The Garden Inclosed

‘A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse, A spring shut up, a fountain sealed. A paradise of pomegranates are thy productions, Of delicious fruits, cypress, and spikenard. Spikenard, and saffron, calamus, and cinnamon, With all trees of frankincense, Myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices: A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, Streams from Lebanon. Awake, O North wind, come, thou South, Blow upon my garden, that the spices may flow out; That my beloved may come into his garden And eat its pleasant fruits.”

Christ has a garden. There are flowers to be found in the wilderness; but when in the hedge-row or on the mountain-side you find a plant of rare beauty, it is yojir instant impulse to fetch it home. You want to have it near at hand, where you can see it every day; and

30 you transplant it. You take it to your garden, and in the shady nook or on the open parterre, you give it a new home, — the place where it is likely to thrive and blossom best.

And so, there have occasionally existed solitary saints. Like Joseph in Egypt, like Lot in Sodom, there have from time to time iloiirished in unlikely places trees of righteousness: — such as Thomas a Kempis inditing his “Imitation of Christ” in the midst of coarse and lazy friars, — or that monk of Mount Ararat whom Henry Martyn found walking with God amidst the superstition and grossness of an Armenian convent. And just as the florist is filled with rapture when in some unexpected region he alights on a specimen superb in its glory, and for the moment deems it quite matchless, — so, when in the dry places of Church History or in the dreary expanse of secular society, we chance to encounter a fervent b::licYer, in the gladness of surprise and in the contrast with all around we feel as if his beauty were peerless, and as if no culture could compete with the freshness and fulness of his free and Heaven-fostered development.

But it is the will of Christ that his people should dwell together; and for this purpose he has provided that sacred inclosure, the Christian Church. Fenced round, so as to exclude the boar of the forest and the mischievous spoiler, — its generous soil is kept clear of weeds, and in graceful groups and mutually-sustaining adjustments God plants His people there in families. And if even among thorns the lily was fair, — if even on the open heath the thyme and the myrtle shed exquisite odour, — that lily is lovelier now as it stands amongst gentle companions “who do not tarnish or tear it, and the fragrance of these gentle refugees is richer as it comes and goes amidst the blended joy of all the incensebreathing summer.

This garden is fenced. It is a “garden inclosed.” Around it is the wall of fire, the Divine protection; and the more visible wall of human demarcation and ecclesiastical discipline. In every age God has protected and preserved His people; and even in the days of fiercest persecution — when it looked as if the hedge were entirely broken down and the wild beast might devour it at his pleasure, — even then in some Roman catacomb or

Coclosyiaii valley or Waldensian fastness, God hid His remnant and kept up a seed to serve Him. And for the better conservation of true religion, He has appointed a government in His Church. He has intrusted it to those whose business is to tend it and keep it; and whilst they do their best to root out immorality and error, they are also to do their utmost to foster weak faith and restore infirmity, — binding up the bruised reed, restraining the extravagant off-shoot, and restoring to its right place the wayward shoot which quits the supporting espalier.

In this garden there is great variety. There are plants famous for their beauty, and others for their medicinal virtues; some that are prized for their delightful perfume, and others for their “pleasant fruits.” Not only is it an orchard of pomegranates, with its avenues of cypress, but there are spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, trees of frankincense, and all the chief spices. It is man that creates monotony. It is man that fills a garden with a repetition of the self-same vegetation. It is man that clothes entire communities in grey, or drab, or russet, and

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who tries to rcacli perfection by making cacli the facsimile of his fellow. But, like the great Creator, the new-creating Spirit loves variety; and in the Church of Christ there is room for characters as diverse as the rustic Amos and the imperial Solomon, as Moses so meek and much-enduring, and Paul so self-asserting and so spirited, as John so ethereal and contcmylative, and James so homely and so practical. And just as we see in a garden a whole plat devoted to a favourite flower, a border where none but carnations or verbenas bloom, so within the great inclosure of Christ’s own Church, arc many distinct communities, — “churches,” as we call them, but in reality only so many clumps or denominations within the one great Church; and to the eye which is not entirely wedded to a particular tint or pattern, there is a beauty in the groups which bring richly together distinctive attributes; — in Presbyterian order and Wesleyan fervour, in Con — grcgational liberty and Anglican obedience, in Moravian devotcdness and Quaker contcntnieiit, in the godliness which makes the Lutheran so happy and endearing in the life that

