Solomon's Song viii. 6, 7

Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.

THE words we are about to consider, are not those of the Bridegroom, Christ; but of the Bride, the awakened believing soul. She begs her heavenly Friend to preserve her still in his love; and at the same time relates, in few but in expressive terms, the nature of Christ’s love.

Let us then consider, in reference to the text, the love of Christ to sinners. Let us contemplate it: — I. As a great and free love. II. As a strong love.

IE. As a jealous love.

IV. As a faithful love.

I. — ‘Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm.’ These aspirations of the Shulamite appear, indeed, to be lofty; but in what do they exceed, in extent or magnitude, what the Savior continually does for sinners without their solicitation 1 He sets them as a seal upon his heart, as a seal upon his arm.

The Savior’s heart is the inexhaustible source of all love. If but the smallest drop from this fountain enters the human heart, it immediately dilates and overflows with love. Witness its surprising effects on Abraham; the love of God in him absorbed the love of nature, and stretched his arm to offer his beloved, his only son, a sacrifice to the Loro1. What a noble display of it in David! — when with a love contrary to nature, and elevated high as the heavens above it, he wept the death of Saul, his mortal enemy, and broke out in bitter lamentations, that the shield of the mighty had been cast vilely away, as though he had not been anointed. Behold it in Moses! — when in the desert he cried unto the Lord: ‘Oh this people have sinned a great sin; yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin — if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.’ What amazing love! Hear the prayer of Stephen! — stoned by his enemies, and prostrated on the earth, with his last breath, he cries to heaven: ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.’ Behold a Paul! — renouncing joyfully all the advantages and pleasures which the world has to offer, suffering ignominy and persecution, scourging and stoning, imprisonment and chains, and not even counting his life dear unto himself, that he might bring the Balm of Gilead to his brethren, who were sitting in the shadow, of death. The love of these men was astonishingly great! Who can utter all the purity and faithfulness, the height, length, breadth, and depth of such love? And yet it was but a small drop from that ocean of love which flows in the heart of Christ.

But who can declare the love of Jesus? By what u.MON IV. 239 standard shall it be estimated, in what Language can it be exprepsed I Tin.- re is nothing with which it can be compared; the boldest imagination cannot grasp it. It is a depth, into which angelic spirits look adoringly down, but cannot fathom; an height, to which the thoughts of a seraphim cannot attain. As he himself

1 ren loved by the Father from all eternity, in the .mil degree does he love all who are the objects of his iv.ml. No mind can comprehend, no imagination conceive, the love of Christ; it surpasses all knowledge and all thought. And his power, like his love, is boundless, unsearchable, incomprehensible. Obedient to his will, the waves of the Red Sea mounted into a heap like a wall of crystal; at his command

H plid rock became a fountain of waters; the impregnable walls of Jericho fell down at the sound of a trumpet, and the sun stood still in the firmament; with a word he restored life to corruption, and called the dead out of their graves: and this was but a small display of his power, a trifle for his gigantic arm. Did he he not call a world into existence out of nothing, and command that to be which was not, and it stood forth? Did not his arm plant Orion in the heavens, and group the Plaeiades? And ei we have seen but a shadow of his power! He can create and do his pleasure; as the Scriptures declare,’ All power is given him, in heaven and on earth.’ Oh who can measure the power of his arm? His arm is like his heart, his power like his love. We have attempted a faint description of them, but the thunder of his power who can understand?

And who are the recipients of this love, and for whom is this mighty power revealed? In general it is similarity of taste or disposition that attracts men to each other, and forms the bond of union between them. But the love of Jesus is guided by other rules. It was not the angels and cherubim, who were the exclusive oh jects of his love: ‘He took not on him the nature of angels,’ says St. Paul; it was not the just, the virtuous, the noble, the wise, the mighty, and the great, after the flesh, that he sought to bear them on his heart;’ for his love is the love of sinners-, and his arm is stretched forth to the miserable. It was for us, the children of death, that the bowels of his mercy yearned from all eternity, and for whom his heart burned with infinite tenderness. How wondrous that love, which could impel the Sovereign of the universe to lay aside his glory, and in the form of sinful flesh to descend into -this dark valley of tears! A love which prompted him to assume our griefs, the whole Weight and curse of our iniquities! A love, which moved Him to become the most despised and vile amongst the children of men, to humble himself even unto death, and to shed his blood upon the cross! What an amazing love! And yet it was a love for ‘sinners, and for sinners only. It was not for angels, but for thee and me, my dear brethren, that he submitted to be thus straightened. The poor sinner is the object of his love, the curse-stricken earth the theatre of its display, and the deadened heart the subject on which it operates. And wherever he has revealed himself in the world, he has revealed himself as one compassionating the miserable, reclaiming the wanderer, and as the sinner’s friend. Such is the heart of Jesus: and his arm, his power, is wielded by this heart, by this love of sinners. He has ever acted and governed in the world, as it’ he possessed his power solely for the deliverance, the salvation of sinners. For them he vanquished hell, and trampled Satan under his feet. For them he conquered death, and burst the bands of the grave; and all that he has done, or is daily performing, is designed to accomplish the salvation of sinners. What do we need more? His heart is for us; his power is for us. He lives not for himself, he lives for sinners. In this we rejoice!

