My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. (11) For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; (12) The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; (13) The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
These verses hold forth so endearing a view of the grace and condescension of the Lord Jesus, as must argue a very cold heart, not to feel a warmth of affection in them; Jesus is represented as calling upon his church to arise and come forth with him, and he calls her beloved, his love, his fair one; intimating the tenderest and most affectionate regard for her, and to show her at the same time what confidence she might put in him. Never, surely, was there any love like the love of Jesus. He so loved his church, as to give himself for it; to die for it, and now to be everlastingly interceding for it. Behold the love of God which passeth knowledge. The persuasions Christ adopts to prevail upon the church to arise up and follow him, are very endearing also. The winter past and the rain gone, the singing of birds being come, and the flowers appearing on the earth, with the voice of the turtle being heard in the land; these are all highly beautiful in point of figure; It was a long dark winter indeed, in which our nature lay before the coming of Christ; darkness had covered the earth, and gross darkness the people. Both Jew and Gentile lay under it before the Son of righteousness arose with healing in his wings. And what it was to the nations of the earth at large, so is it to every son and daughter of Adam, before that Christ by the manifestation of his grace makes day-light in the soul. And Reader, as it was, and is, in the first awakenings of grace; So in the many wintry seasons in the after-stages of the believer, Who but Christ causes the spring to bud forth, and the flowers to appear? Who giveth the green figs, or the tender grape? Precious Lord! in every state, and in every stage, thou, and thou alone art the life and light of thy people. The voice of the turtle, the dove, the well known emblem of the Holy Ghost, is indeed heard in the land, when the soul is led to Christ: and then all those sweet effects follow, to induce the church to come away to Jesus, who alone makes a dispensation from nature to grace; converts sinners, comforts saints, and becomes a sure pledge of the complete renovation of all things, when the earth shall give up her dead, and the winter of desolated circumstances shall be folded up and lost, in an eternal spring; where Jesus hath wiped away all tears from of all faces, and taken away forever the rebuke of his people. Isaiah 25:6-8.