Christian’s lips are the very words of his life,
his life-honey, and they ought to be sweet to every one. They are as sweet to
the taste of the Lord Jesus as the drops of the honeycomb. And now, Christians,
will you not talk much about Jesus? Will you not speak often of Him? Will you
not give your tongue more continually to prayer and praise, and speech that
ministers to edifying, when you have such a listener as this, such an auditor
who stoops from heaven to hear you, and who values every word you speak for
Him? “But,” says one, “if I were to try to talk about Jesus Christ, I do not
know what I should say.” If you wanted any honey, and nobody would bring it to
you, I suppose the best way, if you were in the country, would be to keep some
bees, would it not? It would be very well for you Christian people if you kept
bees. “Well,” says one, “I suppose our thoughts are to be the bees. We are
always to be looking about for good thoughts, and flying on to the flowers
where they are to be found; by reading, by meditation, and by prayer, we are to
send bees out of the hive.” Certainly, if you do not read your Bibles, you will
have no honey, because you have no bees. But when you read your Bibles, and
study those precious texts, it is like bees settling on flowers, and sucking
the sweetness out of them.
IV. This brings us
to the next topic “Honey and milk are under thy tongue.” I find it necessary
when I preach to keep a good stock of words under my tongue as well as those
that are on it. Very often I have got a simile just ready to come out, and I
have thought, “Ah, that is one of your laughable similes, take that back.” I am
obliged to change it for something else. If I did that a little oftener perhaps
it would be better, but I cannot do it. I have sometimes a whole host of them
under my tongue, and I am obliged to keep them back. “Honey and milk are under
thy tongue.” That is not the only meaning. The Christian is to have words ready
to come out by and by. Yon know the hypocrite has words upon his tongue. We
speak about solemn sounds upon a thoughtless tongue; but the Christian has his
words first under the tongue. There they lie. They come from his heart; they do
not come from the top of his tongue,--they are not superficial surface-work,
but they come from under the tongue--down deep,--things that he feels, and
matters that he knows. Nor is this the only meaning. The things that are under
the tongue are thoughts that have never yet been expressed; they do not get to
the top of the tongue, but lie there half formed and are ready to come out; but
either because they cannot come out, or we have not time to let them out, there
they remain, and never come into actual words. Now Jesus Christ thinks very
much even of these; He says, “Honey and milk are under thy tongue”; and
Christian meditation and Christian contemplation are to Christ like honey for
sweetness and like milk for nourishment.
V. And, then, last
of all, “the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.” The odiferous
herbs that grew on the side of Lebanon delighted the traveller, and, perhaps,
here is an allusion to the peculirly sweet smell of the cedar wood. Now, the
garments of a Christian are twofold--the garment of imputed righteousness, and
the garment of inwrought sanctification. I think the allusion here is to the
second. The garments of a Christian are his every-day actions--the things that
he wears upon him wherever he goes. Now these smell very sweet to the Lord
Jesus. What should you think if Jesus should meet you at the close of the day,
and say to you, “I am pleased with the works of to-day? I know you would reply,
“Lord, I have done nothing for Thee.” You would say like those at the last day,
“Lord, when saw we Thee hungry and fed Thee? when saw we Thee thirsty and gave
Thee drink?” You would begin to deny that you had done any good thing. He would
say, “Ah, when thou wast under the fig tree I saw thee; when thou wast at thy
bedside in prayer I heard thee; I saw thee when the tempter came, and thou
saidst, ‘Get thee hence, Satan’; I saw thee give thine alms to one of My poor
sick children; I heard thee speak a good word to the little child and teach him
the name of Jesus; I heard the groan when swearing polluted thine ears: I heard
thy sigh when thou sawest the iniquity of this great city; I saw thee when
thine hands were busy; I saw that thou wast not an eye-servant or a
man-pleaser, but that in singleness of purpose thou didst serve God in doing
thy daily business; I saw thee, when the day was ended, give thyself to God
again; I have marked thee mourning over the sins thou hast committed, and I
tell thee I am pleased with thee.” “The smell of thy garments is like the smell
of Lebanon.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Verse 12
A garden inclosed is My sister, My spouse; a spring shut up, a
fountain sealed.
The Lord’s own view of His Church and people
I. The nearness of
kin of the Church to Christ, and Christ to the Church. He calls her in the
text, “My sister, My spouse.” As if He could not express His near and dear
relationship to her by any one term, He employs the two. “My sister”--that is,
one by birth, partaker of the same nature. “My spouse”--that is, one in love,
joined by sacred ties of affection that never can be snapped. “My sister” by
birth, “My spouse” by choice. “My sister” in communion, “My spouse” in absolute
union with Myself. Oh, how near akin is Christ to all His people! But first, do
try to realize the person of Christ. Believe that He truly is, and that He
truly is here--as much here and as really here as He was at Jerusalem, when He
sat at the head of the table, and entertained the twelve at the last supper.
Jesus is a real Man, a real Christ--recollect that. Then let this further truth
be equally well realized, that He has so taken upon Himself our human nature
that He may correctly call His Church His sister. He has become so truly man in
His incarnation, that He is not ashamed to call us brethren. He calls us so because
we are so. Change of place has made no change of heart in Him. He in His glory
is the same Jesus as in His humiliation. No man is so fully a man as Jesus
Christ. If you speak of any other man, something or other narrows his manhood.
You think of Milton as of a poet and an Englishman, rather than as a man. You
think of Cromwell rather as of a warrior, than as a man. The second Adam is, par
excellence, man. We may not think of Him as one amongst a vast number who
may be distantly akin to us, as all men are akin to one another by descent; but
the Lord comes near to each individual. He takes each one of His believing
people by the hand, and says, “My brother.” In our text He salutes the whole
Church as “My sister.” He says this with tender emphasis. As we have already
observed, the first term, “sister,” implies kinship of nature; but the second
term, “My spouse,” indicates another kinship, dearer, and, in some respects,
nearer; a kinship undertaken of choice, but, once undertaken, is everlasting.
This kinship amounts to unity, insomuch that the spouse loses her name, loses
her identity, and, to a high degree, is merged in the greater personality to
which she is united. Such is our union to Christ, if indeed we be His, that
nothing can so well set it forth as marriage union. He loves us so much that He
taken us up into Himself by the absorption of love. If you are true believers,
if you have been born again, if you are really looking to Christ alone for
salvation, He has brought you into a condition of the utmost conceivable
nearness with Himself “He has participated in your nature, and He has made you
a partaker of His nature, and in so many words He says, I will betroth thee
unto Me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and in
judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto
Me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the Lord.”
