“A Spring Shut Up, a Fountain Sealed”
AN GARDEN inclosed is my sister, my spouse;
a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.” We are not only like a garden, but a garden enclosed. If the garden were not enclosed, 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 enclosure, 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
*Canticles iv. 12.
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.
This is a cheering thought for all believers, that the Lord has set apart him that is godly for Himself. He has taken measures to preserve all His chosen from all those who would defile and destroy them. He walled them round about with His divine decree of old, saying, “This people have I chosen for Myself.” He then issued His command that none should injure them, saying, “Touch not Mine anointed, and do My prophets no harm.” He sets a hedge about them in providence, so that nothing shall by any means harm them. He has shut them up from the enemy, and sealed them up for perpetual preservation.
The wandering Bedouins in the East plunder the open fields; but a king’s garden, enclosed and * protected, is safe from their ravages. So are the saints enclosed from all invading powers. Specially has the Lord walled them about with grace. While angels keep watch and ward around this sacred garden to drive off the powers of darkness, the invincible grace of God is ever like a wall about the plants of the Lord’s right hand planting, so that neither sin nor the world shall be able to uproot them. You are a garden, and a garden is a tender thing, soon destroyed; but the Lord, who planted you, has seen to your protection and provision. A garden in the East is a very needy place. One day’s burning sun might suffice to wither all its verdure; but then the Lord has declared of his church, “The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.” “I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.” A garden is a dependent thing, requiring perpetual care from the husbandman; and that care the church of God shall have, for it is written, “He careth for you.” Jesus says, “My Father is the husbandman”; and surely that is enough.
In a garden weeds spring up; and, alas! in the church, and in our hearts, the weeds of sin are plentiful; but there is One who will take care to pluck up evil growths, and cut away all rank shoots, that none of the precious plants may be choked or overgrown. In all ways every single plant, however feeble, shall be tended with all-sufficient skill.
It is very precious to see how the Lord lays Himself out to preserve His own beloved. We are too dear to Him to let us perish. Yet, O tender plant, thou art often fearful! Didst thou say the other day that. He had left thee? Howcanthisbe? Dost thou know at what a price He bought thee? Leave thee? Will the husband forget his beloved spouse, and will the Husband of your soul forget you? Let not the thought tarry with you for a moment, for it is dishonouring to your Lord’s love. “Canawoman forget her suckling child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” You are as safe as Jesus, for on His heart He bearsyourname. Youareas safe as He is, for on the arm of His strength He wears your name, as the high priest wore the names of the tribes upon his shoulder, as well as upon his breastplate. “I give unto My sheep,” says He, “eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.”
I look upon this sense of security in a Christian as being the mainspring of unselfish virtue. What is that perpetual anxiety to save yourself? What is that daily hungering and perpetual thirsting? It is only a spiritualized selfishness. Only when a man is saved does he forget self. When I know that I am saved I am able to glorify God. The thought of saving myself by anything that I shall do, or be, or feel, I hurl to the winds, for I am already saved as a believer in Christ. Now is there scope for virtue.. Now is there an opportunity to love God, and to love one’s fellow-men from a pure, unselfish motive. A man is drowning, the ship is going down from under him; he is not a likely man to be looking after the interests of those about him. Once let him grasp an oar in the lifeboat, and he is the man to be the saviour of others. I want you to be out of the wreck, and in the lifeboat, that you may be a hearty worker for the salvation of the perishing. I want you to get out,of that “if,” “perhaps,” “peradventure,” “may be,” into certainty and full assurance, for then your undivided zeal will go for the glory of God. “We know that we have passed from death unto life,” says the apostle, speaking in the name of the saints in his day; and when you once know this, then you will rejoice to proclaim life to those around you. When you are assured that you are not only a garden, but a garden enclosed, not only a spring, but a spring shut up, and a fountain sealed against all adversaries — then you will give all your strength to Him who has thus secured you. A happy and holy security in Christ will put spirit into you, and cause you to do exploits. For the love you bear His name, you will be ready to live to this sole end — to magnify and glorify the Lord Jesus, whose you are, and whom you serve.
“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. I ‘suppose there is such a thing as the Christian world; but I do not know what it is, or where it can be found. It must be a singular mixture. I know what is meant by a worldly Christian; and I suppose the Christian world must be an aggregate of worldly Christians. But the church of Christ is not of the world. “Ye are not of the world,” says Christ, “even as I am not of the world.” Great attempts have been made of late to make the church receive the world, and wherever it has succeeded it has come to this result — the world has swallowed up the church. It must be so. The greater is sure to swamp the less. They say, “Do not let us draw any hard and fast lines. A great many good people attend our services who may not be quite decided, but still their opinions should be consulted, and their votes should be taken upon the choice of a minister, and there should be entertainments and amusements, in which they can assist.” The theory seems to be, that it is well to have a broad gangway from the church to the world: if this be carried out, the result will be that the nominal church will use that gangway to go over to the world, but it will not be used in the other direction. It is thought by some that it would perhaps be better to have no distinct church at all. If the world will not come up to the church, let the church go down to the world; that seems to be the theory. Let the Israelites dwell with the Canaanites, and become one happy family. Such a blending does not appear to have been anticipated by our Lord in John xv. Read verses eighteen and nineteen: “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” Did He ever say — “Try to make an alliance with the world, and in all things be conformed to its ways”? Nothing could have been further from our Lord’s mind. Oh, that we could see more of holy separation; more dissent from ungodliness, more nonconformity to the world! This is “the dissidence of dissent” that I care for, far more than I do for party names and the political strife which is engendered by them.