But there is one peculiarity in his love, at the thought of which we should humble ourselves in the dust, and devoutly adore. In what manner, under what conditions, and at what period, do you imagine it to be, that he receives the sinner to his love? Some of you, perhaps, may be ready to reply; When the sinner begins to think about a reformation, then Jesus also begins to love. But I say, No; He loves him before. But, perhaps, it commences when the sinner sincerely begins to inquire after and seek the way of life? No! — long before these sincere desires arise in the sinner, he has been loved by Him who both imparts the will and perfects the good within him. Behold the Lord sets the sinner as a seal upon his heart, as a seal upon his arm! and this is something unspeakably great! What is a seal? It is the clear, perfect impression of a figure engraven upon a seal, or signet ring. When therefore it is said, that the Lord Jesus sets the sinner as a seal upon his heart, it can only mean, that he takes a true and perfect impression of the sinner. He takes his true figure as a ruined, lost creature, with all the marks of sin broadly and clearly impressed upon him; and when it is further said, he sets him as a seal upon his arm, it means, that, before any good is in the sinner, the arm of the Lord is promised, and extended for his relief; that for his salvation, the power and love of Jesus are united. And thus it really is! Yes, believe it, before a spark of the new life had been kindled within you, before the smallest change had taken place, you. were already received to the love of Jesus; for how had you otherwise become converted and believing, had not the sustaining love of Him who is the author and finisher of faith, been previously imparted to you 1 For. that you have not converted yourself, you are perfectly convinced. Every one, who has undergone this. change, confesses with deep humiliation: I have not chosen thee, but thou hast chosen me.. When you were still in your iniquities, and entertained not the most distant thought of submitting your heart to God, even then the Savior’s love had sought you out. He had placed you as a seal upon his heart — that is, you had become the object of .his merciful love; your image, with all the stains of ski upon it, was impressed upon his heart; and when you really were converted to the Lord, then his arm executed in you the eternal counsels of his love. Yes, on every one who is born again, the words of our Lord are fulfilled: f I have loved thee — not from the moment of thy conversion — but I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee.’ In thine iniquities have I loved thee; as a sinner weil thou. engraven on my heart. I set thee as a seal upon my heart, as a seal upon my arm; before thou calledst, I heard and answered thee. Behold thi§ is the great, the free love of our Surety!

II. — And in the same degree that this love is great, free, and unconditional, it is likewise strong and powerful. But how strong 1 Strong, says the Shulamite,.as death. What a striking similitude! Yes, strong as death — we have ourselves experienced it Who can withstand death? With invincible power he wields his sceptre over all flesh — the strongest he casts to the earth, the most mighty become his prey.

And who can resist the love of Christ, when it goes forth towards the sinner, and casts its net around him? A Saul tried, but found it vain to kick against the pricks; the Samaritan woman was not long able to strive against, and to evade it; and Nathaniel, in spite of his conviction that nothing good could come out of Nazareth, was soon obliged to confess: * Rabbi, Thou art the son of God; Thou art the King of Israell’ The jailer likewise, with his heart subdued, fell down, and anxiously sighed: ‘What must I do to be saved V And the heathen centurion was constrained to exclaim: k Truly this was the son of God.’ Yes, strong as death is the love that seeks sinners, who can resist it! It pursues the sinner, who is its object, through all his devious courses; it follows him into the stillness of the closet, into the bustle of the world, in the midst of dissipation, and on the seat of the scorner; it presses upon him in every way, till his heart is .vanquished, and he is rescued from the paths of death. How long, my brethren, did we not strive against its assaults, and seek to escape the net; how long did not we close our ears against its call, and, as it were*, struggle not to be overcome. But behold, has it not been too strong for us? Has it not at last subdued and made us captive? Yes,

God be praised! it has also broken our hard and obdurate hearts, and notwithstanding our resistance, has forced us into the bonds of the covenant! God be thanked for ever, we have ourselves experienced, that his love is strong as death! Who can resist it?

Love is strong as death. Does not death separate man from this world and its concerns? Does it not snatch him away from all that is earthly and transitory? And behold, the love of Christ does the same. No sooner is its influence felt upon the soul — no sooner are we participatingly assured of its possession, and able to say with Paul: I also have obtained mercy — than we bid the world farewell; its pleasures become embittered, its waters turbid and vapid; for we now drink from other fountains; and in places where we were formerly at home, we now feel ourselves strangers, uneasy and oppressed. Oh, how wonderful the change which passes on the heart, as soon as it hears the Lord call it by name, and the words, i Thou art mine!’ vibrate within it. Then a Magdalene quickly casts awray her follies, and becomes the handmaid of the Lord. Then a Paul esteems all that he had accounted gain, as loss and dung, and is Christ’s alone. Then we willingly abandon honor and pleasure, fame, applause, and whatever else the world has to offer, and follow Christ. Yes, the love of Jesus is strong as death. Wherever it is unfolded, felt and experienced, it separates the man, heart and soul, from the wrorld and its trifles. Then Abraham can no longer dwell in Ur, Lot in Sodom, nor Moses at the court of Egypt. The heart pants, and struggles to be liberated; we weigh the anchor and launch from the shore of this world. The love of Jesus is strong’ as death. With the destructive energy of death, and as the fire of lightning, it assails the old man within us. Where the love of Jesus is perceived, and his grace experienced, there also is a constant inward dying, an incessant consuming; there the old Adam lies in the flames that will burn him to ashes. Oh, it is hard to confess, that our sins have caused the Lord of Glory to shed his blood upon the cross — that our sins have occasioned all his humiliation and suffering! How inconceivably mortifying is the conviction, that we must be received to his arms and to his love, as the vilest of sinners! it degrades us in the dust of self-abasement, and overwhelms us with shame and disgrace; while it renders a life after the flesh distasteful and disgusting. With the consciousness: I have obtained mercy; pride cannot rear its head; avarice cannot thrive; lust cannot spring up; that is impossible; for where the love of Christ takes possession of the soul, there it is as death, destructive as the fire of brimstone, and pestilence, to the old man.

III. — And behold, to the strength of death, the love of Christ to sinners unites the firmness of hell.* Its fervor, says the Shulamite, is unchanging as the grave; and our hearts should gratefully respond — * God be praised!’ The Shulamite speaks with force and power, but with truth and beauty. It is as she has said. The love of Jesus to the elect is a zealous, ardent, yea, and a jealous

* This is a Jiteral rendering of the author’s words, who has of course followed the idea conveyed by Lulher’i translating the word wp by ’ firm,’ which is, perhaps, more correct than cruel,’ aa the English version has it. — EDlove. It encircles its object with a firmness so immoveable and undeviating, that the idea of surrender on its part, is as little to be entertained as that of a surrender of the lost on the part of hell. Though on earth Satan must renounce his prey at the bidding of the Lion of the tribe of Judah; but if he have dragged it down into the bottomless pit, the gates are closed, and none shall open them. Hell asserts its rights and its possessions. No sighs, no grief, can move it; no tears, or lamentations of the damned; it holds them in its gloomy caverns with stern, inexorable cruelty, and the smoke of their torments ascends for ever and ever. And such is the constancy of the love of Christ. The Lord Jesus keeps what he has. ‘My sheep are mine’ he says, e and none shall pluck them out of my hand.’ Should the devil, the accuser, appear, and claim the sinner as his own; should he heap every deadly sin upon his head; should Moses arise, and call upon the Lord to condemn the despiser of his laws; should even the angels of God cry together, Away with him! the thief is not fit for Paradise! — what could it avail? For if he has once taken the sinner to his heart, his love is firm as hell. And whether it were Satan, Moses, or the angels, his answer would be,: ‘Away with you all.’ I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. His love is an unyielding .love: it never relinquishes what it has once adopted. It turned the lost son from the husks of the swine-troughs, from the seat of the scorner and the profane. It followed Solomon into the temples of Satan, into the assemblies of heathen women, and the dwellings of lewdness: yes, it pursued him even to the altars of strange gods, and rested not till it a

had reclaimed him. Such is the love of Christ! and it declares to Satan, * I am stronger than thou art.’ What it has it has, and never abandons. And if Satan assail the Bride, a conflict immediately ensues; which ceases not till the dragon is discomforted. Yes, the love of Christ for his people is firm and unrelenting as hell. * I am persuaded,’ says St. Paul, ’ that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers; nor things present, nor things to come; nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

