A Communion Address at Mentone.

"Yes, He is altogether lovely."  Solomon's Song 5:16.

 The soul that is familiar with the Lord
  worships Him in the outer court of nature,
  wherein it admires His works, and is charmed by
  every thought of what He must be who made them
  all. When that soul enters the nearer circle of
  inspiration, and reads the wonderful words of God,
  it is still more enraptured, and his admiration is
  heightened. In revelation, we see the same
  all-glorious Lord as in creation, but the vision
  is more clear, and the consequent love is more
  intense.
  The Word is an inner court to the
  Creation; but there is yet an innermost sanctuary,
  and blessed are they who enter it, and have
  fellowship with the Lord Himself. We come to
  Christ, and in coming to Him we come to God; for
  Jesus says, "He that has seen Me has seen the
  Father." When we know the Lord Jesus, we stand
  before the mercy-seat, where the glory of Jehovah
  shines forth. I like to think of the text as
  belonging to those who are as priests unto God,
  and stand in the Holy of holies, while they say,
  "Yes, He is altogether lovely." His works are
  marvellous, His words are full of majesty, but He
  Himself is altogether lovely.
  Can we come into this inner circle? All do
  not enter here. Alas! many are far off from Him,
  and are blind to His beauties. "He was despised
  and rejected of men," and He is so still. They do
  not see God in His works, but dream that these
  wonders were evolved, and not created by the Great
  Primal Cause. As for His words, they seem to them
  as idle tales, or, at best, as inspired only in
  the same sense as the language of Shakespeare or
  Spenser. They see not the Lord in the stately
  aisles of Holy Scripture; and have no vision of
  Himself. May He, who opens the eyes of the
  blind, have pity on them!
  Certain others are in a somewhat happier
  position, for they are enquirers after Christ.
  They are like the people who, in the ninth verse
  of the chapter, asked, "What is your Beloved more
  than another beloved, O you fairest among women?
  What is your Beloved more than another beloved,
  that you so charge us?" They want to know
  who this Jesus is. But they have not seen Him yet,
  and cannot join with the spouse in saying, "He is
  altogether lovely."
  If we enter this sacred inner circle, we
  must become witnesses, as she does who speaks of
  Christ, "Yes, He is altogether lovely." She knows
  what He is, for she has seen Him. The verses which
  precede the text are a description of every
  feature of the heavenly Bridegroom; all His
  members are there set forth with richness of
  Oriental imagery. The spouse speaks what she
  knows. Have we, also, seen the Lord? Are we His
  familiar acquaintances? If so, may the Lord help
  us to understand our text!
  If we are to know the full joy of the
  text, we must come to our Lord as His intimates.
  He permits us this high honor, since, in this
  ordinance, He makes us His table-companions. He
  says, "Henceforth I call you not servants; but I
  have called you friends." He calls upon us to eat
  bread with Him; yes, to partake of Himself, by
  eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Oh, that
  we may pass beyond the outward signs into the
  closest intimacy with Himself! Perhaps, when you
  are at home, you will examine the spouse's
  description of her Lord. It is a wonderful piece
  of tapestry. She has wrought into its warp and
  woof all things charming, sweet, and precious. In
  Him she sees all lovely colors,—"My Beloved is
  white and ruddy." In comparison with Him all
  others fail, for He is "chief among ten thousand"
  chieftains. She cannot think of Him as comparable
  to anything less valuable than "fine gold." She
  sees, soaring in the air, birds of diverse wing;
  and these must aid her, whether it be the raven or
  the dove. The rivers of waters, and the beds of
  spices and myrrh-dropping lilies, must come into
  the picture, with sweet flowers and goodly cedars.
  All kinds of treasured things are in Him; for He
  is like to gold rings set with the beryl, and
  bright ivory overlaid with sapphires, and pillars
  of marble set upon sockets of fine gold. She
  labors to describe His beauty and His excellency,
  and strains all comparisons to their utmost use,
  and somewhat more; and yet she is conscious of
  failure, and therefore sums up all with the pithy
  sentence, "Yes, He is altogether lovely."
  If the Holy Spirit will help me, I should
  like to lift the veil, that we may, in sacred
  contemplation, look on our Beloved.
