sacred assemblies. Many of the old liturgies have rubrics to this purpose, directing, that after, in the entry of the service, the Sacerdos, the Bishop or priest had given the Peace be with you,' to the people, he should immediately say, 'Let us salute one another 'with a holy kiss:' And then the clergy kissed (saluted) the Bishop, the men the men, and the women the women, who had separate stations, and were not promiscuously intermingled, in the religious oratories of those days. Is there not an analogy here between this earthly observance of the ancient form enjoined by St Paul, especially from the kiss ( in Greek,' expression of friendship') following the 'Peace be with you,' and the order of the language in the exordium of our song a song to the peace-giving One. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.' But why this addition, the We shall be told, that

• kisses of his mouth?' this is a redundancy, and that the Hebrew idiom delights in such. But it may have a deeper meaning. Every word that proceedeth out of the 'mouth of the Lord "Out of his mouth knowledge and understanding;' and many such like, may explain this, and discover the allusion. The law of thy mouth, the judgement of thy mouth,' &c. is current style with these old poets; and, I think, is designed to specify what we call revelation, the immediate operation of the mouth of Jehovah. God spake to Adam, to Noah, to Abraham, to Mo

x 2

ses,

ses, &c. in distinction from what weak, if any, discoveries might have been made of the divine laws and judgements, by what is now-a-days so much magnified and trusted to, under the specious appellation of the light of nature.' The mouth of 'the Lord' was the great, the only oracle with these true sages of antiquity; and every disobedience to, or deviation from it, was held in deep abhorrence by them. A due attention to this appearance of redundancy will account for that seeming severity in the case of the prophet',' and the capital fault for which he suffered was, as the deceiving prophet tells him, because he had disobeyed (rebelled against, Heb.) the mouth of the Lord." The history is worthy of our notice, and will add weight to my present observation. Not only so, but even in these phrases where this redundant style is applied by the sacred writers to themselves, we shall find a peculiar propriety and force, more than figure and ornament. I will cry unto God with with my tongue, Lord, let What should he cry with

my voice, I spake ' me know my end 4. but his voice, will the philologist ask, or speak with but his tongue? True, but the christian knows that he can cry to God without a voice, and speak to Jehovah without a tongue. The heart is a proper conveyer to that quarter, though insufficient in human correspondence; and the warmness of the

Recorded 1 Kings, ch. xiii.
3 Ps. lxxvii, 1.

21 Kings xiii. 21.

4 Ps. xxxix. 4, 5, &c.

the heart thus manifests itself in these not superfluous, but beautiful marks of external devotion; which, instead of being slighted, as no better than * ornamental redundancies,' are to be revered by us, as emphatic essentials, not peculiar to the language, but to the subject; and as descriptive recommendations of the necessity of oral as well as mental prayer. On the whole, as kissing' is what may be called a mutual act, and leaves an impression, so is it in the spiritual intendment. The kisses of our Solomon's mouth, when asked with fervour, and received with faith, will have their effect, and will exemplify that ardent wish of another heavenly bard, which our church has adopted in her introduction to our daily public prayers: 'O Lord, open

thou (kiss thou) our lips, and our mouth shall shew 'forth thy praise." The rapturous strain of our song here, at the very entrance of it, seems to indicate this praising effect, Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth; for thy love is better than wine.' I shall have occasion in course to take notice of this introductory expression of praise: what I would observe at present, is the apostrophe here, or change of person, which, as it stands, needs no sanction of foreign example to adjust it to the laws of poetry. The speaker here well knew, that the PERSON she addressed was never out of hearing, so might be mentioned either way, as the devotion of her heart led her. This is the method of religious intercourse, when

1 Ps. li. 15.

when it comes from, the heart, as every one who has made use of it knows. It is visible that the WOMAN, the church, through the whole of this song, speaks in this rapturous manner, by starts as it were, sometimes of, sometimes to, her beloved, without the studied elegance of connexion, but just as her feelings for the time directed her, in apostrophies and epiphonemas, with what commentators on the old plan call that digressive unconnected wildness of transition, which all pastoral poetry 'delights in,' and which I would call the ejaculatory effusions of an overflowing and experimen⚫tal devotion: Whereas the MAN, the hero, the king, shews himself in an uniform and regular manner, with the style of personal and pointed address, affectionate indeed, but grand and majestic, and rather in character of a master, than of a lover. I make this remark once for all, as I think it both undeniable and useful. And the natural inferences from it, in confirmation of my plan, however singular, and unprecedented, will appear as we go along.

VER. 3. Because of the savour of thy good ointments, thy name is as ointment poured forth; therefore do the virgins love thee.

Thy ointments shamnicha; the word signifies oil, which, from its healing quality, has been so much used in sacred rites among believers by institution, among apostates by perversion. The

Levitical œconomy, as we call it, is full and precise about oil, aud the inspired songs of the faithful lay stress upon it, not as a circumstantial embellishment, but as a necessary fundamental. Thy oils,' particularly, characteristically, and primarily Thine. 'Thou fattenest my head with oil'. It is the shepherd Jehovah who does this, with the oil of gladness. And, as it were in parallel to our song, Now will I sing to my beloved a song of my belov ed, touching his vineyard. My beloved hath a vineyard on the horn of the son of oil.' We read it, in a very fruitful hill,' which is no translation, and a wretchedly bad paraphrase, notwithstanding of the great names who have adopted it. The oil, the product of the olive tree, has long stood in some connexion with God; so says Jotham's fable, the oldest by far of the kind-by me they honour 'God and man. And it is worthy of notice, that this connexion is only applied to the olive and the vine. So oil and wine are the two healing ingredients, which the good Samaritan, the type of the true physician, poured into the dying man's wounds. Many such passages occur in holy writ to explain the church's declaration here, and to lift our conceptions above the unmeaning wanderings of either heathen ignorance, or modern learning.Thy name is (as not in the Heb.) oil poured (or

I Ps. xxiii. 5.

3 Isaiah v. I.

$ St Luke x. 24.

2 Ps. xlv. 8.

4 Judges ix. 9.