Once more. — The fervor of his love is firm as hell, and is mingled with ,i holy jealousy. Where is there a soul with whom he has deigned to hold converse, that has not experienced how jealous is his love? He will possess his people exclusively, not divided with another; he will not suffer his followers to adhere to Belial, and coquette with the world: therefore his efforts are incessant, and endlessly varied, till his Bride has cordially renounced the world, and is entirely his own. What has been our own experience, my brethren, when we have turned back into the world; when, fascinated by its charms, we have forgotten Him, or have attempted to associate Him with Belial; when our speech and our actions have faithlessly declared with Simon, ‘I know not this man;’ when closing our eyes and our hearts against him, we have again demeaned ourselves as men of this world? What were our sensations when reflection returned? Did not a day of sorrow and anguish, a day of storm and tempest, of darkness and gkpom, break in upon the soul? Our peace and joy had departed; we felt as though we had rejected his grace; and we began anxiously to inquire how we might appease the Lord! He seemed to have turned from us in anger, and our souls endured the torments of hell. Behold in this his jealousy and his displeasure! But, blessed be God, it is only the anger of love. His tenderness is wounded because we have left him, and because he has for a time been deprived of the joy of possessing us wholly and undivided. This pains and afflicts him. It provokes his love, and therefore his jealousy is kindled, and he plunges us down into hell. Into hell! Yes, the Lord sometimes conducts even his people into hell; but, God be praised, he does not leave them there.

TV. — Strong as death is the love of Jesus. His jealousy is firm as hell; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench it, neither can the floods drown it. By these words Shulamite describes the faithfulness of Christ, as opposed to our unfaithfulness. How different is it with our love towards each other, even when it is most sincere and pure; contrasted with the love of Christ, it is but as the glimmering of a torch, which but few waters would suffice to quench. The slightest degree of coldness or unrequited affection, the slightest offence or inconstancy on the part of those we love, is sufficient to estrange our hearts, and quench our lov«. Such floods it cannot survive. And how is it with our love to the Lord? Alas! if he do not continually quicken it, by fresh and sensible supplies of his grace, it is soon reduced to the faintest glimmer. The streams of worldly temptation, or the waters of conflict and trial, need only beat against it; the Lord need only for a moment hide himself, and withdraw from us the sweet consciousness of his presence, when our hearts begin to cool, and the melody of our soul to cease. Our love is fickle; it may cool and expire; we are faithless and inconstant But Jesus is faithful; his love to his people is immoveable; the coals thereof are coals of fire; no streams, however violent, no floods, however turbulent, can extinguish, or even damp his love to sinners. Not the floods of our iniquities’? No, not eveli these. How great was that flood of sin and transgression which David poured upon the love of his Surety! But, behold! his love burnt on, and maintained the superiority. He did not forsake the murderer and the adulterer, but kindly extended to him his arm, on which he had placed him as a seal, and mercifully assisted him out of the miry pit, and placed his feet again upon the rock; and David remained, what he previously had been, the man after God’s own heart The unfaithfulness of Simon passed as a flood over the love of Jesus! Another would have said, Now our friendship is at an end; with you I will have no further intercourse. But the love of Jesus is not a glimmering taper, that the first wind can extinguish. The coals thereof are coals of fire, which, though floods of inconstancy, coldness, and ingratitude pass over it, continues triumphantly to burn, and break through every assault. The look of wounded affection which he cast on Simon, frem the Judgment Hall, after he had denied him, still continues to excite our admiration and wonder; there was a magnanimity, a divinity in it, which we can neither grasp nor comprehend. His love stands fast. f The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord, that hath mercy on thee.3 ‘My sheep shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.’

But may not a man go on comfortably in his sins, if he knows he should not on that account lose the favor of God? Oh, how often are we obliged to listen to this miserable and foolish objection! A little reflection might teach, that the love of sin, and the thought of sinning that grace might abound, are incompatible with the life of one who is born again; they are utterly impossible. If you entertain a propensity to sin that grace may abound, you are not Christians; your new birth is a pretence; you belong to those who are without, and have not yet obtained the smallest interest in Christ. Let this sink deep into your hearts, and judge yourselves by it. But we rejoice, and praise God that our hope of salvation is founded on such a rock as the love of Jesus. Did our hope rest on our love to Him, it would weaken and die if ever our love dwindled and expired: were it based upon our faith, we should be obliged to abandon it, if our faith became obscured: still less can it be grounded on our sensations and devotional feelings, for then we should sink into despair, whenever our hearts became cold and barren. No; our hope is founded on the love of Jesus to us; and here it has found a secure anchorage. It is based on the love which is strong as death and firm as the grave; whose coals are coals of fire, which many waters cannot quench. It is founded on the love which pursues the sinner through all* his deviations and wanderings, which loves him, though overshadowed by many inconsistencies; and which stands unshaken, though ours may waver and decline. His love to us is our resting-place, our sure foundation; it is the prop by which we rise when we have fallen; the staff which sustains us on our pilgrimage through this valley of tears. It is the source of our joy, the spring of our courage, and the fire by which we are refined j it is our sanctification and our life. But who can number all the blessings that are treasured up for us in the love of Jesus? Then take thy harp, O Israel! Believe and rejoice; for thou art encircled by the arms of Everlasting Love.