The Pulpit Commentary — Song of Songs — Section 211

to remodel and revitalize my whole nature. No one else can do it. His strength is almightiness. Ir he will use hie Divine power for my good, I shall be emancipated ar.d purified and ennobled, I shall run gladly in hie ways. And he is willing to do it. He delights in saving men and in doing good. So I will pray, "0 Saviour, let thy great power work in me. Put forth thy strength on my behalf. 'Set me as a signet on thy arm.' " II. Ons1mvE THE ARGUMENT IN TRIB PRAYER. "For love is strong as death." The Christian has large hope and has large expectation, because the principle or quality in God concerned about his salvation is love. So he argues with his heavenly Friend in this way: "It is for my eternal good that my name should be engraven on thy heart, for this I know that love is strong ; yea, the mightiest thing in the world." 1. This plea for the assurance of God's love is founded on the power of love. Commentators have differed whether the writer had in view here Immanuel's love to us, or our love to him. But it is evident that the inspired writer is thinking about love in the abstract. Real love everywhere is strong. The timid bird, that usually flees from man or dog, will, to defend its young, risk its own life and attack its fiercest foe. Love is strong. What peril has not a human mother faced to save her child? Can we measure the strength of love by any known test? Can we express it by any metaphor ? I cannot conceive any difficult feat too formidable for love. I think of love as I observe its working among men. I think of it as I experience its strength in me. It is next to omnipotent in man. It will readily confront death and grapple that mysterious foe. Amongst men, it is strong as death; yea, stronger, mightier! What, then, must love be in our Immanuel? Here;it exists in perfect form, in uncreated measure, without a flaw or blemish. If love in Christ be the same sort of thing as love in my breast (and it is), then that love will endure anything to save its object. If my name is on Jesus' heart, this is my best-founded security for all good, present and eternal. 2. The argument proceeds on this ground, that bajfted love is poignant pain. "Jealousy hi cruel as the grave." This, again, is spoken of jealousy in the abstract. If I love, and my love is encouraged, and for a time reciprocated, until it bums with ardour; then, if a rival comes between me and my object, what pain, what fierce indignation, follows! Such jealousy springs out of injured love, that the heart-passion is uncontrollable. It over- leaps all barriers of law, all limits of reason. You cannot hold it in check. "It is cruel as the grave;" cruel as hell. Now, if Jesus has set his heart upon me; if he has sacrificed much on my account ; if he has attested his affection by the cross and by the grave; then will he allow any rival to supplant him? Would there not be a. feeling of intense pain, akin to jealousy, burning in his breast if anything came between him and the object of his love? Hence, for his own sake, he will not cast me off. For his own sake he will not cease to love me, nor cease to win my love in return. We are told that" he hates putting away." Here, then, is a very forceful argument, that for his own peace of mind, for his own honour, he will give me-poor, unworthy me-a, larger place in his heart. "Having loved his own, he loves them unto the eud." 3. The argument proceeds on love's unchangeableness. Literally translated, it is, "The coals thereof are the coals of God." This flame never decreases ; it is fed from a store- house of infinity. Changeableness is incident to man, but it has no place with God. We may love a person under a false estimate of that person's excellence. The charms may be plausible and pretentious rather than real. Hence our aftections may diminist undergo complete change. This can never happen with God. He does not love U:! because we are lovable. He loves us in order to make us lovable and worthy of himself. His love chose us when we were aliens, rebels, depraved, dead in sin. As there was nothing in UB to attro.ct him at the first, so nothing in us will drive him away. He will correct, chastise, prune, purify us, but will not allow his love to change. Says he, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." Tha flame of love which glows in his breast is a flame that car.not die out, so long as God is God. III. THE RESPONSE TO THIS PRAYER. We may very properly regard this verse as the bridegroom's response. To the pathetic, yearning appeal of the bride, he promptly replies, '"l'hy argument is most valid; cogent in the extreme. Yea, verily, ruauy waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it." 1. Love is all-victorious. If it be imaged forth as a flame of fire, then in one respect the figure fails. You can extinguish flame with water, if only you can pour on a sufficient quantity; but on this 202 THE smm OF SOLOMON. [err. vm. 1-14.