Sermons in songs

Prefatory Note

THE title of this volume was suggested by the fact that the texts were chosen from the ''Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs" of the Old Testament and the New. The sermons were prepared along the course of the author's ministrations during a period of years. We all know that often in work there is worship, and that sometimes there is preaching in praise.

CHAS. S. ROBINSON.

Memorial Church, New York, September 20, 1885.

VOLUMES BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

SERMONS IK SONGS. i2mo, 323 pp., $1.25.

Sermons preached in the Memorial Church, New York City, the texts of which are chosen from the Songs of the Bible.

CHURCH WORK. i2mo, 319 pp $1.25.

Sermons neither occasional nor selected, but the actual rehearsal (once a week) of half a year's pastoral work.

BETHEL AND PENUEL. i2ino, 317 pp.,

$1.25.

The remaining half year's work in the same pulpit ; founded upon the two incidents of Jacob's life at Bethel and Penuel.

STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. i2mo, 316 pp $1-25.

Homiletic expositions with illustrations of consecutive passages in the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse.

STUDIES OF NEGLECTED TEXTS.

Sermons peculiar in that the themes of discourse are chosen from texts somewhat rarely selected for pulpit use.

SIMON PETER; His Early Life and Times. i2mo, 350 pp $1-25.

Sermons biographical and practical, jiicturesq^uely delineating the career of this misunderstood desciple of our Lord.

Contents

I. The King's Daughter 9

" The king's daughter is all glorious within ; her clothing is of wrought gold." — Psalm 45 : 13.

II. The Prince's Bride 21

II. The Prince's Bride

" She shall ee brought unto the King in raiment of needlework ; the virgins her companions that follow her

SHALL BE BROUGHT UNTO THEE." — Psalm 45 : I4.

Last week we began, and were not able to finish, the study of this psahn. But with some painstaking- we were successful in reaching the conclusion that the royal maiden here introduced to our notice was intended to be a figure of the Church just on the eve of her ultimate espousal to her divine Lord.

Her royalty was threefold, and that of itself is worth a moment's comment. History relates that the Empress Matilda was the daughter of a king, then the wife of a king, and at last the mother of a king. So with equal admiration here we may remark that in one place the Church is apparently called a King's Daughter, in another is reckoned as a Monarch's Mother, and in our text is shown to have been a Prince's Bride.

Still one more thought needs to be repeated in commencing our study again — namely, that this whole figure is true of each soul that is in the Church invisible, just the same as it is of the Church as a body. And now we are ready to go

The Bride's raiment. " Wrought gold."

on a little further in the exposition. We are invited to a wedding, and we find a glowing description of the bride's raiment, the bride's maids, and the bride's new home. We can take these up in turn.

I. Let us begin with the raiment : "She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needlework : her clothing is of wrought gold." This is very much what had been intimated before in the ninth verse, when the poet was singing of the king : " Kings' daughters were among thy honorable women : upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir. "

The richest of all the metals is gold ; this has been true, for all we know, since the world was made. And of all gold, that gold from Ophir was the purest gold. Christ suffers nothing cheap or common to be placed upon the person of his Bride the day when she is to be married. But let us observe carefully the adroit grace of language with which these descriptions are lodged in our imaginations. A garment of metal strikes us as very stiff, very awkward and ungainl}^ for a bride's dress ; and gold is certainly one of the weightiest of metals, almost as unwieldy and burdensome as lead. The inspired poet lifts his image, therefore, with exquisite delicacy ; he says "wrought gold." In the text he enlivens the picture still more ; he says the queen shall be brought to the king " in raiment of needlework." Such curious helpfulness of terms in the speech

Aaron's robes. Christ's righteousness.

makes us think of those ancient times in which the skill of metal-artisans fashioned garments of intricate chains and links, woven of so light a texture that the filaments seemed of silk rather than of silver or steel or gold — gossamer threads of spun metal, which are said to have floated in the air. Something like this was certainly done when the " holy garments for Aaron" were made ; for the record says : "And they did beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires, to work it in the blue, and in the purple, and in the scarlet, and in the fine linen, with cunnmg work." Our New Revision renders the text thus : " She shall be brought unto the King in broidered work ; her clothing is inwrought with gold. ' '

But now the chief thing for us is concerning the significance of this wonderful dress : what does the picture mean ? In other words, what are the new garments which the soul that is espoused to Christ the Saviour is going to put on at the bridal ? To gain an easy answer to such a question, we must lay the imagery of the Apocalypse alongside of the prophecy and the psalm. Finer vision no human eye ever saw than that which passed before the Apostle John in the lonely island of Patmos : " And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia : for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him : for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his

Fine linen. " A fair mitre."

wife hath made herself read3^ And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white : for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints." The garments of the Lamb's Bride, then, are significant of her character. It is the righteousness of the saints with which they are clothed. This language turns us back at once to the enthusiastic song of the prophet Isaiah : " I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God ; for he hath clothed me with garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels."

With this we also recall the vision of Zechariah, that in which he saw Joshua the high-priest coming up at first before the angel of the Lord with filthy garments upon his person ; the explanation of this has always been clear as a picture of human need under the defilement of sin. But suddenly, while the prophet was looking at the scene, the angel gave command that this raiment should be all stripped away from him ; he also said, " Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with changfe of raiment ; let them set a fair mitre upon his head." This means the bestowal of Christ's righteousness in the place of man's pollution. The " fair mitre" is rendered in the margin of the New Revision as a "clean turban." A swift change of outward appearance, from filth to cleanliness, is the sign of

Inward cleansing. . The Bride's maids.

inward washing from all defilement of sin. Such a passage is the more remarkable because it is found in the prophecies of the Old Testament, and not among the clearer fulfilments of the New. * ' Our righteousnesses are as filihy rags. ' ' Joshua is here put as the type man of the race. The angel of the Lord is Jesus Christ ; he gives his own robe for man ; that represents his mighty and inexhaustible merit before the law of our Maker. No soul of earthly defilement can ever enter the presence-chamber of the Lamb of God on that day of days when he takes his Bride home, unless he has on him a recognized wedding-garment of the imputed righteousness of the Redeemer. God " hath made him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." All this picturesque presentation of the gospel plan was put on the inspired record full five hundred years before the shepherds heard the choirs singing out in the air over the Bethlehem hills.

2. Thus, now that we know what the Bride's raiment signifies, we are ready, in the second place, to inquire about the Bride's maids, attendant upon her at this wedding : " She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needlework : the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee. With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought : they shall enter into the King's palace."

We shall not catch the full power of this similitude unless our imagination lends itself willingly

Oriental weddings. The Bride is the Church.

to the gorgeous fancy in the scene. It is an oriental marriage festival which is pictured ; but a group of choice epithets is suddenly aggregated in the description. The maiden's train of com.- panions is made up of honorable women ; princesses advance to give her a welcome as she passes. There is in all this the showy pageantry of a wedding, with something of its bewildering confusion of display as well as of its splendor, wherein nobles vie with each other in lavish expenditure. For it is a King's Daughter who is the betrothed maiden ; it is a Monarch's Son who is the groom leading home his Bride. He has wooed her royally ; he will crown her at the instant of espousals ; then he will provide her a palace for her abode. But how much of all this is literal in the turn of the simihtude, it is not easy to say. We have reached the satisfactory conclusion that the Bride is the Church ; there is no doubt as to the meaning of the psalm so far: "Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for the Church, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy and without blemish."

But now we are not sure that we can fix the meaning of each particular in the pageant. When we read that these virgins who accompany the Bride as her maids shall likewise be conducted to

Who are the maids ? Shoshannirn means lilies.

the King, being brought to him precisely as lierself, it perplexes us to decide who they are. They are not her waiting servants or attendants merely, to be disposed of at her serene pleasure ; they are her equals, her companions. If there be any religious instruction in this part of the picture, it is to be found in the suggestion that the Jewish privileges under the former dispensation were to be shared, as they certainly were, under the later dispensation, with the Gentiles.

