Song of Solomon 3:11. Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart.
Application.
- The first point of application is information, in several inferences from it.
Inference 1.
Learn what is the true cause and reason of Satan’s rage and spite against the gospel and the most painstaking, able and successful preachers of it in the world. The great purpose of the gospel, and of all who sincerely preach it, is to win Satan’s subjects and persuade them to forsake his cruel, unjust and tyrannical government and to submit to the kingdom and rule of the Lord Jesus.
What is the preaching of the gospel but the sounding of a trumpet in the devil’s kingdom, to win his subjects from their allegiance to him, to proclaim another king in his territories? Every faithful minister’s business is to gather these wretched vassals of Satan together and set before them the miserable bondage they are in, under the tyrant that rules over them (whose laws, like Draco’s, are written in the blood of their souls), to emphasise their sin and misery, and to let them know how willing Christ is to receive and save them, if they will renounce Satan’s government. The minister is to set before them the blessed freedom and glorious privileges of the subjects of Christ, to beseech them to break away from their cruel master and come over to Christ, to answer all their pleas and objections against it, and to denounce the wrath of God against all who refuse Christ’s gracious proclamation.
Satan knows all this; he reckons the loss of one – much more the revolt of many – a greater danger than a king reckons the loss of a kingdom. How it grates on that envious spirit to see them break away from him and be ready to fight against him! How it sharpens his malice against the instruments and agents in this work! As William Gurnall says, it torments the foul spirit to see his old friends and servants forsake him, and this new Lord come and take away his subjects. Hence persecutions and slanders come in showers on Christ’s faithful ministers. Satan knows his kingdom of darkness must vanish, as the light of the gospel rises and spreads itself. You read of “an angel fly[ing] in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth” (Rev 14:6,7). And an another angel follows him saying, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city”.
Satan knows every charge made by the gospel will issue in a rout of his infernal legions. He has a particular grudge for ministers coming forth against him as heralds, to proclaim Christ’s rights – and as captains of the army of Christ, who is their general. He seeks every way to destroy them or to stop their mouths. Surely he has pushed hard at them and made desperate attempts against them in our days. No doubt but it was reckoned a great service done for him, to shut up the mouths of so many at once; but the time draws nigh when Babylon must fall, and those that could not lately show their faces on earth must fly in the midst of heaven, with the everlasting gospel. The dead witnesses of Christ shall hear shortly a great voice from heaven, saying, “Come up hither”; and they shall ascend in a cloud, their enemies beholding them but not able any more to hinder them.
Inference 2.
How altogether groundless are the discouragements and fears of humbled and convinced sinners, that Jesus Christ will reject them and shut the door of mercy against them, if they should go to Him and cast their poor sinful soul upon Him by faith? Certainly such people fear, although there is no reason for fear. To come to Christ – which is His command, the earnest desire of His soul, that act which makes His heart glad, as the text speaks – can never meet with such a repulse as you fear. Was any king ever unwilling to have the crown set upon his head? Do they usually frown on their subjects when they pay homage to them? No, it is the day of the gladness of their hearts.
Renounce your old master Satan, give a bill of divorce to those lusts which have reigned over your soul, ponder well Christ’s terms, and consent to them heartily. Then see if He will not quickly prove your vain fears to be wrong and fully make good His gracious and most encouraging assurance, “Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out” (Jn 6:37).
Inference 3.
What an honourable relationship faith brings the soul of a sinner into! The day of conversion is the day of that soul’s espousals to Christ. A king from heaven makes suit for a poor sinner’s heart, woos for union with sinful creatures, rejoices exceedingly when He wins their consent and espouses them for ever to Himself when He obtains it. A contract is consent in plain affirmative words: I disclaim and for ever renounce all others and willingly yield up my heart and life to Jesus Christ. Now an obligation results from this contract with Christ, and a most honourable mystical union with Him. “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor 6:17).
The greatest honour that was ever put on human nature was by it being assumed into union with the Person of the Son of God, and the greatest honour that can be done to our persons is by our being united with Christ. Hereby we become “members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones” (Eph 5:30) – the spouse of Christ. What preferment is this! What soul does not feel itself lifted up far above all earthly honours, in such a relation to Christ as this? The nobles of the kingdoms think it preferment to serve their queen; and the angels of heaven do not think themselves degraded by performing service to the bride, the Lamb’s wife. Let all the saints understand their dignity and privileges, by this honourable union with Christ; and let them balance with it all the reproaches, scorn and contempt that this vile world loads them with for His sake.
Inference 4.