II. The security of
the people of God in consequence of being what they are. “A garden inclosed is
My sister, My spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.” We are not only
like a garden, but a garden “inclosed.” If the garden were not inclosed, the
wild boar out of the wood would bark the vines, and uproot the flowers; but
infinite mercy has made the Church of God an inclosure, into which no invader
may dare to come. “For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round
about, and will be the glory in the midst of her.” Is she a spring? Are her
secret thoughts, and loves, and desires like cool streams of water? Then the
Bridegroom calls her “a spring shut up.” Otherwise, every beast that passed by
might foul her waters, and every stranger might quaff her streams. She is a
spring shut up, a fountain sealed, like some choice cool spring in Solomon’s
private garden around the house of the forest of Lebanon--a fountain which he
reserved for his own drinking, by placing the royal seal upon it, and locking
it up by secret means, known only to himself. The legend hath it that there
were fountains which none knew of but Solomon, and he had so shut them up that,
with his ring he touched a secret spring, a door opened, and living waters
leaped out to fill his jewelled cup. No one knew but Solomon the secret charm
by which he set flowing the pent-up stream, of which no lip drank but his own.
Now, God’s people are as much shut up, and preserved, and kept from danger by
the care of Christ, as the springs in Solomon’s garden were reserved expressly
for himself. Are you really in Christ? If so, who is to pluck you thence? Are
you really trusting Him? How can He fail you? Have you been begotten again into
the Divine family? How can that new life be quenched?
III. The most
striking idea of the text is that of separation: “A garden inclosed is My
sister, My spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.” A garden is a plot of
ground separated from the common waste for a special purpose: such is the
Church. The Church is a separate and distinct thing from the world. Let us,
however, take heed that our separateness from the world is of the same kind as our
Lord’s. We are not to adopt a peculiar dress, or a singular mode of speech, or
shut ourselves out of society. He did not so; but He was a man of the people,
mixing with them for their good. He was seen at a wedding-feast, aiding the
festivities: He even ate bread in a Pharisee’s house, among cautious enemies.
He neither wore phylacteries, nor enlarged the borders of his garments, nor
sought a secluded cell, nor exhibited any eccentricity of manner. He was
separate from sinners only because He was holy and harmless, and they were not.
The Church is to be a garden, walled, taken out of the common, and made a
separate and select plot of ground. She is to be a spring shut up, and a
fountain sealed, no longer open to the fowl of the air, and the beasts of the field.
Saints are to be separate from the rest of men, even as Abraham was when he
said to the sons of Seth, “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you.”
IV. The text bears
even more forcibly another idea, namely, that of reservation. The Church of God
is “a garden inclosed.” What for? Why, that nobody may come into that garden,
to eat the fruit thereof, but the Lord Himself. It is “a spring shut up,” that
no one may drink of the stream but the Lord Jesus. “But,” cries one, “are we
not to seek the good of our fellow-men?” Assuredly we are to do so for Christ’s
sake. “Are we not to seek to help on sanitary, educational, and purifying
processes, and the like? Yes so far as all can be done for His sake We are to
be the Lord’s servants for the blessing of the world, and we may do anything
which He would have done. In such a garden as the text speaks of, every plant
bears flowers for its owner, every tree yields fruit for him. “All for Jesus,”
is to be our motto. No one among us may dare to live unto himself, even in the
refined way in which many are doing it, who even try to win souls that they may
have the credit of being zealous and successful. We may so far degenerate as
even to attempt to glorify Christ that we may have the credit of glorifying
Him. It will not do. We must be truly, thoroughly, really living for Jesus: we
must be a garden inclosed, reserved, shut up for Him. The wall must wholly
inclose the garden, for a gap anywhere will admit an intruder everywhere. If
one part of our being be left under the dominion of sin, it will show its power
everywhere. The spring must be sealed at the very source, that every drop may
be for Jesus throughout the whole of its course. Our first thoughts, desires,
and must wishes be His, and then all our words and deeds. We must be “wholly
reserved for Christ that died, surrendered to the Crucified.” (C. H.
Spurgeon.)
The garden of the soul
Your soul is, or should be, the Beloved’s vineyard, God’s
fruitful field, God’s garden and your own. The history of this garden of
gardens falls into four chapters--
I. The common
ground. That beautiful garden was once a bit of heath or moorland, over which
the beasts ranged. In its natural state it was worthless. About one hundred
years ago the finest garden in the world was the palace-garden of Versailles.
But when the French king chose the spot it was a marshy moor. It cost
twenty-five years of toil and forty millions of money to change it into the
royal garden. And every garden was a waste till the busy hand of cultivation
clothed it with various beauties. And are not greater wonders wrought in the
soul reclaimed front the outfield of the world?
II. The ground
cultivated, or the garden.
1. It must first be inclosed. “A garden inclosed is my spouse,” says
Solomon. Of every Christian soul we may say, as Satan said of Job, “Thou hast
made a hedge about him.”
2. The soil must next be broken up. What hard and rough work is the
digging, the trenching, and the uprooting! But as the confusion in our gardens
in spring does not discourage us, so we should not be discouraged by those
sorrows that belong to the cultivation of the soul.
3. Then without wise sowing all the gardener’s pains would be lost.
Fill mind and memory with the delightful truths of the Bible, and let them sink
deep, that, seed-like, they may swell, and sprout, and bring forth fruits and
flowers of choicest perfume and colour. And you must be ever tending them, for
to let your garden alone is to spoil all.
4. The gardener’s utmost art would be in vain without the sunshine,
the shower, and the quickening breath of spring. That philosopher, famed for
his contentment, was right, who, when asked by a friend to show him the
splendid garden of which he was always boasting, led him into a bare, rocky
space behind his house. “Where is your garden?” the friend asked. “Look up,”
said the philosopher, “heaven is a part of my garden”. Every good gift in the
garden really comes from above; for should God command the clouds to rain no
rain, the earth would soon be as iron. Heaven shields, broods over, and
enriches every fruitful sod. It is a great truth that Paul planteth and Apollos
watereth, but God giveth the increase. Turn, then, your whole being fairly
towards the sunshine of God’s grace, and pray that the garden of your soul may
always be as ready to receive heavenly blessing as is the garden around your
dwelling.