Still, I cannot believe that much good will come from any close analysis of the poetic description ; for I do not think a writer so. excited would pause to fix his references so definitely. Most of us would prefer to look up and see this grand procession moving on, without inquiring who the maids were, or who the singers were that chanted the songs. Indeed, the psalm has a very unusual form of dedication ; it is entitled : " To the chief musician upon Shoshannim ;" and the word sJioshannim means lilies ; hence some of the soberest commentators suppose that reference is intended here to the maidens whose purity and beauty shine like lilies in the marriage train. Only one thing is clear to us as we read along through the song ; every device of rhetoric is put into employ in order to fill our imaginations with a sense of the splendor of that train on the way toward the King's dwelling, where the feast is to be spread, and the guests entertained.

A grand procession. The Bride's home.

3. Now, in the third place, it is left for us to consider the Bride's new home : " They shall enter into the King's palace with gladness and rejoicing."

Of course it is a royal abode which is to be this maiden's future residence ; for it is the mansion of her lord into which she goes. This psalm does not take up the task of singing its praises ; it is occupied with hymning the beauties and the honors, the graces and the glories, of the Prince and of his Bride. The new wife will then be a queen ; she will be regnant as well as regal. Christ promises all that now ; and as we begin to think how much of comfort and help there is in the spiritual application of the inspired poem, it will be well for us to dwell for a few moments upon at least two admonitions.

The one of these has reference to our patience in waiting for our Lord's coming. He observes the steady hopefulness and endurance of all his followers, while as yet he does not establish his whole rights here on the earth. Historians always remark concerning the pathos of the moment when an exiled monarch, restored at last, bestows royal favors upon the faithful adherents who shared his fortunes while he was contending for his crown. King Jesus does not seem to have much to give his followers now. But a better season is sure to arrive. I remember that in Roman annals it is recorded concerning one poor citizen named Agrippa, really poverty-stricken and worried,

Agrippa's new chain. The long run.

that he uttered the wish aloud that Caius were the emperor. The reigning t^yrant on the imperial throne was offended, and so threw the man into prison. Slow years passed on, and by and by Caius did indeed come to the throne. And then he gave a province to the freed Agrippa ; and he cast a chain around his neck, ringing as it shook its links of beautiful gold — a chain measured so as to be of the exact weight of the fetters he had Avorn while in jail for the honor of his master. Such a thought fills us with hope when we suffer and toil for the Lord Jesus. And the little story recalls the glowing words of the prophet who sung them nearly three thousand years ago : ' ' For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron : I will also make thy officers peace, and thine extractors righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders : but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise."

It becomes really wise and salutary, therefore, for any Christian, who would rightly estimate the worth of his sonship in God, to learn to reckon what in our familiar language men are wont to call "the long run," He must train himself to turn away from the tyranny of the present, and accept the eminence of the future instead. He must discipline his imagination to live with more extensive sweeps of fancy out in the air before it. We judge poorly of what we think is for human

The tyranny of the present. Forecast the future.

advantage, merely because we attempt to estimate at too short ranges ; thus we miss all true perspective ; and thus we become entangled with foolish longings and more foolish conceits. There are times in which God's dear children would actually sigh for some onions and leeks, such as they used to eat in Egypt, and be willing to forget the fair and happy land of Canaan lying on ahead.

Out in space are stars so distant that we cannot discern any parallax. Yet we are certain they have orbits wide beyond any possible register of human measurement. It is owing to the simple fact that our planet is nothing but a point in the solar system that we cannot see beyond the sun itself. And still we trust the astronomers who are wiser than we are with figures.

Just so we ought to take on faitli the statement that our immortal souls are going to circle in orbits of inconceivable experience, which we need not expect even to comprehend at this poor moment of our earthly history. We must learn to forecast our future ; for our glory lies in the life to come, and not in this : " For I reckon, that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God."

Then the other admonition which is suggested here claims notice. It has reference to the ills and inconveniences, the trials and pains, of this present

state of our existence. It is wise always to remember that our Lord is making every one whom he loves ready and meet in character and in tastes for the true life that is on before them all. Disciplines of Christian souls are but the small annoyances of an attiring-room to the King's Daughter, going forth to her bridal feast, where the Beloved is to see her face earliest. She ought to be patient and brave, surely, just while she is being dressed for the occasion and made meet for her inheritance in the light. It is related in history that on the day when Mary of England was advanced to the throne, the Princess Elizabeth, her sister, younger by many years, and so the heiress of the honor to which she now ministered, was deputed to carry the new queen's crown in the coronation procession ; she turned to the French ambassador pettishly, and complained of its weight in her hands. The adroit courtier replied significantly : " Be patient awhile ; it will seem much lighter when it shall rest on your head."

What we endure for others, what we have to bear for ourselves, should be looked upon in the light of simple present inconvenience, to be one time forgotten altogether in the perfect fruitions of our final establishment and rest. This is not to be achieved by just an impulse of self-revolution ; it comes only of long self-discipline. We must learn to look up and off and far on ahead, so as that we really live in another world than this. You have seen the signs on a guide-board : the hand painted

Index fingers. A far-off look.

in conspicuous letters, with the forefinger extended to point the path or show the way. Suppose a Christian should put on his front door, on his business entrance, on his counting-room desk, on his iron safe, on the panels of his carriage, on the furniture of his table — indeed, on ever3^thing which habitually he saw or touched — a small quiet hand with the index finger pointing upward and far away ; how some people would smile at him ! It might not be wise ; but suppose he should seem to see it, think he saw it, wished to keep seeing it always ; then he would sometimes say to himself gently and joyously, " This is no home, nor rest, nor abiding-place for me ; I belong elsewhere ; the future is my land, my country, my residence, my hope !" Would there be any pressure thereafter of daily burdens of care? "For we are saved by hope : but hope that is seen is not hope : for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for ? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."

Each suffering, which begins at all or ends at all, bears no perceptible or measurable relations to eternity, which is without beginning and without end. It might be reproduced over and over again, and then die out and be utterly forgotten. Let the Bride keep thinking of the day when she shall be brought unto the King's palace, and shall enter it with gladness and rejoicing. We must set our thoughts upon that vast hereafter ; and then all these worries and disappointments, these cares

The bride's companions. A classic story.

and weights of work, will sink into their own proper insignificance. " For our hght affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory : while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen : for the things which are seen are temporal ; but the things which are not seen are eternal."

Meantime, let the Bride's companions sing as they go. We may find all the sermons we need in the songs that we sing. " We are on our way to God." In the old classic story we were told that ^gistheus could not turn Clytemnestra away from her joyous duty till he had murdered the venerable bard whom Agamemnon had left behind to sing with her. The procession is a part of the wedding, even though the street be hot and the way be long. And the home stands yonder on the hill : " Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear ; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house ; so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty : for he is thy Lord ; and worship thou him."

III. The Bride's Presents

"And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with A GIFT." — Psalm 45 : 12.

In the casino of the Rospigliosi Palace at Rome there is a painting upon the ceiling which has long attracted the admiration of the world. It represents Aurora, the goddess of the morning, advancing along the sky to bring in the dawn. The car of Phoebus is drawn by steeds that seem almost alive in the air. There are groups of female attendants, symbolizing the hours, all around ; some of them pale and gentle, as if lit only by twilight and waiting quietly for their turn to come to rule the declining day ; some eagerly alert and exultant, as they rush and shine in the blaze of the sunrise it is their office to welcome. Up overhead there is a Morning Star, bearing a torch in his outstretched hand, the flame of which is blown back by the swiftness of his speed as he hastens on to kindle the lamps ot day.

But the fairest figure of all is that of Aurora herself. It does not seem as if it could be possible for human pencil to put into lines and colors a beautiful woman more comely or more attractive. She walks as firmly as if she were on a meadowed

The " Aurora" of Guide. A pageant in a poem.

sward, and yet so light is her elastic step that she rests easily upon the atmosphere she treads.