Learn the dreadful and damning nature of the sin of unbelief: a sin that not only questions but denies Christ’s right to rule over the soul. It blinds the mind, hardens the heart, stiffens the will and makes the soul obstinate to all the gracious offers of Christ in the gospel.
Unbelief is the poisonous breath of Satan whispering jealousies, surmises and dangerous prejudices against Christ into the ear of the soul, and all tending to this mischievous purpose: to hinder or break the treaty of spiritual marriage between Christ and the soul. Now it will be digging at the very root of the assenting act, and thus it whispers, How can you be sure of the reality of the things reported in the gospel? Is it not possible they may be devised fables, the cunning artifices of men, to keep the world in awe? But you never saw Christ, for whose sake you are so earnestly solicited to renounce all your real, present comforts and enjoyments. Then it expands rhetorically on the severe terms of the gospel, advises the soul to think, sadly, how hard, grievous and unreasonable the demands of Christ are: “If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple” (Lk 14:26).
How do you like this? Here are all your principal comforts, your most dear and desirable things in the world – to be forsaken; indeed, hated for Christ’s sake. The terms are set so high that a man must lose his brains, says unbelief, before he can be wrought up to them. Can you endure to see all the labours of your life become a prey to your enemies; to see what has cost you so much study and toil scattered and destroyed in a day, when it is yet in your power to save all; to see your habitation cast you out, to see your pleasant fields possessed by strangers? Are you hardy enough to encounter beggary, to fight with hunger, thirst and nakedness, to lie in a nasty jail, to endure a parting pull with your nearest relatives, who are as your own soul?
But there are harder trials than these. Can you endure a tormenting death, by cruel barbarous enemies; can you stand quietly at a stake and endure the terrible torments of fire, even while you are in the flower of your age, have the full use of your senses, and have a fair prospect of many pleasant years before you – and all this for unseen glory in another world? These are the arguments urged by unbelief against embracing Christ’s overtures in the gospel, or coming under the rule of this new Lord. And how many they prevail with! Thus Satan makes his subjects secure to himself.
But sinner, if God has any intention of saving your soul in mercy, you shall feel the more powerful principles of faith and love overpowering these carnal reasonings within thy soul. It is admirable to behold the almighty influences of grace upon nature: how the drawing of the Spirit, His omnipotent pull at the heart, makes the strongest ties of this world to give way. “Lo, we have left all, and followed Thee” (Mk 10:28). But if you are fixedly resolved not to give up Satan’s government for Christ’s; if you say in your heart, I will never consent to such hard conditions; then hear your sentence, “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me” (Lk 19:27). The sentence is dreadful, the execution sure; your unbelief will as surely damn you as a millstone about your neck, in the midst of the sea, will drown you. “He that believeth not shall be damned” (Mk 16:16). You have cast the vilest dishonour on Christ, you have rejected the only way of salvation; and what can the outcome of your final unbelief be but ruin and destruction?
2. The next point of application is persuasive work to gain the consent of souls to come under the government of Christ, to make His heart glad and yourselves happy for ever, by your espousals to Him. O that I could this day so represent this King in His glory, so make known the miserable thraldom you are in under Satan and your lusts, so make clear the reasonableness and easiness of Christ’s demands, that the response to my demand for your consent to Christ might be as hearty (though not so audible) as ever was at the coronation of any king.
1. Consider the glory and dignity of the Person of Christ;
He is the Son of God by nature, “the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person” (Heb 1:3). He is “the Prince of the kings of the earth” (Rev 1:5). The most glorious monarch over men is but as a worm of the earth, or as an insect in the air, compared with Solomon in his glory; the most perfect beauty in the creatures, beneath or above, is blackness and deformity in comparison with Christ: The beauty of roses, lilies, sun, stars and angels is not worthy to be mentioned in comparison with Christ: “Thou art fairer (says His spouse) than the children of men”. No one ever saw Him savingly by the eye of faith but were charmed into His bosom by love. To see Christ is the feast of blessed souls above.
The King of glory makes suit for your hearts this day; He woos for your consent. He passed by apostate angels, not once making them an offer of reconciliation or union, but comes to you in His red garments, glorious in His apparel. He shed His invaluable blood to redeem sinners to God; He loved them and gave Himself for them; if there is a drop of love in your hearts, I think the excellence of Christ should extract it. Write that man a beast, a senseless post, that has no love for Christ.
2. Consider what a blessed state,
abounding with glorious and invaluable privileges, that your consent to be Christ’s brings you to. It opens to you all privileges, mercies, and blessings that are desirable in the eyes of men; it opens into freedom and liberty, from slavery to Satan and sin, from the curse of the law and the danger of wrath to come. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (Jn 8:36). It opens the door into rest and peace – peace with God, peace in your own consciences (Rom 5:1-3).