III. The garden
neglected. A neglected garden is one of the completest pictures of desolation
in the world: it is desolation’s throne in the deserted village.
IV. The garden well
kept. Solomon gives a picture of what your soul should be, and Isaiah of what
it should not be. Everything had been done for the Beloved’s vineyard, and in
return He received only wild grapes (Isaiah 5:1-30.). But the garden in the
Song was stocked with all rich and beautiful things. It gave pleasure to every
sense: its fine forms and colours gladdened the eye, its ripe fruits gratified
the palate, its exquisite perfumes gave delight, and its leaves yielded an
additional joy by their agreeable shade. A holy soul is compared to such a
garden. It is the most beautiful thing in the world, a paradise of heaven on
earth. “How can my soul be a fruitful garden of God?” do you ask. The answer
is, by good cultivation; and that is the work of God and man. For “we are
labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry” (1 Corinthians 3:9) All your powers
should be gladly devoted to this God-like work of keeping your own vineyard. I
remember visiting in spring a poor widow residing in a miserable corner of the
city. Her soul was a garden of God. On the window-sill she had some flowers in
jelly-dishes and spoutless teapots--a touching proof of that love of the
country which city life wakens in all but the broken-hearted. I took notice of
the flowers. “Yes,” she said, “I take many a bit lesson from them; if I neglect
them for a day or two, they hang their bit heads and wither. And my soul does
the very same if it is not always watered with the grace of God.” God help you
so to cultivate the garden of your soul as that you shall bring much fruit to
His praise! (James Wells.)
A secret and yet no secret
(with verse 15):--Observe the contrast which the two verses
present to us. There are two works of the Holy Spirit within us. The first is
when He puts into us the living waters; the next is when He enables us to pour
forth streams of the same living waters in our daily life. The Spirit of God
first implants in us the new nature. This is His work--to regenerate us, to put
into us the new principle, the life of God in Christ. Then next, He gives us
power to send forth that life in gracious emanations of holiness of life, of
devoutness of communion with God, of likeness to Christ, of conformity to His
image. The streams are as much of the Holy Spirit as the fountain itself. He
digs the well, and He afterwards with heavenly rain fills the pools. He first
of all makes the stream in the desert to flow from the flinty rock, and
afterwards out of His infinite supplies He feeds the stream and bids it follow
us all our days. Now, we think the first verse, to a great extent, sets forth
the secret and mysterious work of the Holy Spirit in the creation of the new
man in the soul. Into this secret no eye of man can look. The inner life in the
Christian may well be compared to an inclosed garden--to a spring shut up--to a
fountain sealed. But the second verse sets forth the manifest effects of grace,
for no sooner is that life given than it begins to show itself. No sooner is
the mystery of righteousness in the heart, than, like the mystery of iniquity,
it “doth already work.” It cannot lie still; it cannot be idle; it must not
rest; but, as God is ever active, so this God-like principle is active too;
thus you have a picture of the outer life proceeding from the inner. “A
fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.” The
first is what the Christian is before God; the next is what the Christian will
become before men. The first is the blessedness which he receives in himself;
the next is the blessedness which he diffuses to others.
I. With regard to
the first text, you will clearly perceive that in each of the three metaphors
you have very plainly the idea of secrecy. There is a garden. A garden is a
place where trees have been planted by a skilful hand; where they are nurtured
with care, and where fruit is expected by its owner. Such is the Church; such
is each renewed soul. But it is a garden inclosed, and so inclosed that one
cannot see over its walls--so shut out from the world’s wilderness, that the
passer-by must not enter it--so protected from all intrusion that it is a
guarded paradise--as secret as was that inner place, the holy of holies, within
the tabernacle of old. The Church--and mark, when I say the Church, the same is
true of each individual Christian--is set forth next as a spring. “A
spring”--the mother of sweet draughts of refreshing water, reaching down into
some impenetrable caverns, and bubbling up with perennial supplies from the
great deeps. Not a mere cistern, which contains only, but a fresh spring, which
through an inward principle within, begets, continues, overflows. But then, it
is a spring shut up: just as there were springs in the East, over which an
edifice was built, so that none could reach the springs save those who knew the
secret entrance. So is the heart of a believer when it is renewed by grace;
there is a mysterious life within which no human skill can touch. And then, it
is said to be a fountain; but it is a fountain sealed. The outward stones may
be discovered, but the door is sealed, so that no man can get into the hidden
springs; they are altogether hidden, and hidden too by a royal will and decree
of which the seal is the emblem. I say the idea is very much that of secrecy.
Now, such is the inner life of the Christian. It is a secret which no other man
knoweth, nay, which the very man who is the possessor of it cannot tell to his
neighbour. A second thought is written upon the surface of the text. Here you
see not only secrecy, but separation. That also runs through the three figures.
It is a garden, but it is a garden inclosed--altogether shut out from the
surrounding heaths and commons, inclosed with briars and hedged with thorns,
which are impassable by the wild beasts. There is a gate through which the
Great Husbandman Himself can come; but there is also a gate which shuts out all
those who would only rob the keeper of the vineyard of His rightful fruit.
There is separation in the spring also. It is not the common spring, of which
every passer-by may drink; it is one so kept and preserved distinct from men,
that no lip may touch, no eye may even see its secret. It is a something which
the stranger intermeddleth not with; it is a life which the world cannot give
and cannot take away. All through, you see, there is a separateness, a
distinctness. If it be ranged with springs, still it is a spring specially shut
up; if it be put with fountains, still it is a fountain bearing a particular
mark--a king’s royal seal, so that all can perceive that this is not a general
fountain, but a fountain that has a proprietor, and stands specially by itself
alone. So is it with the spiritual life. It is a separate thing. I would not
give a farthing for that man’s spiritual life who can live altogether with
others; if you do not sometimes feel that you must be a garden inclosed, that
you must enter into your closet, and shut-to the door; if you do not feel
seasons when the society of your dearest friend is an impediment, and when the
face of your sweetest relation would but be a cloud between you and Christ, I
cannot understand you. Be ye, O ye children of Christ, as chaste virgins kept
alone for Christ. In the third place, you have in the text the idea of
sacredness. The garden inclosed is walled up that it may be sacred to its
owner; the spring shut up is preserved for the use of some special person; and
the fountain sealed more eminently still bears the mark of being sacred to some
distinguished personage. Now such is the Christian’s heart. It is a spring kept
for Christ. Oh, I would that it were always so. Every Christian should feel
that he is God’s man--that he has God’s stamp on him--and he should be able to
say with Paul, “From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body
the marks of the Lord Jesus.” But I think there is another idea prominent, and
it is that of security--security to the inner life. “A garden inclosed.” “The
wild boar out of the wood shall not break in there, neither shall the little
foxes spoil the vines.” “A fountain shut up.” The bulls of Bashan shall not mud
her streams with their furious feet; neither shall the wild beast of Lebanon
come there to drink. “A fountain sealed.” No putrid streams shall foul her
springs; her water shall be kept clear and living; her fountains shall never be
filled up with stones. Oh, how sure and safe is the inner life of the believer.
Satan does not know where it is, for “our life is hid with Christ.” The
world cannot touch it; it seeks to overthrow it with troubles and trials and
persecutions, but we are covered with the Eternal wings, and are safe from fear
of evil. How can earthly trials reach the spirit? As well might a man try to
strike a soul with a stone, as to destroy a spirit with afflictions. We are one
with Christ, even as Christ is one with the Father; therefore as imperishable
through Christ’s life as Christ Himself. Truly may we rejoice in the fact that
“because He lives we shall live also.” Once more only. I think in looking at
the text you receive the thought of unity. You notice, it is but one garden--“a
garden inclosed.” “A garden.” It is but one spring, and that is shut up; it is
but one fountain. So the inner life of the Christian is but one. If you could
imagine two bodies quickened by the very same mind, what a close connection
would that be! But here are hundreds of bodies, hundreds of souls, quickened by
the self-same Spirit. Brethren, indeed not only ought we to love one another, but
the love of Christ constraineth us, so that we cannot resist the impulse; we do
love each other in Christ Jesus.
II. I shall now try
to open the second text, which presents a decided contrast, because it deals
not so much with the inner life as with the active life which goes abroad into
all the deeds of the Christian in the world, and is the natural outgoing of the
life within. First, notice that in contradistinction to our first thought of
secrecy you have in the text manifestation. “A fountain of gardens.” Everybody
can see a fountain which runs streaming through many gardens, making deserts
fertile. “A well of living waters.” Whatever the traveller does not see, when
he is riding along on a thirsty day, he is sure to see the fountain; if there
be one anywhere he is certain to observe that. “And streams from Lebanon.” So
that any passer-by in the valley, looking up the side of the mountain, will see
by the clusters of trees which skirt the stream where the stream is; or, if it
be a smaller brook, just as sometimes in Cumberland and Westmoreland, on a
rainy day you see the mountain suddenly marked with streaks of silver all adown
its brown sides, where the brooks are rippling, so the Christian becomes like
the streams leaping adown Lebanon s steep sides, clearly perceived even from a
distance, manifest to the most casual observer. Now, brethren, this is what you
and I ought to be. No man ought to court publicity for his virtue, or notoriety
for his zeal; but, at the same time, it is a sin to be always seeking to hide
that which God has bestowed upon us for the good of others. The inner life is
secret--mind that you have this inner mystery; but out of the secret emanates
the manifest; the darkness becomes the mother of light; from the dark mines
comes the blazing coal. Oh! see to it, that from all that is hidden and secret
and mysterious there comes out the plain and the manifest that men may see the holiness, truthfulness
and zeal of God in thy life. But clearly enough, again, we have in the second
text, in opposition to the separation of the first, diffusiveness. The garden
was inclosed before, now it is “a fountain of gardens”; the well was shut up,
now it is a well of living waters; before we had the fountain sealed, now we
have streams dashing adown the sides of Lebanon. So a Christian is to be
separate in his inner life; but in the outer manifestations of that inner life,
he is to mingle for good among his fellow-men. We must let the streams flow
abroad; we must seek to give to others what Christ has given to us. Briefly we
are obliged to speak on each of these points; but notice, thirdly, that in
opposition to the sacredness of the first text we have in the second verse an
unlimited freeness, especially in that last expression--“streams from Lebanon.”
What can be freer
than the brook, which leaps along the mountain-side? There the bird wets its
wings; there the red deer comes to drink; and even that wild beast of Lebanon,
of which we read in the Book of the Kings, comes there, and without let or
hindrance slakes its thirst. What can be finer than the rivulet singing with
liquid notes adown the glen? It belongs to no one; it is free to all. Whosoever
passeth by, be he peer or peasant, may stoop there and refresh himself from the
mountain-stream. So be it with you, Christian. Carry about with you-a piety
which you do not wish to keep for yourself. A light loses none of its own
lustre when others are lit as its flame. We must be hidden springs within, but
let us be sweetly flowing rivulets without, giving drink to every, passer-by.
And notice that, while we had in the other text the idea of security, in
connection with that we have here in this text the idea of approach. The garden
was shut up--that was to keep it. There are no walls here, so that all may come
to it. The streams were shut up before; here it is an open well. The fountain
was sealed in the first verse; here it is a flowing stream, which is to teach
us this--that the way God keeps His people in security is not by shutting out
their enemies from attacking them, but while laying them open to temptation and
attack, He yet sustains them. And last of all, in opposition to the unity of
which I spake, we have in our second text great diversity. You have “a
fountain,” not of a garden, but “of gardens”; you have a well, but it is
a well of living waters; you have not a stream, but streams--streams from
Lebanon. So a Christian is to do good in all sorts of ways, and his fruits are
to be of many kinds; he is to be like the trees of Paradise, which bear twelve
manner of fruits. The Christian is to have all sorts of graces. Oh t if the
fountain, the secret fountain, were better seen to, I think there would be more
of these outward streams; and if the sealed well were better guarded, we should
see more of these rapid streams from Lebanon, which would make glad the people
of God, and the world at large. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ’s Church
I. It is a sacred
inclosure. Inclosed:
1. For protection--against the many foes that would injure it.
2. For enjoyment--Christ has a right to witness its beauties and
enjoy its fruits.
II. The means by
which it is inclosed.
1. By sovereign electing grace--this sweeps round His Church as a
boundary line--grand, comprehensive, invisible.
2. By the ministrations of angels--these are its guardians,,
servants, etc.
3. By restraining, grace--this is needed by every plant in this
garden and every member in Christ’s Church.