 
I. We would do so, first, WITH REVERENT
  EMOTIONS. In the words before us, "Yes, He is
  altogether lovely," two emotions are displayed,
  namely, admiration and affection.
  It is admiration which speaks of Him as
  "altogether lovely" or beautiful. This admiration
  rises to the highest degree. The spouse would sincerely
  show that her Beloved is more than any other
  beloved; therefore she cries, "He is altogether
  lovely." Surely no one else has reached that
  point. Many are lovely, but no one except Jesus is
  "altogether lovely." We see something that is
  lovely in one, and another point is lovely in
  another; but all loveliness meets in Him. Our soul
  knows nothing which can rival Him: He is the
  gathering up of all sorts of loveliness to make up
  one perfect loveliness. He is the climax of
  beauty; the crown of glory; the uttermost of
  excellence.
  Our admiration of Him, also, is
  unrestrained. The spouse dared to say, even in the
  presence of the daughters of Jerusalem, who were
  somewhat envious, "Yes, He is altogether lovely."
  They knew not, as yet, His perfections; they even
  asked, "What is your Beloved more than another
  beloved?" But she was not to be blinded by their
  lack of sympathy, neither did she withhold her
  testimony from fear of their criticism. To her, He
  was "altogether lovely", and she could say no
  less. Our admiration of Christ is such that we
  would tell the kings of the earth that they have
  no majesty in His presence; and tell the wise men
  that He alone is wisdom; and tell the great and
  mighty that He is the blessed and only Potentate,
  King of kings, and Lord of lords.
  Our admiration of our Lord is
  inexpressible. We can never tell all we know of
  our Lord; yet all our knowledge is little. All
  that we know is, that His love passes knowledge,
  that His excellence baffles understanding, that
  His glory is unutterable. We can embrace Him by
  our love, but we can scarcely touch Him with our
  intellect, He is so high, so glorious. As to
  describing Him, we cry, with Mr. Berridge,

"Then my tongue would sincerely express
All His love and loveliness;
But I lisp, and falter forth
Broken words, not half His worth.
"Vexed, I try and try again,
Still my efforts all are vain:
Living tongues are dumb at best,
We must die to speak of Christ."

  "He is altogether lovely." Do we not feel an
  inexpressible admiration for Him? There is none
  like You, O Son of God!
  Still, our paramount emotion is not
  admiration, but affection. "He is altogether"  -not
  beautiful, nor admirable, -but "lovely."  All His
  beauties are loving beauties towards us, and
  beauties which draw our hearts towards Him in
  humble love. He charms us, not by a cold
  loveliness, but by a living loveliness, which wins
  our hearts. His is an approachable beauty, which
  not only overpowers us with its glory, but holds
  us captive by its charms. We love Him: we cannot
  do otherwise, for "He is altogether lovely." He
  has within Himself and unquenchable flame of love,
  which sets our soul on fire. He is all love, and
  all the love in the world is less than His. Put
  together all the loves of husband wives, parents,
  children, brothers, sisters, and they only make a
  drop compared with His great depths of love,
  -unexplored and unexplorable. This love of His has
  a wonderful power to beget love in unlovely
  hearts, and to nourish it into a mighty force. It
  is a torrent which sweeps all before it when its
  founts break forth within the soul. It is a Gulf
  Stream in which all icebergs melt. When our heart
  is full of love to Jesus, His loveliness becomes
  the passion of the soul, and sin and self are
  swept away. May we feel it now!
  There He stands: we know Him by the
  thorn-crown, and the wounds, and the visage more
  marred than that of any man! He suffered all this
  for us. O Son of man! O Son of God! With the
  spouse, we feel, in the inmost depths of our soul,
  that You are "altogether lovely."
 
II. Now would I lift the veil a second
  time, with deep solemnity, not so much to suggest
  emotions as to secure your intelligent assurance
  of the fact that "He is altogether lovely." We say
  this WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY. The spouse places a
  "Yes" before her enthusiastic declaration, because
  she is sure of it. She sees her Beloved, and sees
  Him to be altogether lovely. This is no fiction,
  no dream, no freak of imagination, no outburst of
  partiality. The highest love to Christ does not
  make us speak more than the truth; we are as
  reasonable when we are filled with love to Him as
  ever we were in our lives; no, never are we more
  reasonable than when we are carried clean away by
  a clear perception of His superlative excellence.
