A Refreshing Canticle

"We will remember your love more than wine."-Solomon's Song 1:4.

I. A RESOLUTION POSITIVELY EXPRESSED

II. THE COMPARATIVE RESOLUTION

III. THE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF REMEMBERING CHRIST'S LOVE

IV. A FEW PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS AS TO PRESERVING A DEEPER AND MORE SINCERE REMEMBRANCE OF CHRIST'S LOVE

The Hebrew word for "love" here is in the plural: "We will remember your LOVES." Do not think, however, that the love of Jesus is divided, but know that it has different channels of manifestation. All the affections that Christ has, he bestows upon his Church; and these are so varied that they may well be called "loves" rather than "love." By this expression we must understand, of course, all the love of Jesus, from the beginning even to the end; or, rather, to that eternity which has no end. We will remember those acts of love of which we have heard with our ears, and our fathers have declared unto us. It has been told us by inspired prophets, and God has revealed it to us in his Word, by his Spirit, that Jesus Christ loved us from before the foundation of the world. We believe that his love is no passion of modern date, -no mere spasm of pity. It is ancient as his glory, which he had with the Father before the world was, it is one of the things of eternity. This love divine is not a spring that welled up only a few days ago, but it is an everlasting fountain, which has never ceased to flow.

We will remember, O Jesus, that love of yours which was displayed in the council chamber of eternity, when you did, on our behalf, interpose as the Arbitrator and Mediator; when you did strike hands with your Father, and become our Surety, and take us as your betrothed! We will remember that love which moved you to undertake a work so burdensome to accomplish an enterprise which none but yourself ever could have achieved.

We will remember the love which suggested the sacrifice of yourself; the love which, until the fullness of time, mused over that sacrifice, and longed for the hour of which, in the volume of the Book it was written of you, "Lo, I come." We will remember your love, O Jesus, as it was manifested to us in your holy life, from the manger of Bethlehem to the garden of Gethsemane! We will track you from the cradle to the grave, for every word and every deed of your was love. You, wherever you did walk, did scatter loving kindnesses with both your hands. As it is said of your Father, "God is love," so, surely, you are love, O Jesus! The fullness of the Godhead dwells in you; the essence of love, nothing else but love, is your incarnate person.

And specially, O Jesus, will we remember your love to us upon the cross! We will view you as you come from the garden of your agony, and from the hall of your flagellation. We will gaze upon you with your hands and your feet nailed to the accursed tree. We will watch you when you could, if you had willed it, have saved yourself; but when you did, nevertheless, give up your strength, and bow yourself downward to the grave that you might lift us up to heaven. We will remember your love which you did manifest through your poor, bleeding hands, and feet, and side.

We will remember this love of your until it invigorates and cheers us "more than wine,"-the love, of which we have heard, which you have exercised since your death, the love of your resurrection, the love which prompts you continually to intercede before your Father's throne, that burning lamp of love which will never let you hold your peace until your chosen ones are all safely housed, and Zion is glorified, and the spiritual Jerusalem is settled on her everlasting foundations of light and love in heaven. We will remember all your love, from its beginning in the eternal past to the eternity that is to come; no, we will try to project our thoughts and imagination, and so to remember that, long as eternity shall continue, even forever and for evermore, so long shall your love exist in all its glory, undiminished in its luster or its force. "We will remember your love more than wine."

Nor is this all the love we have to remember. Though we ought to recollect what we have heard, and what we have been taught, I think the spouse means more than this. "We will remember your loves,"-not only what we have been told, but what we have felt. Come, dear hearers, let each one of you speak for yourselves; or, rather, do you think of this for yourselves, and let me speak of it for you. I will remember your love, O Jesus; your love to me when I was a stranger, wandering far from God; the love which restrained me from committing 'deadly' sin, and withheld my hand from self-destruction! I will remember the love which tracked me in my course- "When Satan's blind slave, I sported with death."

