slightly esteem them, Christ withdraws Himself, perhaps for a season. He hides His face. He withholds His tokens of love, and then the cry is made, perhaps impatiently, "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth."

Yet it is beautiful to see, that though unconscious for the moment of the immediate presence of Christ, the soul of the Believer looses not the consciousness of its true relation

ship to Jesus. It does not doubt His love, or belie His word; He "loveth His own unto the end." "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."

Reader, has your heart ever been so full of Christ's love that, without hypocrisy, and from the depth of your very soul you have prayed this prayer? Has thine heart ever felt its own emptiness and vileness? Has it not turned away oftentimes with sickening disgust from the hollowness and heartlessness of the world's children, whose love was but like the "morning cloud and early dew?" Or, has it happened that after a season of worldliness and lukewarmness, secret forgetfulness of Christ and heart-backslidings from Him, after being filled with all the lying vanities of the world, the flesh and the Devil : thy soul tired out with the idols of its own formation, unsatisfied with the chaff and husks it

has been filled with, even to loathing-has at length returned to seek Him whom it had for a season forsaken ? If So, then you can understand the earnest prayer of that soul which, conscious of its distance from Christ and its long lost enjoyment of His love, exclaims (earnestly remembering former blessings) "Let Him kiss me"; or "O that He would kiss me with the kisses of His mouth!"

Reader, if thy soul knows not the love of Christ, it will turn with loathing and ridicule from words like these!

1

But this only proves the truth of Scripture, that "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit, neither knoweth them, because they are spiritually discerned." May God's Holy Spirit enlighten thy soul, and shed abroad therein the love of Jesus Christ!" Remember how it is written "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha."2

"Thy love is better than wine." This is the reason assigned why the soul so earnestly desired Christ's presence" for Thy love is better than wine." "Wine" is continually employed in Holy Scripture to symbolise the choicest of earthly productions. So here doubtless the meaning is, that the renewed soul esteems 1. I. Cor. ii., 14

2. I. Cor. xvi. 22.

Christ's love as preferable to the best natural joy which can possibly gladden man's heart. However good and choice be the gifts and blessings of earth, and which the children of the world enjoy, they are not to be compared with the enjoyment of the Believer, which flows from the love of Christ. "O how excellent is Thy loving kindness, it is better than life itself!" 1 But to be more particular-for it is both interesting and profitable to draw out the parallel and see in how many respects "the love of Christ" is "better than wine."

"No man 99

2

says the Lord, "having drunk old wine, straightway desireth new; for he saith the old is better." It was a proverb in Israel then as it is with us- -that " age makes wine better." But what is there to be compared for antiquity with the love of Christ, which existed before ever the earth or the worlds were made? This is the testimony of the Holy Ghost to the eternal love of Christ: "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."3 And again: "I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." In the original, "set up" "signifies "anointed," i.e. "I," viz. "Wisdom"-the second person in the Trinity was

4

1. Psalm xxxvi., 7.—Psalm lxiii., 3.

3. Rev. xiii. 8.

2. Luke, v. 39.

4. Prov. viii. 23.

ordained of the Father, first to create, and preserve, afterward to redeem, and finally to restore all things:-and "that from the beginning," before which there was nothing except one vast abyss of eternity-yea, "before ever the earth was.” And going forward to the thirty-first verse, we find revealed the eternal love of Christ-" Then" (at the creation of the world) "I was by Him "-i.e. in the bosom of His Father, "and my delights "the affections of my soul and bowels of mercies, "were with the sons of men;" viz., while waiting the appointed season before revealing myself to them as Emmanuel-God manifest in the flesh. Surely then, as to antiquity, nothing can compare with the love of Jesus.

Again, Christ's "love is better than wine"because it is both cheaper and more plentiful. Wine is a luxury that can be purchased only by the rich. The love of Christ is "without

"1

money and without price." It is "freely shed abroad' 2 in the hearts of His people by the Holy Ghost. "Whoever will" is bid " come and take the water of life freely."3 And as it is both cheaper and freer than wine, so it is more plentiful.

In some places wine is scarce, and not to 1. Isaih lv., 1. Rom. v. 5. 3. Rev, xxii. 17.

2.

B

be had even at a very great price.

Even at the marriage feast of Cana in Galilee they wanted wine. But of the love of Christ there is and never can be any lack-It is an exhaustless fountain, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb. It is that river, whose streams "make glad the city of God." Thousands and tens of thousands have drank of its waters and lived; but it flows as freely and plentifully now when it was first opened for sinners. Jesus testifies now to each who reads or hears his words, of the fulness and plenteous streams of His love, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” 2

Christ's "love is better

as

than wine too

produced by both

of such as are

partakers thereof. Wine "makes glad the heart of man," but only for a moment under false excitement, which leaves him afterward in a more depressed condition. Christ's love gives the sinner's heart life, joy, and peace in the Holy Ghost-" a joy unspeakable and full of glory!" Wine if drank to excess destroys man's health, debilitates his mind, consumes his body, and wastes his estate; but let a man drink ever so freely of the love of Christ-his

I. Psalm xlvi, 4. 2. Jno. vii, 37.