Sermons on the Song of Songs

“Thy name is as oil poured out.”

“In Judæa God is known: His name is great in Israel.” “The (Gentile) people that walked in darkness have seen a great Light.” That is, they saw the Light which shone in Judæa and in Israel, and they desired to “draw near and to be illuminated,” so that they who “in times past were not a people might now be a people of God,” and that for the future, “their place might be in peace,” the one Corner-Stone uniting in Itself the two walls approaching from different directions. They derived confidence from the words of invitation which had already been spoken by the Holy Ghost through the Psalmist, “Rejoice, ye nations, with His people.” Therefore, they wished to draw near; but the Synagogue forbade it, declaring that the Church of the Gentiles was unclean and unworthy, reproaching it with the filth of idolatry and with the blindness of ignorance. “On what merit dost thou presume?” asks the Jew; “Touch me not!” “But why?” replies the Gentile. “Is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? And if I am wanting in merit, He is not wanting in compassion. Is justice His only attribute? Nay, He is also merciful. O Lord, ‘let Thy tender mercies come unto me and I shall live.’ ‘Many, O Lord, are Thy mercies! Quicken me according to Thy judgment,’ which is tempered with mercy.” What will He do, the just and merciful Lord, whilst the Jew thus glories in the Law, applauds his own justice, disclaims any need of mercy, and despises such as confess this need; and the Gentile, on the contrary, acknowledging his sin, avows his unworthiness, deprecates justice, and appeals to mercy? What, I ask, will He do, the Judge, and such a Judge, in Whom judgment and compassion are both so inherent that the one is as inseparable from Him as the other? What can be more natural and reasonable for Him to do than to give to each of them that which he prayed for—judgment to the Jew and mercy to the Gentile? The Jew asks for judgment, well, then, let him have it. But let the Gentile, according to his prayer, glorify the mercy of God. And the judgment granted to the Jew is this, that he who contemns the compassionate justice of God, and wishes to establish his own—which, in truth, rather accuses than justifies—shall be abandoned to the oppression, not to the justification, of his own righteousness.

This Jewish justice comes from the Law, which has never conducted anyone to perfection. It is a yoke which neither the Jews “nor their fathers have ever been able to bear.” But the Synagogue is strong. She has no liking for burdens that are light or for yokes that are sweet. The Jew is well, and has no need of the Physician, no need of the unction of the Spirit. “He trusted in” the Law: “let it now deliver him,” if it can. But the Law which was given him has not the power to vivify. It rather kills, according to the Apostle, who says, “the letter killeth.” The same is implied in the words of Christ, “Therefore I say unto you, you shall die in your sins.” This, then, O Synagogue, is the judgment thou hast challenged on thy error. Blinded shalt thou be left, blinded and pertinacious, “until the fulness of the Gentiles—whom thou dost arrogantly contemn and enviously repel—shall come in,” and shall acknowledge the “God Who is known in Judæa” and the name that is “great in Israel.” It was for this judgment Jesus “came into this world, that they who see not may see, and that they who see may become blind.” Yet this “blindness hath happened in Israel in part” only, “for the Lord will not cast off His people” entirely. He will “reserve unto Himself as a seed” the apostles and the “multitude of believers who had but one heart and one soul.” Neither “will He cast them off for ever,” but will “save a remnant.” Once more will He “receive Israel, His servant,” and He will be “mindful of His mercy.” So that not even in regard to them, in whom she now finds no room for herself, shall mercy desert her companion, justice. Did God treat the Jew as he deserved, assuredly there would be “judgment without mercy to him who doth not mercy.” For Judæa, possessing much of the oil of the knowledge of God, like a miser, keeps it shut up in the vase. I, the Gentile, beg for some, and she neither “hath mercy nor lendeth.” She alone must have worship, she alone must have knowledge, she alone must know “His great name.” Nor is this desire for monopoly due to any zeal for her own glory, but rather to jealousy of me.

Therefore, do Thou, O Lord, “judge my judgment,” and let Thy great name be magnified still more, and let the oil, which is already plentiful, be more abundantly multiplied. Let it increase, let it brim over, let it be poured abroad, let it overflow to the Gentiles, and let “all flesh” experience “the salvation of God.” How can it be, as the ungrateful Jew would have it, that all the saving unction should remain in “the beard of Aaron”? It belongs not to the beard, but to the Head. And the Head is head, not only of the beard, but of the whole body as well. Let the beard receive the descending ointment first by all means, but not solely. Let it transmit to the inferior members what it derives from the Head. Let the heavenly oil descend, let it descend even to the breasts of the Church, which, with a hungry eagerness, does not disdain to squeeze it from the beard, until, saturated with the dew of grace, she joyously exclaims, to prove herself not ungrateful, “Thy name is as oil poured out.” But let it, I pray, descend even lower, let it trickle down as far as “the skirt of his garment,” that is, even unto me, who, though the lowest and the most unworthy of all, still am of “the garment.” For even I, as “a little one in Christ,” demand for myself, on the title of piety, a share of that oil from the breasts of mother Church, And should any man murmur, whose “eye is evil because the Lord is good,” do Thou, O Lord, answer for me. “Let my judgment come forth from Thy Countenance,” and not from Israel’s haughty lips. Rather I should say, “answer for Thyself,” and say to Thy calumniator—for he calumniates Thee because Thou dost benefit one so undeserving—say to him, therefore, “I will also give to this last even as to thee.” The Pharisee is displeased. Yet why should he grumble? My title is the Judge’s good will. Surely there can be no juster standard of merit, as certainly there can be no more generous measure of reward. “Or is it not lawful for Him to do what He willeth,” in regard to that which is His own? It is a mercy to me, but no wrong to thee. “Take what is thine, and go thy way.” If it is His good pleasure to save even me, what dost thou lose thereby?