  Let us meditate upon the proof of our
  assertion. "He is altogether lovely" in His
  PERSON. He is God. The glory of Godhead I must
  leave in lowly silence. Yet our Jesus is also man,
  more emphatically man than any one here present
  this afternoon, for we are English, American,
  French, German, Dutch, Russian; but Christ is man,
  the second Adam, the Head of the race: as truly as
  He is very God of very God, so is He man, of the
  substance of His mother. What a marvellous union!
  The miracle of miracles! In his incomparable
  personality He is altogether lovely; for in Him we
  see how God comes down to man in condescension,
  and how man goes up to God in close relationship.
  There is no other such as He, in all respects,
  even in heaven itself: in His personality He must
  ever stand alone, in the eyes of both God and man,
  "altogether lovely."
  As for His CHARACTER, time would fail us
  to enter upon that vast subject; but the more we
  know of the character of our Lord, and the more we
  grow like Him, the more lovely will it appear to
  us. In all aspects, it is lovely; in all its
  minutiae and details, it is perfect; and as a
  whole, it is perfection's model. Take any one
  action of His, look into its mode, its spirit, its
  motive, and all else that can be revealed by a
  microscopic examination, and it is "altogether
  lovely." Consider his LIFE, as a whole, in
  reference to God, to man, to His friends, to His
  foes, to those around Him, and to the ages yet to
  be, and you shall find it absolutely perfect. More
  than that: there is such a thing as a cold
  perfection, with which one can find no fault, and
  yet it commands no love; but in Christ, our
  Well-beloved, every part of His character
  attracts. To a true heart, the life of Christ is
  as much an object of love as of reverence: "He is
  altogether lovely." We must love that which we see
  in Him: admiration is not the word. When cold
  critics commend Him, their praise is half an
  insult: what do these frozen hearts know of our
  Beloved? As for a word against Him, it wounds us
  to the soul. Even an omission of His praise is a
  torture to us. If we hear a sermon which has no
  Christ in it, we weary of it. If we read a book
  that contains a slighting syllable of Him, we
  abhor it. He, Himself, has become everything to us
  now, and only in the atmosphere of fervent love to
  Him can we feel at home.
  Passing from His character to His
  SACRIFICE; there especially "He is altogether
  lovely." You may have read "Rutherford's Letters";
  I hope you have. How wondrously he writes, when
  he describes his Lord in garments red from His
  sweat of blood, and with hands bejewelled with His
  wounds! When we view His body taken down from the
  cross, all pale and deathly, and wrapped in the
  garments of the grave, we see a strange beauty in
  Him. He is to us never more lovely than when we
  read in our Beloved's white and red that His
  Sacrifice is accomplished, and He has been
  obedient unto death for us. In Him, as the
  sacrifice once offered, we see our pardon, our
  life, our heaven, our all. So lovely is Christ in
  His sacrifice, that He is forever most pleasing
  to the great Judge of all, yes, so lovely to His
  Father, that He makes us also lovely to God the
  Father, and we are "accepted in the Beloved." His
  sacrifice has such merit and beauty in the sight
  of heaven, that in Him God is well pleased, and
  guilty men become in Him pleasant unto the Lord.
  Is not His sacrifice most sweet to us? Here our
  guilty conscience finds peace; here we see
  ourselves made lovely in His loveliness. We cannot
  stand at Calvary, and see the Savior die, and
  hear Him cry, "It is finished," without feeling
  that "He is altogether lovely." Forgive me that I
  speak so coolly! I dare not enter fully into a
  theme which would pull up the sluices of my heart.
  Remember what He was when He rose from the
  grave on the third day. Oh, to have seen Him in
  the freshness of His resurrection beauty! And what
  will He be in His glory, when He comes again the
  second time, and all His holy angels with Him,
  when He shall sit upon the throne of His glory,
  and heaven and earth shall flee away before His
  face? To His people He will then be "altogether
  lovely." Angels will adore Him, saints made
  perfect will fall on their faces before Him; and
  we ourselves shall feel that, at last, our heaven
  is complete. We shall see Him, and being like Him,
  we shall be satisfied.