I will remember the love which held back the axe when Justice said, "Cut it down; why does it cumber the ground?" I will remember the love that took me into the wilderness, and stripped me there of all my self-righteousness, and made me feel my weight of guilt, and the burden of my iniquity. Specially will I remember the love which said to me, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." I cannot forget that matchless love which, in a moment, washed my sins away, and made my spotted soul white as the driven snow.

Can you forget, my brothers and sisters, that happiest of days when Jesus first whispered to you, "I am yours, and you are mine"? I can never forget the transporting hour when he spoke thus to me; it is as fresh in my memory now as if it had only happened this afternoon. I could sing of it, if it were right to stop a sermon for a sonnet; I could sing of that love, passing all measure, which took my soul, and washed it in the precious blood of Jesus, and then clothed it in the spotless robe of his righteousness. O love divine, you do excel all other loves, that you could deal with such a rebellious, traitorous worm, and make that worm an heir of heaven!

But we have more love than this to recollect- all the love that we have felt since then. I will remember the valley of Baca and the hill Mizar; nor shall my soul forget those chambers of fellowship where you have unveiled yourself to me. If Moses had his cleft in the rock, where he could see the back parts of his God, we also have had our clefts in the rock, where we have seen the full splendours of the Godhead in the person of Christ. Did David remember the tracks of the wild goat, where he was hunted on the mountains- the cave of Adullam, and the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites? We, too, can remember spots equally dear to these in blessedness. "The Lord has appeared of old unto me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you."

Christian, can you not recollect the sweet exchanges there have been between yourself and your Lord, when you have left your griefs at his feet, and borne away a song? Can you not remember some happy seasons when you went to him empty, and came away full? Is your heart heavy just now? It has not always been so. There have been times when, like David, you could dance before the Lord; times of holy merriment when, like Miriam, you could strike your timbrel, and say to those around you, "Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously." There have been times when Jesus and you have not been strangers to one another, for he has linked his arms in yours, and walked along with you; and there have been other times when your head has been upon his bosom, and you could feel his heart beating with warm love to you.

Thus, then, in the summary of Christ's loves, which I will now humbly endeavour to pass in review, it will be necessary for me to mention, not only the love we have heard about, but the love we have felt and enjoyed. Do not suppose, dear brothers and sisters, that I am able to refresh your memories upon this sacred subject. It is the Holy Spirit's work to assist you in that matter; but I do trust that the resolution contained in our text will be formed in the heart of every one of you, "We will remember your loves more than wine," and that you will have the grace to carry out that resolution.

I. Here then, beloved, we have A RESOLUTION POSITIVELY EXPRESSED: "We will remember your love."

Why does the spouse speak so positively? Because she is inspired; she is not like Simon Peter when he said, "Although all shall be fall away, yet I will not." She is speaking the truth, for she will not forget the love of her Lord. Why is that? For one very good reason, because she cannot. If the Church could forget Christ's love to her, she would do so. She is such a forgetful wife that all her Husband's affections would be lost upon her, were it possible. But that cannot be; there is something about the love of Christ that makes it adhere to those upon whom it is bestowed; we cannot forget it. It enters into the heart, like, wine that seasons the cask, and the scent thereof abides. It pervades the soul; it imbues every faculty; it brings the secret thoughts into obedience to Christ; it flows through every vein of hope and fear, passion and desire. So the spouse could truthfully say to her Lord, "We will remember your love." The virtue was not in her own constancy, but in the tenacity of his affection, wherefore she could not help remembering it.

