We may receive a benefit from a person, and be assured of a hearty welcome to it, and yet feel ourselves ill at ease in his presence. Nothing is more common than this. Gratitude is awakened in the heart very deeply, and yet reserve and uneasiness are felt. It calls for something beyond our assurance of his good will, and of our full welcome to his service, to make us at ease in the presence of a benefactor, And this something, I believe, is the discovery that we have an interest in himself, as well as in his ability to serve us.
-This delineates, as I judge, the experience of the poor woman with the issue of blood (Mark 5). She knew the Lord's ability to relieve her sorrow; and her hearty welcome to avail herself of it. She therefore comes and takes the virtue out of Him without reserve. But she comes behind Him. This expresses her state of mind. She knows her welcome to His service, but nothing more. But the Lord trains her heart for more. He lets her know that she is interested in Himself, as well as in His power to oblige her. He calls her " daughter." He owns kindred or relationship with her. This was the communication which alone was able to remove her fears and trembling. Her rich and mighty patron is her kinsman. This is what her heart needed to know. Without this in the spirit of her mind she would have been still " behind Him; " but this gives her ease. " Go in peace," may then be said, as well as " be whole of thy plague." She need not be reserved. Christ does not deal with her as a patron or benefactor (Luke 22:2525And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. (Luke 22:25)). She has an interest in Himself, as well as in His power to bless her.
And so as to the Canticles. It is the love which warrants personal intimacy (after the manner of the nearest and dearest relationships), that breathes in this lovely little book. The age of the union has not yet arrived. But it is the time of betrothment, and we are His delight. Nay, it was so ere worlds were. As another has said, " in the glass of His eternal decrees, the Father showed the Church to Christ, and Christ was so ravished with the sight that He gave up all for her."
Do we believe this? Does it make us happy? We are naturally suspicious of any offers to make us happy in God. Because our moral sense, our natural conscience tells of our having lost all right, even to His ordinary blessings. The mere moral sense, therefore, will be quick to stand against it and question all overtures of peace from heaven, and be ready to challange their reality. But here comes the vigor of the spiritual mind, or the energy of faith. Faith gainsays these conclusions of nature. And in the revelation of God, faith reads our abundant title to be near Him, and be happy with Him; though natural conscience and our sense of the fitness of things, would have it otherwise. Faith feeds where the moral sensibilities of the natural mind would count it presuming even to tread.