In estimating the blessedness of any creature, you must never forget that there is a certain faculty of enjoyment which is itself the gift of God. And have we not here at once the real secret of the certainty of the superior delights of the people of God in that to them alone, or at least to them in a far higher degree than to other men, is given that capacity of enjoyment, that appreciation of the sweet and beautiful and holy, which is radiant in everything.
I. Among the choice things of the prepared banquet, the chief is rest. It is only the Gospel of Jesus Christ which has the exclusive prerogative to give a man rest. And every one who goes into that sanctuary of the soul's rest, is a man who, just before, has been fighting his way to it through tremendous toils and conquests.
II. If there can be anything on this side of heaven worthy to be mentioned with that rest the feeling of a forgiven soul it is intimacy with God Himself; the nearness, and consequently the acquaintance with God's mind, into which the Christian is at once, though it be progressive, yet at once admitted; as soon as he obeys the drawings of the spirit, and comes near to God.
III. It is the actual presence of Christ which becomes dear to an advancing Christian. He has had His grace, but He wants Him. Therefore, more and more as a believer lives, you will find him meditating on the Person and the Being of Christ.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,1874, p. 101.
References: Song of Solomon 2:4. J. J. West, Penny Pulpit,No. 3218; J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Song of Songs,p. 85.