12. The Rose of Sharon
12
The Rose of Sharon1
I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.
—Song of Solomon 2:1
There is not a rose outside of heaven that doesn’t have a blot and thorn growing out of it, except that only Rose of Sharon, which blossoms out glory. Every leaf of the rose is a heaven and serves “for the healing of the nations”; every white and red in it is incomparable glory; every act of breathing out its smell, from everlasting to everlasting, is spotless and unmixed happiness. Christ is the outset, the master flower, the uncreated garland of heaven, the love and joy of men and angels. But the fountain-love, the fountain-delight, the fountain-joy of men and angels is more; for out of it flow all the seas, springs, rivers, and floods of love, delight, and joy. Imagine all the rain and dew, seas, fountains, and floods, since the creation, were in one cloud, and these multiplied in measures, in number to many millions of millions, and then divided in drops of showers to an answerable number of men and angels. This would be a created shower, and it would end in a certain period of time; and this huge cloud of so many rivers and drops would dry up and rain no more. But we cannot conceive so of Christ, for if we should imagine millions of men and angels to have a co-eternal dependent existence with Christ, and they were eternally in the act of “receiving grace for grace out of His fulness,” the flux and issue of grace would be eternal, as Christ is. For Christ cannot tire or weary from eternity to be Christ; and so He must not, He cannot but be an infinite and eternal flowing sea, to diffuse and let out streams and floods of boundless grace. Say that the rose were eternal; the sweet smell, the loveliness of greenness, and color must be eternal.
Oh, what a happiness, for a soul to lose its excellency in His transcendent glory! What blessedness for the creature, to cast in his little all in Christ’s matchless all-sufficiency! Could all the streams retire into the fountain and first spring, they should be kept in a more sweet and firm possession of their being in the bosom of their first cause than in their borrowed channels that they now move in. Our neighborhood and retirement—to dwell forever and ever in the fountain-blessedness, Jesus Christ, with our borrowed goodness—is the firm and solid fruition of our eternal happy being. Christ is the sphere, the con-natural2 first spring and element of borrowed drops, and small pieces of created grace. The rose is surest in being, in beauty, on its own stalk and root. Let life and sap be eternally in the stalk and root and the rose keep its first union with the root, and it shall never wither, never cast its blossom or greenness of beauty. It is violence for a gracious soul to be out of his stalk and root; union here is life and happiness. Therefore, the church’s last prayer in canonic Scripture is for union: “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20). It shall not be well till the Father and Christ the prime heir and all the weeping children are under one roof in the royal palace.
1. Trial and Triumph, 5–6.
2. con-natural: belonging to as a natural accompaniment, or as a property inherent by nature or from birth