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now is, and wlilcli fixes the Calvinist so sublimely on the life that is to come. And as with communities, so with individual members; there is boundless and beautiful variety. There are flowers so fair that whilst you eye them, you kindle up and become for the moment a brighter, sunnier man; and between the leaves of your Bible or memorandum-book you treasure up one blossom of the heath or the heart’s-ease to recall that vision of delight. And there are flowers so fragrant that though you care not to take their picture, — like the myrrh or the spikenard they have no peculiar grace nor any brilliancy of bloom, — you love the spot they haunt, and as you pass there comes over your spirit a visitation soft and soothing, which you scarcely notice for the moment, but which makes you bless their memory. And so there are lovely characters, — Christians whom it does you good to look upon; whose beauty of holiness beautifies the be-, holder, so that in their presence he is actually a more generous or unworldly man; and quotable Christians, — men whose good deeds or edifying words you can chronicle, so that long after they are gone you can still open the biographic record and recall in unfaded freshness the trait of goodness or the word in season. And there are fragrant characters. You can scarcely define their excellence; you cannot quote their brilliant sayings, and their deeds do not make anecdotes: and yet such a sweet savour of Christ surrounds them, and with such an atmosphere of love and goodness do they fill their daily sphere, that the nooks to which memory loves to fly back and nestle are the bowers which they gladdened, and the homes which they blessed by the perpetual June of their presence. But besides the beautiful and the fragrant, — the characters which shed over the Church’s face its loveliness and which fill its precincts with a heavenly charm, there are the fruitful, — “the pomegranates and pleasant fruits,” — the men to whose substantial services, to whose thoughtful kindnesses, and generous deeds, and systematic labours, the world is so much indebted: — Gains mine host, Tryphena and Tryphosa who labour in the Lord, — the evangelists who go everywhere preaching the word, — the teachers who spend and are spent in our week-day and Sunday schools, — the Dorcas who makes garments for tiic poor, — the landed proprietor or the private citizen, who visits from house to house, and who endeavours to elevate in intelligence and moral worth the poor and depressed around him. And although less popular, by no means unimportant, are the bitter herbs, the antidotes and tonics, which also find a place: for there is need for myrrh and aloes as well as roses and lilies. We may not like the sharp reprover, the stern and uncompromising reformer, so well as the mild and bright-beaming philanthropist; and yet that reprover may be the truest benefactor; and there would be little scope for the philanthropist, if he had not as his pioneer the energetic reformer. It is sad ignorance of the requirements of human nature to disparage men who fulfilled so great a function as Latimer and Knox, as Cartwright and IMelville, as Clarkson and the Haldanes: — men who in their loyalty to Truth forfeited much present popularity, and who kept up the Church’s tone by the comforts they renounced and the sacrifices they endured in striving against error and sin.

These plants so various and so pleasant owe their vitality and vigour to the “founm2 tain of gardens:” — and this fountain is called both “a well of living waters” and “streams from Lebanon.” Even in our own isle, with all its clouds and vapours, there is sometimes danger lest the garden be burnt up; and when the leaves hang flaccid on the newlyplanted shrub, and when delicate blossoms shrivel up, refusing to open to the scorching beam; as soon as the sun has set, you go to the brook or the fountain and lave the roots with a plentiful libation: and then when the morrow dawns, the leaves spread out so broad and firm, and the reviving blossoms look up and thank you with a smile. But in sultrier lands they do not even trust to this. In the gardens of Damascus you may see so many channels digged, and along them all a little rill meandering, and conveying to the foo of each pomegranate or orange-tree the streams from Lebanon, — the very river which has melted from the snowy peaks, and which, after refreshing the tall cedars, now comes down to these sultry plains and converts its dusty expanse into an earthly paradise. These world-famed orchards do not depend on any tank or pond; but they drink “living water,” and convert into cool shadow and delicious fruits the liquid treasure which the friendly mountain has hoarded since last winter.

The fountain of Christ’s garden is the means of grace. A believer droops. In that corner of the garden where he is planted the soil is thin. It is a thirsty land where his lot is cast, — a land where Christian society is rare, or where the preaching of the word is vague and vapid. And the good man feels it. His religion shrivels. The men by whose fervour he was wont to be roused or overawed, he now begins to regard as fanatics; and the good objects in which he was once so hearty, — missions to the heathen and reformatory institutions, — he begins to call Utopian visions and a useless waste of money. But still there is a little root of spiritual vitality, and as there comes into the region an earnest ministry, or as there settles in his neighbourhood a large-hearted and much-loving Christian friend, his feelings begin to freshen. There is a shudder through the depths of his being as when death re-awakens into life; and shocked at his backslidings, — rememboring M^lience he has fallen, he repents and does the first works. And as he begins to distribute tracts and teach a Sunday class, and take an interest in the surrounding cottagers, people would almost fancy that this was the zeal of a young convert; — they would scarcely suppose that it was the revival of an expiring life, — a return to first love on the part of an Ephesian backslider.

It is dry and dusty weather. The life which the Christian is constrained to lead is much of it too secular. His business takes him chiefly among worldly men, and at times he cannot help being exceedingly engrossed. Trade is precarious, the times are pressing, or he has set on foot a series of experiments, he has struck out a good idea, or commenced a line of traffic with which his mind is busy day and night. And he can hardly disguise it that the true treasure is dwindling, his soul is declining. But just then he is laid prostrate by sickness, or death enters hisdwehing; he falls in with some remarkable book, or hears a rousing sermon; and as he reads, and listens, and ponders, he is amazed at his own languor, and yielding to the providential admonition he renews his diligence in practical piety. The things unseen come to his spirit in closer contact, his prayers acquire a new fulness, precision, and sincerity, his watchfulness over himself is resumed, and the brightening up of all his piety betokens a secret source of refreshing.

