“Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee. Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.”
(Song of Solomon 1:3-4)

It will be inconveivably blessed in heaven, where there is no opposition to the Son of God. I am sorry that I do know most painfully that “the carnal mind is enmity against God;” that the visits, that the face of Christ are not desired by the “old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.” (Ephesians 4:22)

But there is a man, “the hidden man of the heart” (1st Peter 3:4), that cannot do without Christ, and would not if he might. And I possess him, and some of you also do. It is this hidden man of the heart that is here crying after the chiefest among ten thousand and the altogether lovely, the Lord Jesus. And if you who do fear God are not exceedingly dead in your affections, you will be able to say, after your own measure of grace, what the church hete says to him, “Draw me, we will run after thee.”

One of the worst things than can ever befall a child of God as to his state and exercises, is to feel no attraction in Jesus Christ. It argues that the person in that state is indeed sleeping and slumbering; and it is high time that he awoke, and arose from the dead, that Christ might give him light (Ephesians 5:14). Without doubt, as my judgment goes, the congregation of the present day is much in this condition; and happy are “the few names in Sardis” with whom it is otherwise. Let conscience in you who fear God answer befor him how it is with you, not as to your eternal state only, but as to your present exercises; for I do think that with those who are lively in their affections, it is not only with them a warm desire to reach heaven, but also they find a warm desire springing and bubbling in their hearts at times to have as much of heaven as they can get here below.

James Popham