  Every feature of our Lord is lovely. You
  cannot think of anything that has to do with Him
  which is unworthy of our praise. All over glorious
  is our Lord. The spouse speaks of His head, His
  locks, His eyes, His cheeks, His lips, His hands,
  His legs, His countenance, His mouth; and when she
  has mentioned them all, she sums up with reference
  to all by saying, "Yes, He is altogether lovely."
  There is nothing unlovely about Him.
  Certain people would be beautiful were it not for
  a wound or a bruise, but our Beloved is all the
  more lovely for His wounds; the marring of His
  countenance has enhanced its charms. His scars
  are, for glory and for beauty, the jewels of our
  King. To us He is lovely even from that side which
  others dread: His very frown has comfort in it to
  His saints, since He only frowns on evil. Even His
  feet, which are "like unto fine brass, as if they
  burned in a furnace," are lovely to us for His
  sake; these are His poor saints, who are sorely
  tried, but are able to endure the fire. Everything
  of Christ, everything that partakes of Christ,
  everything that has a flavor or savor of
  Christ, is lovely to us.
  There is nothing lacking about His
  loveliness. Some would be very lovely were there a
  brightness in their eyes, or a color in their
  countenances: but something is missing. The absence
  of a tooth or of an eyebrow may spoil a
  countenance, but in Christ Jesus there is no
  omission of excellence. Everything that should be
  in Him is in Him; everything that is conceivable
  in perfection is present to perfection in Him.
  In Him is nothing excessive. Many a face
  has one feature in it which is overdone; but in
  our Lord's character everything is balanced and
  proportionate. You never find His kindness
  lessening His holiness, nor His holiness eclipsing
  His wisdom, nor His wisdom abating His courage,
  nor His courage injuring His meekness. Everything
  is in our Lord that should be there, and
  everything in is there in proper measure. Like rare spices, mixed
  after the manner of the apothecary, our Lord's
  whole person, and character, and sacrifice, are as
  sweet incense unto the Lord.
  Neither is there anything in our Lord
  which is incongruous with the rest. In each one
  of us there is, at least, a little that is out of
  place. We could not be fully described without the
  use of a "but." If we could all look within, and
  see ourselves as God sees us, we should note a
  thousand matters, which we now permit, which we
  should never allow again. But in the Well-beloved
  all is of a piece, all is lovely; and when the sum
  of the whole is added up, it comes to an absolute
  perfection of loveliness: "Yes, He is altogether
  lovely."
  We are sure that the Lord Jesus must be
  Himself exceedingly lovely, since He gives
  loveliness to His people. Many saints are lovely
  in their lives; one reads biographies of good men
  and women which make us wish to grow like them;
  yet all the loveliness of all the most holy among
  men has come from Jesus their Lord, and is a copy
  of His perfect beauty. Those who write well do so
  because He sets the copy.
  What is stranger and more wonderful still--
  our Lord Jesus makes sinners lovely! In their
  natural state, men are deformed and hideous to the
  eye of God; and as they have no love to God, so He
  has no delight in them. He is weary of them, and
  is grieved that He made men upon the earth. The
  Lord is angry with the wicked every day. Yet, when
  our Lord Jesus comes in, and covers these sinful
  ones with His righteousness, and, at the same
  time, infuses into them His life, the Lord is well
  pleased with them for His Son's sake. Even in
  heaven, the infinite Jehovah sees nothing which
  pleases Him like His Son. The Father from eternity
  loved His Only-begotten, and again and again He
  has said of Him, "This is My beloved Son, in whom
  I am well pleased." What higher commendation can be
  placed upon Him?
  If we had time to think over this subject,
  we should say of our Lord that He is lovely in
  every office. He is the most admirable Priest, and
  King, and Prophet that ever yet exercised the
  office. He is a lovely Shepherd of a chosen flock,
  a lovely Friend, lovely Husband, a lovely Brother:
  He is admirable in every position that He occupies
  for our sakes.
  Our Lord's loveliness appears in every
  condition: in the manger, or in the temple; by the
  well, or on the sea; in the garden, or on the
  cross; in the tomb, or in the resurrection; in His
  first, or in His second coming. He is not as the
  herb, which flowers only at one season; or as the
  tree, which loses its leaves in winter; or as the
  moon, which waxes and wanes; or as the sea, which
  ebbs and flows. In every condition, and at every
  time, "He is altogether lovely."
