his sheep from the goats. Many of the scripture emblems are of this sort, looking backward and forward through all they, aves, ages, seasons of œconomy, and may be either taken in the complex, [as comprehending this extensive view, or adjusted to particular circumstances, as the particular situation of the church or believers requires. With a view to either of these senses, therefore, or to them all taken together, we may join in the fair one's address or prayer here, and joyfully say, in her emblematical language, Turn my Beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart on the ? mountains of Bether.'

1 St Matth. xxv. 32.

CHAP.

CHAP. III.

VER. 1.-By night on my bed, I sought him, whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him

not.

THIS is another of those passages, at which careless readers are apt to be offended; and which indeed the common acceptation presents in a light too much calculated to give such offence. We may therefore justly conclude, that the inspired writer, if we believe him to have been inspired, had no literal sense in his eye. There is no necessity to seek connexion between this and what goes before. We may as well labour to connect the Psalms with one another, and make out a continued history of the natural David's affairs from such a fanciful connexion. The experiment would soon convince us of the absurdity, and even impracticability of the conceit. These sacred odes are ranged in nothing of what we call method, but are detached pieces of poetical devotion, not at the arbitrary direction of the writer's own choice, but under the leading impulse of the heavenly muse. So may be, and so I think is the case with this shir hashirim, this Song, this collection of Songs:

not

not tacked together by any late invented rules of Aristotelian or Horatian art, but like the Psalms, broken, extemporary raptures, or effusions of promises, instances of condescension and goodness on the one part, and of devotional feelings, faith, hope, joy, and gratitude, on the other. By night, says the church, (no matter in what order, or with what connexion), on my bed I sought, &c.-Let me make use of a very general observation, that the transposition of an author's words may be extremely hurtful to his sense, and apply it to the passage before us: The order in the original and LXX. is on my bed in "the nights. Both have nights in the plural, so the sense cannot be confined, as the eclogue fancy does confine it, to one particular night, nor represent one particular limited time or season for this action of the bride's. I know both the Hebrew and the Latin plural, noctibus,' may be, and in some cases are rendered singularly, as we say, by night and by day, or night and day,' to express a continued succession of time. But this will not hold in the literal sense here, as it would aggravate the disgust to suppose this a continued practice. Yet the expression speaks of more nights than one, and must have some particular meaning. On my bed ol meshachabi. The root is , shachab, to lie, lie down, jacere, cubare, and the context must direct the application. So here, in my lying, while I was lying,, beliluth, ev ww, in the nights, among them, the nights, as the idea implies, of blackness, darkness, or absence of light. We have

a

6

6

reference to this in one of the Psalms', Though ye have lien (, tashachabu) among the pots," in a state of slavery or meanness (as Issachar is described under this word for pots, couching be*tween two burdens') yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver and gold,' terms very similar to the construction of our Song. This points to the lying' here in the nights, and is, I think, beautifully explained in the exhortation at our eucharistic service, mentioning what Christ has done for us miserable sinners, who lay in darkness, and in the shadow of death,' &c. This is the state in which the church once lay; a state to which some of her individual members are often exposed, expressed by nights of gloominess, solitary sadness, and temptation, as the contents of the chapter calls it. While in this condition, thus lying among the nights, the nights before the 'DaveX, the manifestation in flesh of the true Light, the nights when at any time that Light withdraws his shining, the church tells us, 'She sought him whom her soul loveth.-The desire of all nations was althe joy of every faithful heart. I sought him. The verb is up, bequesh, which, the dictionaries say, signifies to seek more by zeal than by words: and is used by Malachi in a particular description, • The Lord (ha Adon, Psalm cx. 1. the made Lord, 'Acts ii. 36.) whom seek.' We have frequent

ways

ye

precepts

+ lxviii. 13.

2 Gen. xlix. 14.

3 Chap. iii. 1.

precepts also to this purpose. Seek the Lord, seek 'his face, his appearance', I sought him, she says, but I found him not.-There is something of difficulty in this, as in the spiritual sense it seems rather uncharacteristic. Yet we know by experience that he has his times and ways of being found. Lying among the nights, upon beds, in supineness and indolence of either mind or practice, is neither the proper time nor place, ordinarily speaking, to find him. In extraordinary cases, indeed, and where his wisdom sees necessary, he is often found of them that sought him not. But in the regular course of things, christians must be in some sort active, 'casting off the works of darkness, putting on 'the armour of light', and 'not sleeping as others 'do 3.' So says the church

VER. 2.-I will rise now, and go about the city, in the streets, and in the broad ways; I will seek him, whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

Here we see her in exercise, yet without immediate success. I will rise now :-Not necessarily implying local motion, or inferring an immediate change from the posture of lying, but expressing a resolution to be active in her search, and use all possible means of discovery. We find the same

ex

1 Psalm cv. 4. &c.

2 Rom. xiii. 12.

3 i Thess. v. 5.