4. By Christian ordinances-baptism, the seal of separation.
5. By Christian doctrine--no man can be a Christian without believing
some fundamental doctrines. (J. F. Elder, D. D.)
Verse 13-14
Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits;
camphire, with spikenard, spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all
trees Of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices.
Fragrance
Of all man’s sources of enjoyment, none display more clearly the
bountifulness of God than the fragrant odours of nature. Fragrance seems so
wholly superfluous and accidental, that we cannot but infer that it was
imparted to the objects which possess it, not for their own sakes, but for our
gratification. We regard it as a peculiar blessing, sent to us directly from
the hand of our Heavenly Father; and we are the more confirmed in this idea by
the fact that the human period is the principal epoch of fragrant plants.
Geologists inform us that all the eras of the earth’s history previous to the
Upper Miocene were destitute of perfumes. Forests of club-mosses and ferns hid
in their sombre bosom no bright-eyed floweret, and shed from their verdant
boughs no scented richness on the passing breeze. Palms and cycads, though
ushering in the dawn of a brighter floral day, produced no perfume-breathing
blossoms. It is only when we come to the periods immediately antecedent to the
human that we meet with an odoriferous flora. God placed man in a sweet-scented
garden as his home. No sense is more closely connected with the sphere of soul
than the sense of smell. Its agency is most subtle and extensive--going down to
the very depths of our nature, and back to the earliest dawn of life Memory
especially is keenly susceptible to its Influence. The acceptance of man’s
offerings by God is usually represented in the anthropomorphism of the Bible,
as finding its expression in the sense of smell. When Noah offered the first
sacrifice after the flood, “the Lord,” we are told, “smelled a sweet savour.”
The drink-offerings and the various burnt-offerings prescribed by Levitical law
were regarded as a sweet savour unto the Lord. Christ, the antitype of these
institutions, is spoken of as having given Himself for us an offering and a
sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour. And the Apostle Paul, employing
the same typical language, speaks of himself and the other apostles as “unto
God a sweet savour of Christ,” etc. The Psalms and the prophetic writings
are full of the most beautiful and expressive metaphors, applied to the most
solemn persons and things, borrowed from perfumes; while the whole of the Song
of Solomon is like aa oriental garden stocked with delicious flowers, as
grateful to the sense of smell as to the sense of sight. In the gorgeous
ceremonial worship of the Hebrews, none of the senses were excluded from taking
part in the service. The eye was appealed to by the rich vestments and the
splendid furniture of the holy place; the ear was exercised by the solemn sound
of the trumpet, and the voice of praise and prayer; and the nostril was gratified
by the clouds of fragrant smoke that rose from the golden altar of incense and
filled all the place. Doubtless the Jews felt, when they saw the soft white
clouds of fragrant smoke rising slowly from the altar of incense, as if the
voice of the priest were silently but eloquently pleading in that expressive
emblem in their behalf. The association of sound was lost in that of smell, and
the two senses were blended in one. And this symbolical mode of supplication,
as Dr. George Wilson has remarked, had this one advantage over spoken or
written prayer, that it appealed to those who were both blind and deaf, a class
that are usually shut out from social worship by their affliction. Those who
could not hear the prayers of the priest could join in devotional exercises
symbolized by incense, through the medium of their sense of smell; and the
hallowed impressions shut out by one avenue were admitted to the mind and heart
by another. But not in the incense of prayer alone were perfumes employed in
the Old Testament economy. The oil with which the altars and the sacred
furniture of the tabernacle and temple were anointed--with which priests were
consecrated for their holy service, and kings set apart for their lofty
dignity--was richly perfumed. One of the sweetest names of Jesus is the Christ,
the Anointed One, because He was anointed with the fragrant oil of consecration
for His great work of obedience and atonement. As our King and Great High
Priest, He received the outward symbolical chrism, when the wise men of the
East laid at His feet their gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense in token of
His royal authority, and Mary and Nicodemus anointed Him with precious
spikenard and costly spices for His priestly work of sacrifice. His name is as
ointment poured forth; and He is a bundle of myrrh to the heart that loves Him.
The ingredients of the Hebrew perfumes were principally obtained in traffic
from the Phoenicians. A few of them were products of native plants, but the
great majority of them came from Arabia, India and the spice islands of the
Indian Archipelago. So great was the skill required in the mixing of these
ingredients, in order to form their most valued perfumes, that the art was a
recognized profession among the Jews; and the rokechim, translated
“apothecary” in our version, was not a seller of medicines as with us, but
simply a maker of perfumes. Perfumes were at one time extensively employed as remedial agents,
particularly in cases of nervous disease. They are still used freely in the
sick-room, but more for the purpose of refreshment and overpowering the noxious
odours of disease than as medicines. How important they are in the economy of
nature we learn from the fact that when the Dutch cut down the spice trees of
Ternate, that island was immediately visited with epidemics before unknown; and
it has been ascertained that none of the persons employed in the perfume
manufactories of London and Paris were attacked by cholera during the last
visitation. From the recent experimental researches of Professor Mantegazza, we
learn the important fact that the essences of flowers such as lavender, mint,
thyme, bergamot, in contact with atmospheric oxygen in sunlight, develop a very
large quantity of ozone, the purifying and health-inspiring element in the air.
And as a corollary from this fact, he recommends the inhabitants of marshy
districts, and of places infected with animal exhalations, to surround their
houses with beds of the most odorous flowers, as the powerful oxidizing
influence of the ozone may destroy those noxious influences. Many of the most
delicious perfumes, however, are
dangerous in large quantities. Taken in moderation they act as
stimulants, exhilarating the mental functions, and increasing bodily vigour.
But in larger and more concentrated doses they act as poisons. If we pursue
them as pleasures for their own sake, they will soon pall upon us, however
delicious; and if we concentrate them so as to produce a stronger sensation,
they become actually repulsive and sickening. God has given them to us to cheer
us in the path of duty, not to minister to our love of pleasure and
self-indulgence; and in this respect the laws of the unwritten revelation of
nature give their sanction to the laws of the written revelation of the Bible,
indicating a common source and pointing to a common issue. (H. Macmillan, D.
D.)
Verse 15
A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from
Lebanon.
The Church a garden
Again and again the Church is represented as a garden, all up and
down the Word of God, and it is a figure specially suggestive at this season of
the year, when the parks and the orchards have put forth their blossom and the
air is filled with bird-voices.