  He is lovely, whichever way we look at
  Him. If we view Him as in the past, entering into
  a covenant of peace on our behalf; or, in the
  present, yielding Himself to us as Intercessor,
  Representative, and Forerunner; or, in the future,
  coming, reigning, and glorifying His people; "He
  is altogether lovely." Behold Him from heaven,
  view Him from the gates of hell, regard Him as he
  goes before, look up to Him as He sits above; He
  is as beautiful from one point of view as from
  another; "Yes, He is altogether lovely." Wherever
  we may be, He is the same in His perfection. How
  lovely He was to my eyes when I was sinking in
  despair! To see Him suffering for my sin upon the
  tree, was as the opening of the gates of the
  morning to my darkened soul. How lovely He is to
  us when we are sick, and the hours of night seem
  lengthened into days! "He gives songs in the
  night." How lovely has He been to us when the
  world has frowned, and friends have forsaken, and
  worldly goods have been scant! To see "the King in
  His beauty" is a sight sufficient, even if we
  never saw another ray of comfort. How blessed,
  when we lie dying, to hear Him say, "I am the
  resurrection and the life"! Mark that word; He
  does not say, "I will give you resurrection and life,"
  but, "I am the resurrection and the life." Blessed
  are the eyes which can see that in Jesus which is
  really in Him. When we think of seeing Him as He
  is, and being like Him, how heaven approaches us!
  We shall soon behold the beatific vision, of which
  He will be the center and the sun. At the thought
  of this our soul takes wing, and our imagination
  soars aloft, while our faith, with eagle eye,
  beholds the glory. As we think of that glad
  period, when we shall be with our Beloved for
  ever, we are ready to swoon away with delight. It
  is near, far nearer than we think.

III. The little time which we can give to
  this meditation has run out, and therefore I
  hasten to a close. I have bidden you look at our
  Lord as "altogether lovely" with reverent
  emotions, and with absolute certainty. Now, to
  conclude, think of Him WITH PRACTICAL RESULTS.
"He is altogether lovely." What shall we do for this
  chief among ten thousand?
  First, we will tell others of Him. For
  that cause was our text spoken. The daughters of
  Jerusalem asked the spouse, "What is your Beloved
  more than another beloved?" Her answer is here:
  "He is altogether lovely." It is a great joy to
  praise our Lord to enquiring minds. We, who are
  preachers, have a glorious time of it when we
  extol our Lord. If we had nothing to do but to
  preach Christ, and had no discipline to
  administer, no sin to battle with, no doubts to
  drive away, we should have a heavenly service. For
  my part, I wish I could be bound over to play only
  upon this one string. Paul did well when he turned
  ignoramus, and determined to know nothing among
  the Corinthians except Jesus Christ, and Him
  crucified. As the harp of Anacreon would resound
  love alone, so would I have but one sole subject
  for my ministry- the love and loveliness of my
  Lord. Then to speak would be its own reward; and
  to study and prepare discourses would be only a
  phase of rest. Sincerely would I make my whole ministry
  to speak of Christ and His surpassing loveliness.
  You who are not preachers cannot do better
  than speak much of Jesus, as opportunity offers.
  Make Him the theme of conversation. People talk
  about ministers; but we beg you to talk of our
  Master. Our undecided neighbors are always
  talking of hypocrites and inconsistent professors;
  but we would say to them, "Never mind about His
  followers: talk about the Master Himself." His
  followers, by themselves considered, never were
  worth your words; but what a theme is this- "He is
  altogether lovely "! Our Lord's people are far
  worthier than the world thinks them to be; for my
  part, I rejoice in the many gracious and beautiful
  characters with which I meet, but even if all the
  ill reports we hear were true, this would not
  detract from the loveliness of our Lord, who is
  infinitely lovely beyond all praise.
