The LORD's Beloved Garden [His people]

"Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits, camphor with spikenard, spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, with all the chief spices." -Song of Solomon 4:13, 14 [KJV]

Hear, my soul, what Christ, thy Husband and thy Saviour, saith to the church! and as thou art a part of it in Him, take it to thyself. Surely the church of Jesus is His garden, and every plant in it, which the heavenly Father hath planted, must flourish, with all the increase of God, as trees of the Lord's right-hand planting. Even the tenderest plants, the youngest of His people, form a part in this orchard of pomegranates; for every one hath been taken out of nature's wild wilderness, and brought, by sovereign and distinguishing grace, into the Lord's garden, His church; and, like pomegranates, a large and full-bearing fruit, sweet and delicious, they are in Jesus's eye most pleasant, from the beauty and comeliness He hath put upon them. 

And do observe how very gracious thy Lord is, in enumerating not only "the pleasant fruits," but "the chief spices;" meaning, no doubt, that as in Him they partake of all that is His, and derive beauty, and fragrancy, and fruitfulness, from their Lord, as the branch from the vine; so do the various graces of His blessed Spirit appear in them, as the sweet fruits under His creating and ripening influence.

See to it, my soul, that these things do appear in thee; and that faith, and love, and hope, and joy, and peace in believing, abound in thee, through the Holy Ghost. Oh! the blessedness of knowing these things, and enjoying them. And Oh! the blessedness of being thus distinguished, as the rare spices of the east, with such love-tokens of Jesus. Thou knowest that if thou art as an orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits, thou art wholly so from Jesus. Nature never produceth them, neither can bring them forth, or cause them to flourish. 

Oh! then, Thou dear Lord! if I am by sovereign grace, precious and pleasant in Thy view, be Thou eternally praised, and eternally glorified for the distinguishing mercy: for of Thee, and from Thee, and by Thee, I am what I am; and Oh! let Thy grace live in me, to Thy praise, and to the glory of His grace, Who hath made me accepted in the Beloved!

 

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

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