Christ was not yet incarnate.

St. Peter tells us how

holy men of old studied the Scriptures in reference to the coming Saviour, "enquiring and searching diligently." We can imagine with what amazed delight and adoring anticipation they were wont to meditate on the person, beauty, fulness, and glory of God's love gift to the sons of men! Even the angels desired to look. into these things! "The Man of God's right hand,

Jehovah's Fellow."

66

The

"The seed of the woman." Shiloh," the Shepherd-King, the second Adam, the Son of Man, the Son of Abraham, Son of David, SON OF GOD! The prophet like unto Moses. "God's Elect in whom his soul delighted." "How beautiful

upon the mountains," his feet! His name was "the Coming One." And faith, and hope, and love sang together of him, "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." If we, in this our day of Pentecostal light and grace, can as yet see him but through a glass, darkly, how dim must have been the vision with which the Old Testament saints searched the Scriptures in quest of their Beloved!

The bride's description therefore of him, whom we have been taught to worship as the "brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person," the Godman, Mediator, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, is like the attempt of a little child to tell us of its love. But, O how sweet, and sincere, and tender, and suggestive, and beautiful, are its conceptions ! Thus, the bride endeavours to give the daughters of Jerusalem a true, if not a full, description of him she

is seeking after, and of her joy in doing so. Just observe it is all about himself, and not his gifts. It is all downright personal love to himself; would that we had more of it!

Himself, not his offices, attributes, words, works, promises, or gifts; but "his own self," and not a picture but a person, "my Beloved," uniting in himself all that is worthy, lovely, and attractive; like the sacred perfume made up of divers fragrances, so was her Beloved, an unalloyed congerie of excellency and delight, exceeding all description. "He is altogether lovely," "the chiefest among ten thousand." Just as St. John makes use of the most costly and beautiful things of earth to set forth the beauty and glory of the city of God, so doth the bride set forth the loveliness of her King.

"My Beloved is white and ruddy," the idea is perfect humanity, how Old Testament saints must have longed to see it! youth, health, strength, courage, and beauty, are here delineated. You remember it is said of David (1 Sam. xvii. 14), "he was a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance," and like David the heart of the bride is inditing a good matter (Psa. xlv. 1, &c.). I think Solomon, the Son of David, had this 45th Psalm in his mind all through, underlying the details of this dramatic song! but how far his mind had grasped the meaning of the wondrous words he uttered, it is needless for us to inquire, "Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

We are not warranted to interpret the words of the bride, as if she knew from her standpoint all her words

may convey to us who read them in a New Testament day, and in the light of prophecy fulfilled.

I am satisfied that the attempts which have been made to find recondite meanings in these symbols, do not commend themselves. In describing the Person of the "Word made flesh," we are on holy ground, and it best becomes us to take off our shoes in presence of the "mystery of godliness.' "The angels desired to look into." What?! Let us, till we know as we are known, confine our comments to what is the self-evident intention of the Holy Ghost, namely, to set forth Christ as having in all things the pre-eminence. None like him, none next to him, none near him, none second to him, and none other. He is "the chiefest among ten thousand," the standard bearer in the hosts of God, "Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee." Methinks the bride had little thought or anticipation of how that visage would be marred, and that "his own self would bear her sin in his own body on the tree," and that the new and living way, by which he would bring her to her heavenly home, was the rent veil of his own crucified body! yet was he to her the best Beloved, "the altogether lovely one." We have more light,

may God give us more love!

Remember, then, that the descriptions following are

of a Divine Person and in a human body.

They hold him forth as superlative in himself, and

loveliness to his people.

When right thoughts of Christ possess the heart, nothing will be comparable to him.

Christ's absence will never lessen his people's esteem of him, neither will the ignorance of others.

It is our ignorance of Christ that makes other things get such a hold of our affections.

"He is"! standarded "above ten thousand"! (see Psa. lxxxix. 6-8, 25, 34).

"His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh. His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires. His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold: his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely." -SONG V. 11-16.

NEVER had there been a man on earth after this sort at the time this song was written ! In the bride's description of Christ, she chooses the most precious things in the world to set forth his inestimable worth and loveliness.

The following portrait contains ten distinct particulars, and each enumerated feature has, for the most part, a double commendation. It is a full-length portrait! beginning from the head, and descending to the feet.

1. "His head is as the most fine gold," gold at the top and gold below. In the original it is "gold of gold," the most fine gold. "The head of Christ is God." In the Old Testament types, gold represented Christ in the tabernacle and temple, and so here she regards him as divine and sovereign. In the Book of Daniel, when he interprets to Nebuchadnezzar his dream, he says, "Thou, O King, art the head of gold," and if true of Nebuchadnezzar, how much more so of him of whom the bride is here speaking? Again, Christ is "the head of the body," the place for crowns, for many crowns. He is the head of his body the church, and "head over all things to the church" The head is the seat of wisdom, and knowledge, and power, and influence, "from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love" (Eph. iv. 16). His head is gold of gold; it is just the attempt of the human mind to delineate the divine, and to express what "eye hath not seen nor ear heard," what God hath given us in Christ. "Behold a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land" (Isaiah xxxii. 1, 2).