  The next practical result of viewing the
  loveliness of our blessed Lord is, that we
  appropriate Him to ourselves, grasping Him with
  our two hands of faith and love, and making the
  rest of the verse to be our own: "This is my
  Beloved, and this is my Friend, O daughters of
  Jerusalem!" Since He is so amiable, He must be "my
  Beloved"; my heart clings to Him. Since He is
  admirable, I rejoice that He is "my Friend"; my
  soul trusts in Him. The heart that most
  appreciates Jesus is the most eager to appropriate
  Him. He who beholds Jesus as "altogether lovely
  "will never rest until he is altogether sure that
  Jesus is altogether his own. I think I may also
  add that appreciation is in great measure the seal
  of appropriation, for the soul that values Christ
  most, is the soul that has most surely taken
  possession of Christ. Sometimes a heart prizes the
  Lord very highly, and tremblingly longs for Him;
  but it is my conviction that the very fact of
  prizing Him argues a measure of possession of Him.
  Jesus never wins a heart to which He refuses His
  love. If you love Him, He loves you: be sure
  of that. No soul ever cries, "Yes, He is
  altogether lovely," without sooner or later
  adding, "This is my Beloved, and this is my
  Friend."
  Rest not, any one of you, until you know of
  a surety that Jesus is yours. Do not be content
  with a hope, struggle after the full assurance of
  faith. This is to be had, and you ought not to be
  content without it. It may be your lifelong song,
  "My Beloved is mine, and I am His." You need not
  pine in the shade: the sun is shining, "walk in
  the light." Away with the idea that we cannot know
  whether we are condemned or forgiven- in Christ or
  out of Him! We may know, we must know; and, as we
  appreciate our Lord, we shall know. Either Jesus
  is ours, or He is not. If He is, let us rejoice in
  the priceless possession. If He is not ours, let
  us at once lay hold upon Him by faith; for, the
  moment we trust Him, He is ours. The enjoyment of
  religion lies in assurance: a mere hope is scant
  diet.
   Once more, it is a fair fruit of our
  delight in our Lord that our valuation of Him
  becomes a bond of union between us and others. The
  spouse cries, "This is my Beloved, and this is my
  Friend, O daughters of Jerusalem!" and they reply,
  "Where is your Beloved gone, O you fairest among
  women? Where is your Beloved turned aside, that
  we may seek Him with you?" Thus, you see, they
  institute a companionship through the
  Well-beloved. Few of us, in this room, would ever
  have known each other, had it not been for our
  common admiration of the Lord Jesus. We should
  have gone on walking past each other by the sea to
  this day, and we should have missed much cheering
  fellowship. Our Lord has become our center; we
  meet in Him, and feel that in Him we are partakers
  of one life. We seek our Well-beloved together,
  and around His table we find Him together; and
  finding Him, we have found one another, and the
  lost jewel of Christian love glitters on every
  bosom. We have differing views on certain parts of
  divine truth; and I do not know that it is wrong
  for us to differ where the Holy Spirit has left
  truth without rigidly defining it. We are bound
  each one devoutly to use his judgment in the
  interpretation of the Sacred Word; but we all
  agree in this one clear judgment: "Yes, He is
  altogether lovely. "This is the point of union.
  Those who enthusiastically love the same person
  are on the way to loving each other. This is
  increasingly our case; and it is the same with all
  spiritual people. Professors quarrel, but
  possessors are at unity. We hear much discourse upon
  "the Unity of the Church" as a thing to be
  desired, and we may heartily agree with it; but it
  would be well also to remember that in the true
  Church of Christ real union already exists. Our
  Lord prayed for those whom the Father had given
  Him, that they might be one, and the Father
  granted the prayer: the Lord's own people are one.
  In this room we have an example of how closely we
  are united in Christ. Some of you are more at home
  in this assembly, taken out of all churches, than
  you are in the churches to which you nominally
  belong. Our union in one body as Episcopalians,
  Baptists, Presbyterians, or Independents, is not
  the thing which our Lord prayed for; but our union
  in Himself. That union we do at this moment enjoy;
  and therefore do we eat of one bread, and drink of
  one cup, and are baptized into one Spirit, at His
  feet who is to each one of us, and so to all of
  us, ALTOGETHER LOVELY.

"White and ruddy is my Beloved
All His heavenly beauties shine;
Nature can't produce an object,
 Nor so glorious, so divine;
He has wholly
Won my soul to realms above.

"Farewell, all you meaner creatures,
 For in Him is every store;
Wealth, or friends, or darling beauty,
 Shall not draw me any more;
In my Savior
I have found a glorious whole."