---

I. THE NEARNESS OF KIN OF THE CHURCH TO CHRIST, AND CHRIST TO THE CHURCH. He calls her in the text, "My sister, My spouse." As if He could not express His near and dear relationship to her by any one term, He employs the two. "My sister" — that is, one by birth, partaker of the same nature. "My spouse" — that is, one in love, joined by sacred ties of affection that never can be snapped. "My sister" by birth, "My spouse" by choice. "My sister" in communion, "My spouse" in absolute union with Myself. Oh, how near akin is Christ to all His people! But first, do try to realize the person of Christ. Believe that He truly is, and that He truly is here — as much here and as really here as He was at Jerusalem, when He sat at the head of the table, and entertained the twelve at the last supper. Jesus is a real Man, a real Christ — recollect that. Then let this further truth be equally well realized, that He has so taken upon Himself our human nature that He may correctly call His Church His sister. He has become so truly man in His incarnation, that He is not ashamed to call us brethren. He calls us so because we are so. Change of place has made no change of heart in Him. He in His glory is the same Jesus as in His humiliation. No man is so fully a man as Jesus Christ. If you speak of any other man, something or other narrows his manhood. You think of Milton as of a poet and an Englishman, rather than as a man. You think of Cromwell rather as of a warrior, than as a man. The second Adam is, par excellence, man. We may not think of Him as one amongst a vast number who may be distantly akin to us, as all men are akin to one another by descent; but the Lord comes near to each individual. He takes each one of His believing people by the hand, and says, "My brother." In our text He salutes the whole Church as "My sister." He says this with tender emphasis. As we have already observed, the first term, "sister," implies kinship of nature; but the second term, "My spouse," indicates another kinship, dearer, and, in some respects, nearer; a kinship undertaken of choice, but, once undertaken, is everlasting. This kinship amounts to unity, insomuch that the spouse loses her name, loses her identity, and, to a high degree, is merged in the greater personality to which she is united. Such is our union to Christ, if indeed we be His, that nothing can so well set it forth as marriage union. He loves us so much that He taken us up into Himself by the absorption of love. If you are true believers, if you have been born again, if you are really looking to Christ alone for salvation, He has brought you into a condition of the utmost conceivable nearness with Himself "He has participated in your nature, and He has made you a partaker of His nature, and in so many words He says, I will betroth thee unto Me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto Me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the Lord."

II. THE SECURITY OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN CONSEQUENCE OF BEING WHAT THEY ARE. "A garden inclosed is My sister, My spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed." We are not only like a garden, but a garden "inclosed." If the garden were not inclosed, the wild boar out of the wood would bark the vines, and uproot the flowers; but infinite mercy has made the Church of God an inclosure, into which no invader may dare to come. "For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her." Is she a spring? Are her secret thoughts, and loves, and desires like cool streams of water? Then the Bridegroom calls her "a spring shut up." Otherwise, every beast that passed by might foul her waters, and every stranger might quaff her streams. She is a spring shut up, a fountain sealed, like some choice cool spring in Solomon's private garden around the house of the forest of Lebanon — a fountain which he reserved for his own drinking, by placing the royal seal upon it, and locking it up by secret means, known only to himself. The legend hath it that there were fountains which none knew of but Solomon, and he had so shut them up that, with his ring he touched a secret spring, a door opened, and living waters leaped out to fill his jewelled cup. No one knew but Solomon the secret charm by which he set flowing the pent-up stream, of which no lip drank but his own. Now, God's people are as much shut up, and preserved, and kept from danger by the care of Christ, as the springs in Solomon's garden were reserved expressly for himself. Are you really in Christ? If so, who is to pluck you thence? Are you really trusting Him? How can He fail you? Have you been begotten again into the Divine family? How can that new life be quenched?

III. THE MOST STRIKING IDEA OF THE TEXT IS THAT OF SEPARATION: "A garden inclosed is My sister, My spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed." A garden is a plot of ground separated from the common waste for a special purpose: such is the Church. The Church is a separate and distinct thing from the world. Let us, however, take heed that our separateness from the world is of the same kind as our Lord's. We are not to adopt a peculiar dress, or a singular mode of speech, or shut ourselves out of society. He did not so; but He was a man of the people, mixing with them for their good. He was seen at a wedding-feast, aiding the festivities: He even ate bread in a Pharisee's house, among cautious enemies. He neither wore phylacteries, nor enlarged the borders of his garments, nor sought a .secluded cell, nor exhibited any eccentricity of manner. He was separate from sinners only because He was holy and harmless, and they were not. The Church is to be a garden, walled, taken out of the common, and made a separate and select plot of ground. She is to be a spring shut up, and a fountain sealed, no longer open to the fowl of the air, and the beasts of the field. Saints are to be separate from the rest of men, even as Abraham was when he said to the sons of Seth, "I am a stranger and a sojourner with you."

IV. THE TEXT BEARS EVEN MORE FORCIBLY ANOTHER IDEA, NAMELY, THAT OF RESERVATION. The Church of God is "a garden inclosed." What for? Why, that nobody may come into that garden, to eat the fruit thereof, but the Lord Himself. It is "a spring shut up," that no one may drink of the stream but the Lord Jesus. "But," cries one, "are we not to seek the good of our fellow-men?" Assuredly we are to do so for Christ's sake. "Are we not to seek to help on sanitary, educational, and purifying processes, and the like? Yes so far as all can be done for His sake We are to be the Lord's servants for the blessing of the world, and we may do anything which He would have done. In such a garden as the text speaks of, every plant bears flowers for its owner, every tree yields fruit for him. "All for Jesus," is to be our motto. No one among us may dare to live unto himself, even in the refined way in which many are doing it, who even try to win souls that they may have the credit of being zealous and successful. We may so far degenerate as even to attempt to glorify Christ that we may have the credit of glorifying Him. It will not do. We must be truly, thoroughly, really living for Jesus: we must be a garden inclosed, reserved, shut up for Him. The wall must wholly inclose the garden, for a gap anywhere will admit an intruder everywhere. If one part of our being be left under the dominion of sin, it will show its power everywhere. The spring must be sealed at the very source, that every drop may be for Jesus throughout the whole of its course. Our first thoughts, desires, and must wishes be His, and then all our words and deeds. We must be "wholly reserved for Christ that died, surrendered to the Crucified."

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

---

---

KJV: A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

WEB: A locked up garden is my sister, my bride; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain.