---

The bride's beauty, purity, sweetness, and delightfulness are set forth in these verses of the song with all the richness of Oriental imagery. The poet's fancy takes him to the sunny garden of the half-tropical En-gedi, to the breezy heights of Lebanon, whence flow the streams that convert the desert into a paradise. Orchards of pomegranates, gardens redolent with spicy odours, murmuring fountains, all serve to suggest the charms of the peerless one whom the king claims as his own.

I. THE CHURCH IS THE GARDEN OF THE LORD. This similitude occurs constantly both in Scripture and in uninspired Christian writers, and has given a tinge of poetry to many a sacred hymn.

"Thy vineyards and thine orchards are
Most beautiful and fair,
Full furnished with trees and fruits
Exceeding rich and rare.

Thy gardens and thy gallant walks
Continually are green;
There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers
As nowhere else are seen."

1. The Church, like the garden, is the scene and home of life. The world is the arid wilderness, the stony waste. The Church has been breathed upon by the Eternal Spirit, whose influence has called into existence the living plants that adorn the garden of Christ.

2. The Church, like the garden, is a spectacle of beauty. But in this case the beauty is spiritual.

"The lily white that bloometh there is purity;
The fragrant violet is surnamed humility;
The lovely damask rose is here called patience;
The rich and cheerful marigold is obedience;
But one there is that bears a crown the rest above,
A crown imperial, and this flower is holy love."

3. The Church, like the garden, is fruitful. There are not only the lovely flowers, there are precious fruits. The fruits of the Spirit have been described by the apostle. These are they which afford the deepest satisfaction to the Lord of the vineyard himself.

4. The Church, like the garden, is a secure seclusion and a sole possession. Such a representation sometimes, in our active, bustling, philanthropic age, arouses resentment. Yet it contains a delightful truth. The "garden walled round" is secure from the assaults of the foe and the incursion of the wild beast. The Church is indebted to Divine protection; here is its only security. The wall encloses the domain. The Church is Christ's, and his alone. The garden of the Lord has "a wall without, a well within." It is the sacred and exclusive property of him who planted it for his own glory.

II. THE CHURCH IS THE FOUNTAIN OF THE LORD. The garden seems to suggest the fountain, which in the Eastern climate was necessary to keep the enclosure moist, verdant, and fertile. And the garden well spring gushing forth and watering the many-coloured and fragrant beds, seems to suggest the mountain springs far up in the northern heights of Lebanon, beyond the early home of the fair bride herself. Such springs are a suitable figure of the living Church of Christ, which to set forth in all her excellence needs all things fair, bright, and fragrant that earth can offer. The Church of Christ, like the fountain,

(1) brings from an unseen source the blessings to be diffused;

(2) yields an abundant and perpetual supply of these spiritual gifts;

(3) freely and generously diffuses knowledge and purity life and true refreshment, amongst all around;

(4) produces results of beneficence immediate and remote, for which thanksgiving must ever be rendered to God.

(5) It may be noted that, as in the similitude of the garden, so here, there is an assurance of ownership and guardianship. As the well spring was covered with a great stone, sealed with the owner's signet, so the Church is marked by its Divine Lord as his own. "It hath this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his; and, Let every one that nameth the Name of the Lord depart from iniquity." - T.

---

---

Parallel Verses

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.