1. It is a garden because of the rare plants in it. Sometimes you
will find the violet, inconspicuous, but sweet as heaven--Christian souls, with
no pretence, but of much usefulness, comparatively unknown on earth, but to be
glorious in celestial spheres. In this garden of the Lord I find the Mexican
cactus, loveliness within, thorns without, men with great sharpness of
behaviour and manner, but within them the peace of God, the love of God, the
grace of God. They are hard men to handle, ugly men to touch, very apt to
strike back when you strike them, yet within them all loveliness and
attraction, while outside so completely unfortunate. But I remember in boyhood
that we had in our father’s garden what we called the Giant of Battle--a
peculiar rose, very red and very fiery. Suggestive flower, it was called the
Giant of Battle. And so in the garden of the Lord we find that kind of
flower--the Pauls and Martin Luthers, the Wycliffes, the John Knoxcs--Giants of
Battle. What in other men is a spark, in them is a conflagration; when they
pray, their prayers take fire. When they suffer, they sweat great drops of
blood; when they preach, it is a pentecost; when they fight, it is a
Thermopylae; when they die, it is martyrdom--Giants of Battle. But I find also
in the Church of God a plant that I shall call the snowdrop. Very beautiful but
cold; it is very pure, pure as the snowdrop, beautiful as the snowdrop, and
cold as the snowdrop. I would rather have one Giant of Battle than 5000
snowdrops. You have seen in some places, perhaps, a century-plant. You look at
it and say, “This flower has been gathering up its beauty for a whole
century, and it will not bloom again for another hundred years.” Well, I have
to tell you that in this garden of the Church, spoken of in my text, there is a
century-plant. It has gathered up its bloom from all the ages of eternity, and
nineteen centuries ago it put forth its glory. It is not only a century-plant
but a passion-flower--the passion-flower of Christ; a crimson flower, blood at
the root, and blood on the leaves, the passion-flower of Jesus, the
century-plant of eternity. Come, O winds from the north, and winds from the
south, and winds from the east, and winds from the west, and scatter the
perfume of this flower through all nations. Thou, the Christ of all the ages,
hast garments smelling of myrrh and aloes and cassia, out of the ivory palaces.
2. The Church of Christ is appropriately compared to a garden because
of its thorough irrigation. There can be no luxuriant garden without plenty of
water. I saw a garden in the midst of the desert, amid the Rocky Mountains. I
said, How is it possible you have so many flowers, so much rich fruit, in a
desert for miles around? I suppose some of you have seen those gardens. Well,
they told me they had aqueducts and pipes reaching up to the hills, and the
snows melted on the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, and then poured down
in water to those aqueducts, and it kept the fields in great luxuriance. And I
thought to myself--how like the garden of Christ! All around it the barrenness
of sin and the barrenness of the world, but our eyes are unto the hills, from
whence cometh our help. There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad
the city of our God, the fountain of gardens and streams from Lebanon. Water to
slake the thirst, water to refresh the fainting, water to wash the unclean,
water to toss up in fountains under the sun of righteousness, until you can see
the rainbow around the throne. I wandered in a royal garden of choicest plants,
and I saw the luxuriance of those gardens were helped by the abundant supply of
water. I came to it on a day when strangers were not admitted, but, by a
strange coincidence, at the moment I got in the king’s chariot passed, and the
gardener went up on the hill and turned on the water, and it came flashing down
the broad stairs of stone until sunlight and wave in gleesome wrestle tumbled
at my feet. And so it is with this garden of Christ. Everything comes from
above--pardon from above, peace from above, comfort from above, sanctification
from above. Streams from Lebanon--oh! the consolation in this thought. How many
have tried all the fountains of this world’s pleasure, but never tasted of the
stream from Lebanon! How many have revelled in other gardens, to their soul’s
ruin, but never plucked one flower from the garden of our God! I swing open all
the gates of the garden and invite you in, whatever your history, whatever your
sins, whatever your temptations, whatever your trouble. The invitation comes no
more to one than to all: “Whosoever will, let him come.” ( T. De Witt
Talmage.)
Verse 16
Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden,
that the spices thereof may flow out.
Grace for communion
The loved one in the text desired the company of her Lord, and
felt that an inactive condition was not altogether suitable for His coming. Her
prayer is first about her garden, that it may be made ready for her Beloved;
and then to the Bridegroom Himself, that He would come into His garden, and eat
its pleasant fruits. She pleads for the breath of heaven, and for the Lord of
heaven.
I. First she cries
for the breath of heaven to break the dead calm which broods over her heart. In
this prayer there is an evident sense of inward sleep. She does not mean that
the north wind is asleep: it is her poetical way of confessing that she herself
needs to be awakened. She has a sense of absentmindedness, too, for she cries,
“Come, thou south.” If the south wind would come, the forgetful perfumes would
come to themselves, and sweeten all the air. The fault, whatever it is, cannot
lie in the winds; it lies in ourselves. Notice that the spouse does not mind
what form the Divine visitation takes so long as she feels its power. “Awake, O
north wind;” though the blast be cold and cutting, it may be that it will
effectually fetch forth the perfume of the soul in the form of repentance and
self-humiliation. The rough north wind has done much for some of us in the way
of arousing our best graces. Yet it may be that the Lord will send something
more tender and cheering; and if so, we would cry, “Come, thou south.” Divine
love warming the heart has a wonderful power to develop the best part of a
man’s nature. Many of our precious things are brought forth by the sun of holy
joy. Either movement of the Spirit will sufficiently bestir our inner life; but
the spouse desires both. Although in nature you cannot have the north wind and
the south blowing at the same time; yet in grace you can. The prayer is “blow,”
and the result is “flow.” Lord, if thou blowest, my heart floweth out to Thee!
“Draw me, we will run after Thee.”
