the various parts of this general character, to carry it up as high as the full extent of the original words will go, because it is designed to introduce what I called the beautiful description that follows, through all the particulars of head, locks, eyes, cheeks, lips, hands, belly, legs, countenance, mouth, where the several comparisons, even in our translation, cannot fail to excite in our minds very pleasing ideas, tho' many times not easy to be expressed by us with that propriety which the inspired writer had perceived in them'. It is easy to see, that they are 2 K2 6 in I There are some of them which seem to carry a grander meaning than our translation offers. I shall instance in one, ch. v. 12. 'His eyes-fitly set,' mhp by naw, ishbuth ol melae, Heb. sitting in. fulness,' as on our margins, tho' the illustration that follows has no foundation. The LXX. have it, xanuevas eπi wangwμara, Montanus, manentes super plenitudinem. The earth is the Lord's, and (melae, our word), the fulness thereof,' Ps. 1. 11. Ixxxix. 12. Jer. xlvii. 2. Ezek. xix. 7, &c. in all which places the Gr. is λngwa. His eyes are over this fulness, (the LXX. render our word plural), beholding all things in heaven and earth. There is likewise another λngwμa, 'fulness,' belonging to him —' the fulness of the Godhead bodily,' Colos. i. 19, and ii. 9. the fulness of Christ,' Eph. iv. 13. f his fulness we have all received,' St John i. 16, &c. And her et me be indulged a short digression, to bring forward an observation, which this word pleroma had long ago led me to make. There was a mighty objection boasted of in the end of the 17th century by the Huguenot Daillé, and others of that stamp, against the Medicean copy of St Ignatius' Epistles, from its mentioning the word ciyn, sige; (λoy& ardı& oun año clyns goeλdav, Ep. ad Magnesios), which word, say the objectors, was first used by the Valentinians, who were posterior to Ignatius. In answer to which, it has been demonstrated by Bishop Pearson and others, that sige had been used to the same purpose by the Gnostics before Ignatius. But whether so or not, the objection, such as it is, will hold equally against the genuineness of many places intended to present to us the idea of one beautiful and' altogether lovely'-whole. And as to what that whole is, I hope I may produce St Paul as a competent expositor", A body hast thou prepared 'me.' It needs no proof that this noble passage is a quotation from the 40th Psalm, which, as far at least as the quotation goes, is confessed to belong exclusively to the Messiah, our fair one's Beloved3. Of places of the New Testament, for making so frequent mention of the word pleroma, which is more conspicuous in, as being the foundation of, the Valentinian theology, than the Ignatian sige. It might have been more rationally supposed, that these wretches had borrowed both these words, as well as their other capital word aw, con, from antecedent writers, and adapted them to their own whimsical system of heretical nonsense. 3 Though in the part I have produced from the apostle, there is a visible difference between it and its parallel in the Psalm, which could be accounted for from Exod. xxi. 5, 6, it is enough for my purpose, that I have St Paul's authority to warrant this turn of the LXX. and thereby give it to the church as the Psalmist's meaning. This prepared body' of Christ, I think is pointed at in another Psalm,'which has not been usually thought to look that way, Psalm cxxxix. 13-16. 'I will give thanks unto thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made-my bones are not hid from thee, though I be made secretly, and fashioned • beneath in the earth: Thine eyes did see my substance yet being im perfect, and in thy book were all my members written.' Psalm xl. 10. Which day by day were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them (Prayer Book translation). Indeed there are sundry other strokes in this Psalm, which, as well as these, seem to stretch beyond the natural David, and to indicate even a greater favourite than My down-sitting and mine uprising.' My burial and (resurrectionem meam, Jerom), my resurrection.' he was. • Thou hast fashioned me behind and before, Psalm iv. 8. xvi. 10. 78, ahur veqdam, soxατa s αexαia, LXX. backward and forward, formerly and futurely, the it. Of this body, made up and prepared, with the constituent members here enumerated with high commendation, we know the design, and are happy in 'We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus'. His body therefore was an offering; and there are repeated injunctions in the Levitical dispensation, that the offering, bullock, or lamb, or kid, the types of the great offering, should be without blemish. In conformity to which, we find the inspired writers of the New Testament always declaring, and with a certain degree of emphasis, the archetypal offering to be without spot or blemish; and it appears a most natural conclusion, that such à declaration in general, in emblematical adjustment to the Levitical rule, is the sum of all the fine encomiums here put into the church's mouth, by adducing such things as then were 6 the first and the last.' Isaiah xli. 4. xliv. 6. xlviii. 12. applied Rev. i. 17. xxi. 6. the beginning and the end,' xxii. 13. the last Adam,' 1 Cor. xv. 45. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, Heb. xiii. 8. who is, and who was, and who is to come,' Rev. i. 8. 'from everlasting (answering to qdam) to everlasting (abur) thou art 'God,' Psalm xc. 2. laid thine hands upon me, Psalm 1xxx. 17. 'let 'thine hand be upon-the Son of Man,' for the same purpose in both, • thou hast possessed my reins,' ver. 13. Op, qnith, spoken of herself by wisdom personifying Christ, Prov. viii. 22. Jehovah possessed me (p, qnni) qdm, before his works of old ;' where it is observable, that in the Psalm, the LXX. have properly translated qnith, sxrnow, from but in Proverbs have rendered qnni, extiσe μe, from to possess ; `XTIO, 'to create,' he created me, which was greedily laid hold of by the old Arians, who knew little of the Hebrew language. I Heb. x. 10. 2 See particularly Lev. xxii, 20-259 were, and still are, of precious estimation, • fine gold, beds of spices, towers of perfumes, beryls ' and sapphires, ivory and marble,' and then summing up all with this rapturous exclamation, he is altogether lovely,, kelu mechamdim, totum ejus desiderabilia, the whole of him desireable,' • EDμia, LXX. the desire of all nations,' 'fairer than the children of men,' as the Psalmist describes him', and as an old legend makes Pilate, or Publius Lentulus, describe him, in a letter to the Emperor Tiberius concerning him. I know there is a passage in Isaiah, that seems to deny the personal beauty of Jesus', 'There is no beauty (, me'rae, the word for countenance' in our 15th verse) ⚫ that we should desire him.' But this may be only the opinion of the unbelievers, of whom the prophet very justly complains, and could be shewn not to militate against the church's view of him, as agreeable to the picture before us, that he is altogether lovely. Well might she boast of him3, as she does, and as every christian may joyfully join with her- THIS is my Beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem ! * Psalm xlv. 2 Chap. liii. 2, 3 Psalm xliv. 8. CHAP. CHAP. VI. VER. 1.-Whither is thy Beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? Whither is thy Beloved turned aside, that we may seek him with thee? 6 THIS corresponds exactly with Haggai's ' desire of all nations',' and with Malachi's Lord 'whom ye seek", realized in some sort, first by the parents of Jesus seeking him 3, and afterwards more generally, when the apostles said to him", All men seek thee.' VER. 2.-My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies. How came she to the knowledge of this? She had been wistfully seeking and enquiring about him; but, as far as appears, had got no intelligence. The literal sense here points out no sort of direction. But the spiritual, the real sense, leads to faith and hope, and gives them for instructors. The ac I Chap. ii. 7. 2 Chap. iii. 1. 4 St Mark i. 37. |