The thought which always impresses one at first sight of this marvelous picture of Guido is that of velocity in action, a certain sort of vigorous healthiness of life moving on, positively indescribable in mere words. The horses are all afire in the light which they are facing. The Hours are gentle and soft in their feminine graces, but still display a matchless force in their unfatigued rapidity. The car is borne forward on wheels that are indistinct with the whirling. Everything is floating and moving ahead, and the sky is full of life. It is as if the artist had caught a mere flash of the grand procession of the dawn in the heavens, and had fixed it there on the roof of an earthly palace for mortals to look up to.

To those who have visited the Italian city and seen this masterpiece of art there will be needed no explanation of the present allusion to it. Any one who reads this forty-fifth psalm will catch the suggestion. It is a pageant in a poem. It is a pageant of marriage, and the bride is a king's daughter, and becomes a prince's wife. The psalm moves on with the same kind of living celerity that arrests attention in the famous painting. It seems as if we could almost see the procession on the way to the bridegroom's house. The sacred poem celebrates the union of Christ with his Church, and so it swings onward, and sings along by itself. Our eyes are kindled as we

A matchless maiden. The New Testament church.

behold this matchless maiden, who is the centre of the scene — indeed, until the bridegroom shows himself, the fairest of all the company, although she has kings' daughters for her honorable women — this queen standing there in gold of Ophir. It is with a reverent sense of its fitness that we wait while the inspired poet makes his address to one so worthy of his praises :

" Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear ; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house : so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty : for he is thy Lord ; and worship thou him. And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift ; even the rich among the people shall entreat thy favor. The king's daughter is all glorious within : her clothing is of wrought gold."

It relieves this psalm of all minor criticism as being too florid in its orientalism, too gorgeous ni its imagery, to consider it, as it undoubtedly is meant to be, prophetic of gospel times, and symbolic of the New Testament church. This maiden is the Lamb's wife, and she is on the way to her husband ; he is waiting for her at the marriage feast now. It is with this interpretation that the poem becomes specific. We can see the far and beautiful reach of many of the otherwise obscure references, and we can understand many of the suggestive expressions.

When, for example, we read, at the close, that, " instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth,"

The rich entreating favor. An ancient custom.

we may learn that Jesus Christ is the only true king-maker ; God will raise up for himself a spiritual seed whose line shall never fail so as to become extinct ; though veterans depart in the ranks of the spiritual army, volunteers shall arise to fill their loyal places ; and when Immanuel's crown shall rest on his head, he will reign over a New Jerusalem of palaces and a kingdom of kings. And then also, when we read that " even the rich among the people shall entreat thy favor," we may congratulate ourselves that all the vast wealth of the world shall become consecrate, so as to be laid eventually at the feet of the Church of Christ, and that for Christ's sake. It is thus that the grand promise shall be fulfilled, as it is made here in the psalm ; thus it is that the Church's name shall be remembered in all generations, and God shall be praised by the people forever and ever.

In this way we come to perceive, and we begin to appreciate, the matchless meaning of that fragment of a verse which we have, more or less by itself, chosen for our present theme of comment : " And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift." Here is allusion to the presents which a beloved bride is accustomed, now as then, to receive from all acquaintances. A custom is this so ancient that no man's memory can tell its origin, that of bringing for the new wife's acceptance articles for use and adornment upon the day of her marriage. All the world over this is one of

Oriental processions. Isaiah's description.

the common and beautiful ceremonies of the wedding. We have seen in the East the procession of menials and servants advancing with the sound of music through the streets of the city at mid-day. So fine and so showy have been the trains that, as strangers, we have imagined them to be bridal displays ; but indeed they were only the files of porters carrying home the costly vessels, and rings, and bracelets, and garlands, and wreaths, and mirrors, with which friends were going to grace the occasion when a maiden should become a wife. Huge trays of burnished silver were borne high up on the heads of stalwart men, and on these lay jewels, and vases, and plumes, and flowers. And all this was because it was the day of a marriage ; the groom was waiting in his palace, and the bride had made herself ready. The daughters of wealth were coming with gifts.