Old Wine and New: Occasional Discourses

by Joseph Cross

MY BELOVED AND FRIEND.[[1]]

This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem!—Song of Sol. v. 16.

By the ablest interpreters and critics of Holy Scripture, the Song of Solomon has generally been regarded as an epithalamium, or nuptial canticle. But, like many other parts of the sacred volume, doubtless, it has a mystical and secondary application, which is more important than the literal and primary. The true Solomon is Christ, and the Church is his beautiful Shulamite. In this chapter, the Bride sings the glory of her divine Spouse, and our text concludes the description. But what is thus true of the Church in her corporate capacity, is true also of her individual members; and without its verification in their personal experience, it could not be thoroughly verified in the organic whole. Every regenerate and faithful soul may say of the heavenly Bridegroom: "This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem!"

Christ for a beloved—the Son of God for a friend! What nobler theme could occupy our thoughts? what sublimer privilege invest the saints in light?

So constituted is man, that love and friendship are necessary to his happiness, almost essential to his existence. Accumulate in your coffers the wealth of all kingdoms, and gather into your diadems the glories of the greatest empires. Bid every continent, island and ocean bring forth their hidden treasures, and pour the sparkling tribute at your feet. Subsidize and appropriate whatever is precious in the solar planets or magnificent in the stellar jewellery of heaven, and hold it all by an immortal tenure. Yet, without at least one kindred spirit to whom you might communicate your joy, one congenial soul from whom you might claim sympathy in your sorrow, the loveless heart were still unsatisfied—

"The friendless master of the worlds were poor!"

Among the children of men, however, love and friendship, in one respect or another, will always be found defective, liable to many irregularities and interruptions, painful suspicions and sad infirmities, which mar their beauty, tarnish their purity, and imbitter their consolations, turning the ambrosia into wormwood and the nectar into gall. Sometimes they are manifest only in words, and smiles, and hollow courtesies, and other external tokens; while the heart is as void of all true affection and confidence as the whitewashed sepulchre is of life and beauty. Beginning with flattery, they often proceed by hypocrisy, and end in betrayal. Or if there be sincerity in the outset, it may prove as impotent as childhood, as changeful as autumn winds, or as fleeting as the morning cloud. Or if not destroyed by some trivial offence, or suffered to die of cold neglect, their ties are clipped at length by the shears of fate, and no love or friendship is possible in the everlasting banishment of the unblest.

But amidst all the sad uncertainties of human attachments, how pleasant it is to know that "there is a Friend who sticketh closer than a brother"—a Beloved whose affection is sincere, ardent, unchanging, imperishable—who can neither deceive nor forsake those who have entered into covenant with him—from whom death itself will not divide us, but bring us to a nearer and sweeter fellowship with him than we are capable now of imagining! Enoch walked with God till he was less fit for earth than for heaven, and St. John leaned upon the heart of Jesus till his own pulse beat in unison with the divine. Drawn into this blissful communion, every true disciple becomes one spirit with the Lord. Christ calls his servants friends, receives them into his confidence, and reveals to them the secrets of his kingdom. Not ashamed to own them now, he will confess them hereafter before his Father and the holy angels. "They shall be mine," saith he, "in that day when I make up my jewels." And the happy Bride, dwelling with ineffable delight upon the perfections of her Spouse, and anticipating the fulfilment of his promise when he cometh in his glory, concludes her song of joy with the declaration—"This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem."

What, then, are the conditions on which such intimacy of the soul with Christ is to be established? Nothing is required but what is in the very nature of things necessary. Prophet, Priest and King, he can take into amicable alliance with him only such as respect and honor him in these relations. The prophet cannot be the beloved and the friend of those who refuse to hear his word; nor the priest, of those who reject his sacrifice and intercession; nor the king, of those who are still in arms against his gracious government. We must love him, if we would have his love; we must show ourselves friendly, if we would enjoy his friendship. Having died to redeem us, he ever lives to plead for us, and by a thousand ambassadors he offers us his love and friendship; but, no response on our part, no sympathy or co-operation, how can we call him our beloved and our friend? "Can two walk together except they be agreed?" There must be reconciliation and assimilation. We must submit to Christ's authority, and co-operate with his mercy. We must love what he loves, and hate what he hates. His friends must be our friends, and his enemies our enemies. The world, the flesh, and the devil, we must for his sake renounce; reckoning ourselves dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Does not St. Paul tell us that as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ?[[2]] What does he mean? That in baptism we not only enter into covenant with Christ, but also assume his character, and profess our serious purpose to walk as he walked, conformed to his perfect example, and governed by the same divine principles. As when one puts on the peculiar habit of the Benedictines or the Franciscans, he declares his intention to obey the rules and copy the life of St. Benedict or St. Francis, the founders of those orders; so, in putting on the Christian habit when you are baptized, you avow yourself the disciple of Christ, and openly declare your death thenceforth to sin and your new birth to righteousness. And without any thing in your heart and life corresponding to such a reality, how can you say of Jesus—"This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem!"

But where there are no attractive qualities, there can be neither love nor friendship. Something there must be to inspire affection and confidence. In our divine Beloved resides every mental grace and every moral virtue. Our heavenly Friend is "the fairest among ten thousand and altogether lovely." Of the excellency of Christ all the charms of nature afford but the faintest images, and poetry and eloquence falter in the celebration of his praise. I ask your attention here to a few particulars.