You have never yet tasted the deliciousness of peace if you are strangers to Christ – and never shall till you consent to be His. This shall be your support, amidst all the confusions and distractions, hurries and tumults, of this restless and unquiet world. “This man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land, and when he shall tread in our palaces” (Mic 5:5). Christ has pitched His standard in the gospel; go to it, come under His banner, and enlist among His faithful subjects; and the glory of the world to come is yours if you overcome and are faithful unto death (Rev 2:10,11). The subjects of Christ, in this kingdom of grace, are shortly to be all translated into the kingdom of glory.
3. Consider the miserable bondage
you are now in, over whom Satan rules, and how your condition grows worse and worse till it shall not be capable of any further addition of misery, to make it more completely miserable. You are now without God, without a promise, without peace, without the pardon of one sin (Eph 2:12). You have no communion with God or title to heaven; you are slaves to your sordid lusts (Tts 3:3), under the curse (Gal 3:10), condemned already (Jn 3:18), and if you die out of Christ, you shall die in your sins (Jn 8:24). He that was your ruler in the world, is to be both your companion and tormentor in the world to come (Mt 25:41.).
Is this a condition to be satisfied in? Can you sleep quietly in your chains? I think the poor prisoners of Satan should sigh and cry, through the grates of the prison, especially when they are informed of deliverance at the door.
You have no reason to take fright at the terms propounded to you by Christ; they are fair, necessary and easy. “Come unto Me . . . My yoke is easy, and My burden is light” (Mt 11:28,29). “His commandments are not grievous” (1 Jn 5:3). All His ways are pleasantness, and all His paths are peace (Prov 3:17). “The joy of the Lord is your strength (Neh 8:10). If there is repenting work, believing work, sin-mortifying work, or suffering work for you, there is also a suitable provision of divine assistance, to enable and carry you through it all. “My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Cor 12:9). If men cast you out, God will receive you (2 Cor 6:17,18). If you experience any sharp trial, a door of escape has been prepared for you (1 Cor 10:13). If you meet with trouble in the world, you shall not fail to find peace in Christ (Jn 16:33). If you lose any outward enjoyment for Christ’s sake, it shall be recompensed an hundredfold in this world, besides the reward of heaven hereafter (Mt 19:29). If you are cast into prison for Christ, the Comforter shall come from heaven and rest upon you (1 Pet 4:13,14). If you suffer with Him, you shall reign with Him (2 Tim 2:12).
What do you think, brethren, of Christ’s terms now? What is there here for men to scare and take fright at? Can you mend yourselves elsewhere? O when shall the match be made? When will you come to Christ and say, Lord, I heartily consent to take Thee for my King; I am pleased with the hardest condition required in Thy Word.
4. Be convinced of the unreasonableness of all that you can pretend against this great duty.
If you say, The pains of mortification are hard, you must in reason accept that the pains of damnation are harder, and that it is better for you to enter into life, halt and maimed, than having two eyes or hands, to be cast into hell; where the worm dies not, and where the fire is not quenched (Mt 5:29,30). If you say that you have no power to come to Christ, your consciences will at once tell you that you never yet put forth the utmost power that you have, in striving for your salvation. It will also tell you that you suppose you have such a power, or else why have you so long delayed repentance and conversion upon the pretence that you will seriously perform them hereafter? Besides, though your endeavours do not oblige God to do for you what you cannot do of yourselves; yet it is more probable He will do so when you strive to your utmost than when you carelessly neglect those duties and give yourselves up to the opposite courses.
Do you say you would strive if you were assured you would be accepted by Christ, if you came to Him and cast your poor souls on Him? Yet you daily spend your time and pains on lesser things, with no assurance at all of success. The husbandman toils all day at ploughing, yet is not assured of a good harvest; his corn may die in the seed, or be blasted in the ear. The seaman ventures his possessions on the sea, yet has no assurance of a good return; the ship may come to harm. The miner will dig into the bowels of the earth and try here and there; yet he has no assurance that he shall find that rich vein of ore that shall repay his expenses and pains. Now if men will labour so hard and risk so much for uncertainties, for a little of the world, does your own reason not conclude that you ought to do more and venture further than any of them, to obtain Christ and eternal salvation? Strive to escape from Satan’s kingdom to Christ. Do not sit with folded hands on seats of sloth, saying, It is to no purpose.