But better than this dependence on such supplies as are brought from the cistern, is the case of the man who is “planted by the rivers of water,” whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who makes it his habitual meditation. In other words, that piety is likely to be the most persistent and most progressive where the appointed means of grace are statedly employed. The Word of God, the day of rest, the house of prayer, reading, meditation, worship, secret and social, — these are the chief of the ordinary means. These are the channels along which the streams from Lebanon are conveyed to every tree in the garden: — the truths and thoughts which, born in the calm pure regions overhead, flow along down the valley of Revelation, and which when filled and penetrated by the Spirit of God become “living water.” By far the most satisfactory Christians, — the most abiding and most growthful, are those who are most stedfast in the use of these stated means; who ghidly go up to the house of the Lord, who command their household and their children after them to keep His ways, who do not restrain prayer in secret ,Avho are much and mighty in the Scriptures, and who when they meet with those who love the Lord prize the opportunity to speak together and to call upon His name: — not only will their leaf not wither, and not only will what they produce come to perfection, but should it please the Lord to send a season of refreshing they are the likeliest to profit by the plenteous rain.

Such, viewed by the Saviour, is His Church. Such is the combination of beneficence and beauty, of fragrance and fruitfulness, produced by the good Spirit of God, and brought together in the sacred inclosure of the Christian Church. And such is the Saviour’s complacency in viewing the varied excellence of this redeemed and regenerate community.

“My bride! my love! in thee perfection meets: A Karden art thou, filled with matchless sweets;

A garden walled, those matchless sweets to shield; A spring inclosed, a fountain fresh and sealed; A paradise of plants, where all unite. Dear to the smell, the palate, or the sight; Of rich pomegranates, that at random blow; Cypress and nard in fragrant gales that flow; Nard, saflFron, cinnamon, — the dulcet airs Deep through its canes the calamus prepares; The scented aloes, and each shrub that showers Gums from its veins, and spices from its flowers. O pride of gardens I fount of endless sweets! Well-spring of all in Lebanon that meets.’*

Which brings us to the closing prayer. “Awake, O North wind!” Clouds chill the sky. Over the garden, over the soul of the believer, hangs a gloomy pall of indifference, estrangement, or error. He is not loving God. He sees no beauty in Christ why he should desire Him. There is no sun in the firmament, no light from the Saviour’s countenance, no attraction in the cross, nothing to stir or expand his soul. But “clear weather Cometh out of the North country;” and, like the North wind waking, the Holy Spirit breathes, — and not from the face of the sun but from the face of the garden, from the soul of the disciple, he blows away the inter-

* Mason Goode.

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cepting cloud, and lets the Sun of Righteousness shine through; Divine realities are again discerned, the closed petals open, faith revives, and the recognising blossom smiles back to the kindly firmament. There is light, knowledge, truth apprehended, the Gospel anew discovered: — there is “clear weather.” But a cloudless sky is not sufficient. Jn a hard frost we have seen a crimson rose-bud gazing to the sun, yet it shed no fragrance through the clear but icy atmosyhere; and in order to convert the blossom into balm, to cheer April into June, we cry, “Come, thou South wind:” now that the North has chased the clouds of darkness and unbelief, and cleared the sky, “come, thou South,” and with thy kind solvent melt my heart. “Blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.” Coming warm from the land of love, — coming from the regions of unreserved benevolence and enraptured adoration, — coming from that realm of happiness and praise which enjoys the perennial sunshine of Christ’s presence, the Holy Spirit brings with Ilini the true summer of the soul. Faith He sublimes to full assurance, and conviction He quickens into cheerful activity, and principle elaboratod into holy feeling and fervid emotion He causes to flow forth, as spices do, — a beatific atmosphere around the heavenly man. And from a church full of such members the fragrance overflows and surprises the passer-by. For though the garden is inclosed, the breeze is not confined: and, blowing where he listeth, the South wind sometimes wafts the spicy odour far forth into the outside world. Yes, the world is the better, — the happier for that Church which God has “inclosed” in its midst. Faith in God, the hope full of immortality, some connexion between this world and heaven, the beauty of holiness, the charms of disinterested benevolence, — were it not for that standing Church the world would hardly know such things: but going like

‘•An incense through the midnight land,” even though the garden itself is veiled, and they are sleepers whom the exquisite odour visits, it infuses pleasant thoughts into their dreams; and waking, some have not been able to forget the exquisite sensation, and, searching for its source, their own steps have been guided into the Garden Inclosed.