Fair and Pleasant

"How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!" -Song of Solomon 7:6 [KJV]

My soul! thou hast been refreshed, many an evening, through grace, in beholding thy Lord, both in His person, and in His comprehensive fulness for His redeemed; nor wilt thou be without refreshment this evening, if thy Lord, in His sweet influences, be with thee, to make what is said in this lovely scripture, life and spirit in thine heart. They are the words of Jesus; and they express the love and complacency of delight which Jesus takes in His church. Surely nothing can be more blessed, than to see the high value the Son of God puts upon the church, which the Father gave Him, endeared as it is yet more in being the purchase of His blood! But what astonishment is it to the soul of a poor sinner, to be told, and by the lip of truth, that sinners are fair in Jesus's eyes! "Thou art fair, O love, yea, pleasant."  

Now remember, my soul, and in that remembrance let Jesus have all the glory, that this loveliness and beauty in the sinner, of every degree, that is regenerated, and made anew in Christ, is from Jesus. It is wholly from His righteousness, in which He beholds her clothed: "I washed thee with water, (saith the LORD) and I decked thee also with ornaments; and thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through My comeliness which I had put upon thee, saith the LORD God," Ezekiel 16:5-14.  

My soul! bow down under the conviction of all that remains of indwelling inbred sin; and, in language like that of the astonished apostle, cry out, 'Lord! how is it that thou hast set Thy love upon creatures so polluted and unworthy; and dost manifest Thyself to them otherwise than Thou dost to the world?' 

-Robert Hawker (1753-1827 A.D.)