II. The second half
of the prayer expresses our central desire: we long for the Lord of Heaven to
visit us. The bride does not seek that the spices of her garden may become
perceptible for her own enjoyment, nor for the delectation of strangers, nor
even for the pleasure of the daughters of Jerusalem, but for her Beloved’s
sake. He is to come into His garden, and eat His pleasant fruits. Note well the
address of the spouse to her Beloved in the words before us. She calls Him
hers--“my Beloved.” When we are sure that He is ours we desire Him to come to
us as ours, and to reveal Himself as ours. While He is hers she owns that she
is wholly His, and all that she has belongs to Him. In the first clause she
says, “Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden”; but now
she prays, “Let my Beloved come into His garden.” She had spoken just before of
her fruits, but now they are His fruits. She was not wrong when she first
spoke; but she is more accurate now. We are not our own. We do not bring forth
fruit of ourselves. The Lord saith, “From Me is thy fruit found.” The
garden is of our Lord’s purchasing, enclosing, planting, and watering; and all
its fruit belongs to Him. This is a powerful reason for His visiting us. Should
not a man come into his own garden, and eat his own fruits? Oh, that the Holy
Spirit may put us into a fit condition to entertain our Lord! The spouse
further cries, “Let Him eat His pleasant fruits.” I have often felt myself
overcome with the bare idea that anything I have ever done should give my Lord
pleasure. Can He perceive any perfume in my spices, or taste any flavour in nay
fruits? This is a joy worth worlds. It is one of the highest tokens of His
condescension. O Lord Jesus, come into our hearts now! O Holy Spirit, blow upon
our hearts at this moment! Let faith, and love, and hope, and joy, and
patience, and every grace be now like violets which betray themselves by their
perfume, or like roses which load the air with their fragrance! (C. H.
Spurgeon.)
The Church’s prayer
Let us consider the prayer of those who are planted in this
garden, and who are represented in the text, as imploring the Holy Spirit to
descend upon them.
I. In his
convincing and humbling power, as the piercing north wind. As the cold north
wind prepares the soil, and fits it for vegetation, so are the sharper
operations of the Spirit needful for the believer, when, as too often happens,
he is under a decay in grace; when the things that are in him are ready to die.
When He thus comes, He uses various means of awakening.
1. His grand instrument is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the
Word of God,” “sharper than any two-edged sword,” etc. When a believer grows
cold and careless in his walk, God directs to him some text, some threatening,
or warning, or promise.
2. He often comes with awakening power in the shape of afflictions.
II. In his
comforting and enlivening power, as the gentle south wind. When He has pierced
the backsliding heart with sorrow for sin. He binds up the wound; shines upon
the heart, like the cheering sun; and breathes, like the mild and gentle south.
(E. Blencowe, M. A.)
The graces of the Holy Spirit implored
“The wind bloweth where it listeth.” The Spirit of God is
an unshackled agent, acting freely in the first application of grace to the
sinner’s soul, and in all its future operations.
1. Pray that your faith in Christ Jesus may be greatly strengthened.
If faith be the element of a Divine life, will not that life, in its exercise
and development, be more vigorous, according as God shall give us a stronger
and a larger measure of faith?
2. Again, a believer will plead with Christ, that the Spirit may give
him a more lively hope.
3. And should not a believer say, “Awake, O north wind, and come,
thou south”--let my love abound? But is not this love? Doth the love of Christ,
producing a corresponding affection within us, constrain us as it ought?
4. And is it not fitting that a child of God should say, Let my
humility be deepened? It is the great business of the Gospel to hinder the poor
guilty worm of the earth from saying, “I am rich, and increased in goods, and
have need of nothing.”
5. Should not, moreover, a believer pray, “Come, thou south wind,
breathe upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out,” that my joy may
be increased? (R. P. Buddicom, M. A.)
North and south winds
There is a law of classification and contrasts in all life. Things
are paired off. They present themselves in sets or classes. We have stars in
galaxies, and the rolling worlds arranged into systems. Vegetable and animal
life be known by their genus and species. The principle of order characterizes
the conditions of man in the complexity of his nature and the diversity of his
life. Our main purpose is to trace the Divine plan of working in the developing
and perfecting of God’s image in a human soul. In the text we are taught that
it is by contrary and conflicting forces that perfection of character is
attained.
I. The text is
true of natural life. “North and south” are the two extremes of this sphere.
Between these two extremes exist all the fluctuating variations of the earth’s
condition. The day’s weather depends very largely upon the point from which the
wind will blow. We divine the meteorological conditions of the day by the
prophecy of the morning. North winds bring cold, hail and snow; south winds are
balmy and warm. These facts find their analogue in our higher experiences. What
contrasts there are in the conditions of our everyday life! This is true
socially. When all things are going smoothly in the home, when health and
plenty abound--when children are dutiful and diligent, parents revel in the
gentle breezes as they waft down from the southern sky. But, alas! the wind
sometimes veers round to the opposite point with a surprising suddenness, and
the chilly blasts beat upon us with pitiless fury and pierce our spirits to the
quick. How true is the text to business life. Prosperity is verily a congenial
south wind. We all aim at and desire success. But the winds of commercial
enterprises do not always blow from the south; and for aught we know to the
contrary, there may be more perfect developments of character under the latter
than by the agency of the former. The two winds are useful and necessary. The
south for the comfort and nourishing of young elements and principles in their
more incipient stages, and the north wind for giving setness and endurance to
these essential qualities.
II. The text is
also true of spiritual life. The life of the soul is promoted by principles
similar to those which rule in our physical nature. There are opposing elements
even in our food. Some are alimentary, building up the body, repairing waste
tissue; while others are poisonous, rendering innocuous, or eliminating
elements that are deleterious, and that would, if permitted to operate
unchecked, kill the body. The value of foods depends upon their adaptation to
the peculiar and varying states and requirements of the physical system. In the
childhood of our divine life we need the tender and sympathetic. Either through
sin or neglect of duty, or strange providences, or the wearing power of temptation
and persecution, or the ordinary and inevitable friction of life, we become
attenuated in our spiritual proportions and correspondingly feeble. The “north
wind” is too strong for us, and so we need the southern breezes to soothe back
into strength the weakened energies of the soul. But then spiritual athletes
are not braced into might by south winds only. We need to cry, “Awake, O north
wind.” Too many of the avowed followers of Him “who was rich yet for our sakes
became poor,” “who pleased not Himself,” who “had not where to lay His
head,” are resting in the warmth of the southern sphere, thus taking no part in
the great activities of the Christian Church. If all were as they are what
would be the future of Christianity, aye, and of the world, too? It is a good
thing to get out into the refreshing breezes which come even from the northern
regions. Many a Christian will have to thank God for pain and trial and losses.