Suppose you are now on your deathbed, and all earthly comforts have become insipid, conscience anticipating the wrath to come, with time and hope ending together. Would you not then wish that you had been ruled by Christ’s laws and Spirit, and not by Satan and your own lusts? If you had been a servant of Christ, you would now be going to Christ. If He had been your ruler, He would have saved you: but “his servants ye are to whom ye obey”. You have served your lusts, and “the wages of sin is death”.
Or suppose you saw the glories of heaven or the horrors of hell; suppose you heard the hallelujahs of the palm-bearing multitude or the shrieks of damned castaways; would you be so indifferent about obeying Christ’s call? Believe it, these things are no fables, but they really exist, whether you pay attention to them or not. And why should you not think of these things beforehand that are so sure and so near? A sweet voice comes from heaven this day, saying, Let all who expect to enjoy eternal glory see that they submit heartily to Christ’s rule, for He saves no more than He rules over. The whole number of the glorified in heaven is made up of such as heartily closed with Christ’s terms on earth. A dreadful voice comes up from hell, crying (as it were) in your ears: As you expect to escape the miseries and torments that are here, do not reject Christ’s yoke as we did. Our yielding up ourselves to be ruled by our lusts was our ruin.
3. The last point of application is: Let all men try their own state of soul and examine what king they belong to and whose subjects they truly are, Christ’s or Satan’s; for these two kingdoms make up the whole world. God has given us self-reflecting powers; we can leave the confused noises of the world, and sit in the innermost closet of our own souls, where none but God and our consciences shall be privy to our thoughts. There we may solemnly demand of our conscience and charge it to give plain and faithful answers to such questions as these:
Question 1.
To whom do I yield the most prompt, cheerful and constant obedience? To the commands of Christ, or to the solicitations of Satan and my own lusts? He whom I obey is my Lord and King. “To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey” (Rom 6:16). When God and conscience call me to pray, and the world calls me away to attend its ensnaring pleasures and unnecessary employments; which of these calls do I obey?
Question 2.
Who governs the secret and unseen part of my life? Every man is, in God’s account, what he is in secret (Rom 2:28, 29). Now who is king in the closet? And what rules do my thoughts move by? If Christ brings my thoughts into obedience, so that I dare not indulge to myself a sinful liberty to enjoy the pleasure of the sins I have committed, or would commit if I had the opportunity; and if I am in the fear of God when alone and make conscience of my secret duties, as well as public ones; then I am under Christ’s government, and He is King of my soul (2 Cor 10:5, Mt 6:6). But if I make an external show of obedience to Christ and secretly obey my lusts, I am really the servant of sin and belong to another king. O my conscience, what do you say to these things?
Question 3.
Whom do I follow, or heartily resolve to follow, when it comes to a parting point between Christ and the world – when I must cleave to the one and forsake the other? (Mt 6:24). Do I with full purpose of heart cleave to the Lord? (Acts 11:23). Is it my sincere resolution to “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth”? (Rev 14:4). Or have I secret wishes to quit Christ’s service and give religion the slip, when it comes to real distress and difficulty? These questions will show whose government we are under.
Conclusion.
Thus I have endeavoured to spiritualise and apply the great, solemn actions of this good day, a day for which, I hope, the children yet unborn shall praise the Lord. How blessed will our King and Queen be, if they reign over a people that Christ reigns over, and will conscientiously pay them obedience in, and for, the Lord! I believe it will be a greater joy to their souls to see you set the crown upon Christ’s head, in your subjection to His laws, than to see the crown of England set on their own heads. Religion breeds the best subjects.
Let England praise the Lord for such a day as this! How many sad years have run out since it saw the crown upon the heads of a Protestant king and queen at once! Let faithful magistrates rejoice that, under such a government as this, they shall never more be put on the odious and dangerous drudgery of persecuting good men. Let ministers rejoice with double the joy of others! They shall no more be driven into corners, or put to silence (a silence as bitter as death) while the royal sceptre is swayed by such hands, wherein God has now placed it. Let all the people rejoice, for these their rulers shall be to them as the light of the morning, as the clear shining after rain (2 Sam 23:3,4). And let us all say, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord, we have waited for Him; we will rejoice and be glad in His salvation” (Is 25:9).
Preached at Dartmouth when William and Mary were crowned in 1689. Taken with editing from Flavel’s Works, vol 6. The first part dealt with three points: (1.) In what respects the day of a sinner’s espousals to Christ resembles the day of a king’s coronation. (2) How these two days differ. (3.) Why it is the day of the gladness of Christ’s heart.
A scribe of the law in Athens who imposed heavy punishments for small offences.
No doubt a reference to the Great Ejection of 1662, when around 2000 ministers, including Flavel, were put out of their charges.