What is there, in the love of Christ; that will compel us to remember it? The things that we recollect best are of certain kinds. Some things that we remember best have been 'sublime' things. When we have stood, for the first time, where we could see a lofty mountain, whose snowy summit pierced the thick ebony clouds, we have said, "We shall never forget this sight." When Humboldt, the great traveller, had his first view of the vast prairies of North America, he declared that he could never forget the sensations of that moment. I can imagine how Dr. Livingstone, when he first came in sight of the magnificent falls which he discovered, might well say, "To my dying day, I shall hear the rushing of that tremendous stream of water." I can myself remember an unusually violent thunderstorm, when the lightnings flew across the heavens, flash after flash, without a moment's pause, as though a thousand suns were dashing through the sky. I also recollect the consternation of men and women when a neighbouring house was smitten by the lightning, and burned with a terrific blaze, which could scarcely be seen by reason of the brightness of the lightning. My recollection of that terrible scene will never depart from me. The sublimity of what we have seen often causes us to remember it. So is it with the love of Christ. How it towers to heaven! And mark how brightness succeeds brightness, how flash follows after flash of love unspeakable and full of glory! There is no pause, no interval of darkness or blackness, no chasm of forgetfulness. Its sublimity compels us to remember its manifestation.

Again, we are pretty sure to recollect 'unusual' things. If we were asked whether we recollected that the sun had risen, we might say, "It is not a matter of memory at all. I feel certain that it did, though I did not see it rise." But if we are asked if we ever saw an eclipse, "Oh, yes!" we reply, "we recollect that; we remember watching it, and, how disappointed we were because it was not so dark as we expected it to be." Many people do not notice the stars much, but who forgets the comet? Everybody recollects that phenomenon of nature because it is unusual. When we see something strange, uncommon, out of the ordinary way, the memory at once fixes upon it, and holds it fast. So is it with the love of Christ. It is such an extraordinary thing, such a marvellous thing, that the like was never known. Ransack history, and you cannot find its parallel. There is but one love that is like it, that is the love of the Father to his only-begotten Son. Besides this, there is nothing to which we can compare the love of Christ to his people. That "constellation of the cross" is the most marvellous that is to be seen in the spiritual sky; the eye, once spellbound by its charms, must retain its undying admiration, because it is the greatest wonder of wonders, and miracle of miracles which the universe ever saw.

Sometimes, too, things which are not important in themselves are fixed on the memory because of 'certain circumstances which happen in association with them'. The country people often say, if you ask them whether they recollect such-and-such a year, "Ah, yes! it was the year of the hard frost, wasn't it?" Another time they will say, "Why, yes! that was the year when the blight fell upon our gardens, and all our potatoes were of no use, and we were nearly starved that winter. Circumstances help to make us recollect facts. If something particular in politics should happen on our birthday, or our wedding day, or on some other notable occasion, we should say, "Oh, yes! I recollect that; it happened the day I was married, or the day so-and-so was buried." Now, we can never forget the love of Christ, because the circumstances were so peculiar when, for the first time, we knew anything at all about it. We were plunged in sin and ruin; we were adrift on the great sea of sin, we had no hope, we were ready to sink, and no shore was near; but Jesus came and saved us. We can never forget those circumstances; with some of us, they were truly awesome, beyond all description. Therefore, we cannot forget the time when Jesus love first dawned upon our minds.

I think, my dear friends, I might give you twenty reasons why it would be impossible for the children of God to forget the love of Christ to them; but above and beyond every other reason is this one- 'Christ will not let his people forget his love'. If, at any time, he finds them forgetful, he will come to them, and refresh their memories. If all the love they have ever enjoyed should be forgotten by them, he will give them some fresh manifestations of love. "Have you forgotten my cross?" he asks; "then I will cause you to remember it afresh, for at my table I will manifest myself to you as I have not done of late. Do you forget what I did for you in the council chamber of eternity? Then I will remind you of it, for you still need a Counsellor, and I will come to your relief just when you are at your wits' end, and I will give you wisdom. Have you forgotten that I called you to myself when you were a stranger! I will bring you back from your wanderings, and then you will recollect me again."