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 from 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 captious 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
Ne Meare mY S NONE St Ue Ve TT TY IT ORUINt OEE SRO ee) On Toe EE eee ee separate from sinners only because He was holy and harmless, and they were not. He dwelt among us, for He was of us, No man was more a man than He; and yet, He was not of the world, neither could you count Him among them. He was neither Pharisee, nor Sadducee, nor Scribe; and at the same time, none could justly confound Him with publicans and sinners, Those who reviled Him for consorting with these last did, by that very reviling, admit that He was a very different person from those with whom He went. We want all members of the church of Christ to be, manifestly and obviously, distinct persons, as much as if they were of a separate race, even when they are seen mingling with the people around them. We are not to cut ourselves off from our neighbours by affectation and contempt. God forbid! Our very avoiding of affectation, our naturalness, simplicity, sincerity, and amiability of character, should constitute a distinction. Through Christians being what they seem to be, they should become remarkable in an age of pretenders. Their care for the welfare of others, their anxiety to do good, their forgiveness of injuries, their gentleness of manner — all these should distinguish them far more than they could be distinguished by a livery, or by any outward signs.
I long to see Christian people become more distinct from the world than ever, because I am persuaded that, until they are so, the church will never become such a power for blessing men as her Lord intended her to be. It is for the world’s good that there should be no alliance between the church and the world by way of compromise, even to a shade.
See what came to pass when the church and the world became one in Noah’s day: when “the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair,” and were joined with them. Then came the Deluge. Another deluge, more desolating even than the former, will come, if ever the church forgets her high calling, and enters into confederacy with the world.
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 fowls 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.”
Are you foreigners in a country not your own? You are no Christian, remember, if you are not so. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.” That is the Lord’s own word to you. I Did not He Himself suffer without the gate that you might go forth unto Him without the camp? Are you at one with the rest of mankind? Could anybody live with you, and never see that any alteration had taken place in you? Would they think that you were just the same as any other man? Then, by your fruits ye shall be known. If there is no difference of life between you and the world, the text does not address you as the “sister” and the “spouse” of Christ. Those who are such are enclosed from the world and shut up for Christ. “I wish I were more so,” cries one. So do I, my friend, and may you and I practically prove the sincerity of that desire by a growing separateness from the world!
The church of God is “a garden enclosed.” 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. A church exists only for the Lord Jesus to accomplish His ends and purposes among the sons of men. Never may this be forgotten. May the Spirit of God daily sanctify us unto the Lord, to be a peculiar people! I am persuaded that if any church desires to be much honoured of the Lord in these days, both as to internal happiness and external usefulness, it will find that the nearest way to its desire is to be wholly consecrated to the Lord. The church is not formed to bea social club, to produce society for itself; not to bea political association, to be a power in politics; not even to bea religious confederacy, promoting its own opinions: it is a body created of the Lord to answer His own ends and purposes, and it exists for nothing else. The heavenly Bridegroom says to His church, “Forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house ;. so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty: for He is thy Lord; and worship thou Him.” Churches which fail of their high vocation shall be cast forth as salt that has lost its savour. If we do not live for the Lord, we are dead while we live. If we do not bring glory to His name we cannot justify our existence. If we are not as a garden enclosed for Jesus, we are mere bits of waste land; if we are not fountains sealed for Jesus, we are mere brooks in the valley, and shall soon run dry.
“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. You are not to bear fruit for the markets, but fruit for the Master’s table. You are not to do good that you may have honour as an industrious and energetic community, but that glory may be given to Jesus, to whom you belong. “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. [t will not do. We must be truly, thoroughly, really living for Jesus: we must be a garden enclosed, reserved, shut up for Him. Your life isto bea stream that flows for the refreshment of Him who poured out His life for you! You are to let Him drink of the deep fountains of your heart, but no one else may rival Jesus there. You are a spring shut up, a fountain sealed for Jesus, for Jesus only, and that altogether, and always. Should self come forward, or personal advantage, you are to bid them be gone. They must have no admission here. This garden is strictly private. Trespassers beware! Should the world, the flesh, or the devil leap over the wall, and stoop down to drink of the crystal fountain of your being, you are to chase them away, lest their leprous lips should defile this spring, and prevent the King from drinking thereat again. The wall must wholly enclose 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 wishes must be His, and then all our words and deeds.