As the north and south winds are essential, we do well to keep ourselves in the
line of both. True greatness is attained by a combination of opposite
qualities. It is the strong man tender, the great man lowly, the rich man
humble, the wise man with condescending simplicity we most admire. Do not
arraign the Divine government if north winds blow, but keep well in mind the
great fact that He is designing and evolving your good in all things so that
you may attain the stature of a perfect man; and in the last day you shall be
presented perfect, wanting nothing. (M. Brokenshire.)
Let my Beloved come into
His garden, and eat His pleasant fruits.
“My garden”-“His garden”
What a difference there is between what the believer was by nature
and what the grace of God has made him! Naturally we were like the waste
howling wilderness, like the desert which yields no healthy plant or verdure.
But now, as many of us as have known the Lord are transformed into gardens; our wilderness is
mane like Eden, our desert is changed into the garden of the Lord. In a garden
there are flowers and fruits, and in every Christian’s heart you will find the
same evidences of culture and care; not in all alike, for even gardens and
fields vary in productiveness. Still, there are the fruits and there are the
flowers, in a measure; there is a good beginning made wherever the grace of God
has undertaken the culture of our nature.
I. Now coming to
our text, and thinking of Christians as the Lord’s garden, I want you to
observe, first, that there are sweet spices in believers. For instance, there
is faith; is there anything out of heaven sweeter than faith--the faith which
trusts and clings, which believes and hopes, and declares that, though God
shall slay it, yet will it trust in Him? Then comes love; and again I must ask,
Is there to be found anywhere a sweeter spice than this--the love which loves
God because He first loved as, the love which flows out to all the brotherhood,
the love which knows no circle within which it can be bounded, but which loves
the whole race of mankind, and seeks to do them good? And there is also hope,
which is indeed an excellent grace, a far-seeing grace by which we behold
heaven and eternal bliss. You do not need that I should go over all the list of
Christian graces, and mention meekness, brotherly kindness, courage,
uprightness or the patience which endures so much from the hand of God: but
whatsoever grace I might mention, it would not be difficult at once to convince
you that there is a sweetness and a perfume about all grace in the esteem of
Him who created it, and it delights Him that it should flourish where Once its
opposite alone was found growing in the heart of man. These, then, are some of
the saints’ sweet spices. Next notice that these sweet spices are delightful to
God. He has joy over one sinner that repenteth, though repentance is but an
initial grace and when we go on from that to other graces, and take yet higher
steps in the Divine life, we may be sure that His joy is in us, and therefore
our joy may well be full. These spices of ours are not only delightful to God,
but they are healthful to man. A man of faith and love in a Church sweetens all
his brethren. Give us but a few such in our midst, and there shall be no broken
spiritual unity, there shall be no coldness and spiritual death; but all shall
go well where these men of God are among us as a mighty influence for good.
And, as to the ungodly around us, the continued existence in the earth of the
Church of Christ is the hope of the world. It sometimes happens that these
sweet odours within God’s people lie quiet and still. You cannot stir your own
graces, you cannot make them move, you cannot cause their fragrance to flow
forth. At such times, a Christian is very apt to ask, “Am I indeed planted in
God’s garden? Am I really a child of God?” Now, I will say what some of you may
think a strong thing; but I do not believe that he is a child of God who never
raised that question.
II. What is wanted
is that those sweet odours should be diffused. Observe, first, that until our
graces are diffused, it is the same as if they were not there. We may not know
that we have any faith till there comes a trial, and then our faith starts
boldly up. We can hardly know how much we love our Lord till there comes a test
of our love, and then we so behave ourselves that we know that we do love Him.
Notice next, that it is very painful to a Christian to be in such a condition
that his graces are not Stirring. He cannot endure it. We who love the Lord
were not born again to waste our time in sinful slumber; our watchword is, “Let
us not sleep, as do others.” “Quicken Thou me, O Lord, according to Thy
word”--whichever word Thou shalt choose to apply, only do quicken Thy servant,
and let not the graces within me be as if they were dead! Remember, however,
that the best quickener is always the Holy Spirit; and that blessed Spirit can
come as the north wind, convincing us of sin, and tearing away every rag of our
self-confidence, or He may come as the soft south wind, all full of love,
revealing Christ, and the covenant of grace, and all the blessings treasured
for us therein. You see, also, from this text, that when a child of God sees
that his graces are not diffused abroad, then is the time that he should take
to prayer. Let no one of us ever think of saying, “I do not feel as if I could
pray, and therefore I will not pray.” On the contrary, then is the time when
you ought to pray more earnestly than ever. Say, “O my Father, I cannot endure
this miserable existence! Thou hast made me to be a flower, to shed abroad my
perfume, yet I am not doing it. Oh, by some means, stir my flagging spirit,
till I shall be full of earnest industry, full of holy anxiety to promote Thy
glory, O my Lord and Master!’
III. “Let my Beloved
come into His garden, and eat His pleasant fruits.” These words speak of the
company of Christ and the acceptance of our fruit by Christ. I want you
specially to notice one expression which is used here. While the spouse was, as
it were, shut up and frozen, and the spices of the Lord’s garden were not
flowing out, she cried to the winds, “Blow upon my garden.” She hardly dared to
call it her Lord’s garden; but now, notice the alteration in the phraseology:
“Let my Beloved come into His garden, and eat His pleasant fruits.” The wind
has blown through the garden, and made the sweet odours to flow forth; now it
is no longer “my garden,” but “His garden.” It is wonderful how an increase of
grace transfers our properties; while we have but little grace, we cry, “my,”
but when we get great grace, we cry, “His.” He planted every flower, and gave
to each its fragrance; let Him come into His garden, and see what wonders His
grace has wrought. Do you not feel, beloved, that the one thing you want to
stir your whole soul is that Christ shall come into it? The best condition a
heart can be in, if it has lost fellowship with Christ, is to resolve that it
will give God no rest till it gets back to communion with Him, and to give
itself no rest till once more it finds the Well-beloved. Next observe that,
when the Beloved comes into His garden, the heart’s humble but earnest entreaty
is, “Let Him eat His pleasant fruits.” “The greatest joy” of a Christian is to
give joy to Christ; I do not know whether heaven itself can overmatch this
pearl of giving joy to the heart of Jesus Christ on earth. It can match it, but
not overmatch it, for it is a superlative joy to give joy to Him--the Man of
sorrows, who was emptied of joy for our sakes, and who now is filled up again
with joy as each one shall come and bring his share, and cause to the heart of
Christ a new and fresh delight. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》