Draw me

Let us note, first, what it is the Church desires — what every pious soul must desire who would make a prayer to Christ at all: "Draw me, allure me, bring my soul under the power of a holy and Divine captivity. It is a prayer of the believer that he may feel all the oppositions of the unregenerate nature giving way; that, by the spell of some holy fascination resting upon him, he may feel his will drawn into absolute and entire concurrence with the Divine will. "Draw me," says the Church, "with lovingkindness, and compassions, and mercies. Allure me to Thee by Thy Word — its promises drawing me after them, like the sweet strains of distant music; or by Thy Spirit, His holy and gentle compulsions leading me onwards, by an influence the methods of which I know not, save that thereby I am brought nearer to Christ, by having Christ brought nearer to me. Many are the things I have need to be drawn from. Draw me from the bondage of sin, which holds me; from the allurements of the world, which entangle me; from the infirmities of a fleshly nature, which still cleave to me. Draw me from my enemies, which are too many for me; from my temptations, which are too strong for me; from my fears of being forsaken, and overmastered, and finally falling away."

2. "And we will run after Thee." "Run;" being so drawn we could not be content with a slower pace, and the speed of the running is proportioned to the intensity of the drawing. "I made haste," said the psalmist, "and delayed not to keep Thy commandments. Hence the expression may be taken to denote the alacrity with which, after an experimental acquaintance with Christ and the power of His grace, we shall persevere in our Christian course. None run so fast as those whom Christ draws. Thus the believer "follows on to know the Lord"; he becomes more vehemently and intensely earnest the nearer he gets to the heart of Christ. Led and lured as by some secret magnaetism — by "a sweet omnipotence, and an omnipotent sweetness," as one of old describes it — he feels as if he could follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. "Draw me, and we will run after Thee." The change of person should not be passed over, for it illustrates the germinating property of Divine influences. One convert makes many. He who runs well does much to quicken others' speed. Grace is communicative, it cannot but speak. "Come, see a Man that told me all that ever I did."

3. But mark, next, the grounds on which the Church presumes to hope for these near manifestations of Christ's love to her. "The King hath brought me into His chambers "-that is, He has recognized the lawfulness of my espousals; He has initiated for me this covenant relation of protection, and peace, and mercy. It is on the authority of the King Himself that we and the whole Church "have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand." We may take the words "bringing into the chambers" in two senses; that is, either as implying an admission to the ordinances of religion, or a more privileged insight into the truth of its doctrines. Either interpretation would fall in with the national custom which is supposed to be the source of the allusion — that of a bride being conducted to her lord's home, both to inspect all his household treasures, and to have her future .part and possession in them formally made over and acknowledged. Thus, assuming ordinances to be the chief point of the reference, how truly may we, as Christians, say, "The King hath brought me into His chambers." Or adopting the other supposition, that by "chambers" here are meant the tuner recesses of God s truth — the deep things of the Sprat, hidden mysteries, kept secret from the foundation of the world, and which even "angels have desired to look into" — this privilege is ours also. Ours, the more we love Christ and the nearer we keep to Him. A knowledge of the things of the kingdom is reserved for the children of the kingdom. As the bridegroom would lead his affianced bride from chamber to chamber, to show his wealth, to display his treasures, to unlock his cabinet of choicest gifts, so does Christ, by His Spirit, delight to lead His people into all truth, to conduct them from knowledge to knowledge, and from promise to promise, and from glory to glory.

(D. Moore, M. A.)