Mothers do not let their children forget them if they can help it. If the boy has gone to Australia, and he does not write home, his mother writes to him, "Has my John forgotten his mother?" Then there comes back a sweet epistle, which lets the mother know that the gentle hint she gave him was not lost. So is it with Christ; he often says to one of his forgetful children, "What! is your heart cold to him who loved you so much that he could not live in heaven without you, but must need come to earth, go out into the wilderness, up to the cross, and down to the grave, in order to find you?" Be sure that he will have our hearts; prone to wander, he knows that they are, and we feel it ourselves, but he will have them. Oh, that he would drive the nail of the cross right through your hearts, that it might be forever fastened there! Painful might the process be; some sharp affliction might rend your flesh; yet, if that would bring you near your Lord, and keep you near him, you might thank him even for the affliction, and love him all the more because of it.

II. Now let us advance another step, and look at THE COMPARATIVE RESOLUTION: "We will remember your love more than wine."

Why is "wine" mentioned here? I take it to be used here as a figure. The fruit of the vine represents the chief of earthly luxuries. "I will remember your love more than the choicest or most exhilarating comforts which this world can give me." We have many things which we might compare to wine, in the good and in the bad sense, too. Good, because they cheer, and comfort, and invigorate; bad, because, when we rely upon them, they intoxicate, they overthrow, and cast down to the ground. We very readily remember the good things of earth for a season. When creature comforts abound with us, and we have happy and merry days, we recollect them; and when nights of darkness come upon us, we remember the days of our brightness, and we talk of them. It is so with the widow bereaved of her husband; she remembers the days of her happiness, when the partner of her joys was with her; she recollects his affectionate words, and his sweet deeds of love. In the case of the mother bereaved of her child, she recalls the love that child had to her, and the solace it was to her when her little one slept on her bosom. Have you become poor? Then the "wine" that you recollect is the wealth you once possessed; you remember how you had no need to tramp over weary miles, and to shiver in the wintry cold. Now that your pain has come, you recollect your former joy, and it makes your present pain all the more painful.

This "wine" may be, to a minister, the joy of being successful; and there may come to him days when his chapel will be half-empty, and then he will look back, with regret, upon the joys he once possessed. The spouse says, "We will remember your love more than all earthly comforts." She cannot help doing so; if she could, she would recollect the world rather than heaven; she would have a remembrance of creature comforts, and she would be forgetful of her Lord. The fact is, the impression which the love of Christ makes on the true believer is far greater and deeper than the impression which is made by anything earthly. Mere mortal joys write their record on the sand, and their memory is soon effaced; but Christ's love is like an inscription cut deeply into marble, the remembrance of it is deeply engraven in our hearts. The joy of the creature is something like a lithograph cut lightly on the stone; when the stone is cleaned, the picture is gone; but the love of Christ is like the steel engraving, it is deeply cut, and cannot be easily erased. Earthly joys tread with light feet, and leave but a faint impression; but the love of Christ treads into the very core of our soul at every footstep, and therefore it is that we remember it better than we remember any earthly pleasure.

Earthly comforts, too, like wine, leave but a mingled impression. In this 'cup of joy' there is always a 'dash of sorrow'. There is nothing we have here below which is not somewhat tainted with grief. Solomon has warned us against the sparkling wine: "Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it gives it's colour in the cup, when it moves itself aright. At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like an adder." Even "friendship", the very cream of joy, trembles on the confines of disappointment, as it is written, "Cursed be the man that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm."

But in Christ's love there is nothing for you ever to regret; when you have enjoyed it to the full, you cannot say that there has been any bitterness in it. When you have come forth from the secret chamber of communion with your Lord, you have realized the purity of his love, there has been nothing to qualify your enjoyment of it. When you have been to a party of your friends, you have said, "I have been very happy, but I could not enjoy myself there six days in a week;" but when you have been with Christ, you have felt that you could enjoy yourself in that way to all eternity; you could not have too much of such fellowship, for there was nothing in it to mar your happiness. True, there is the remembrance of your sin, but that is so sweetly covered by your Lord's forgiveness and graciousness, that his love is indeed better than wine. It has had all the good effects of wine, and none of its ill results.

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