acknowledge, and rejoice in thee as mine', without fear or risk of being despised or censured for being too forward: An example to every private christian, who in the cause of religion should neither be afraid nor ashamed, on any account, openly to profess his love of, and attachment to, Christ, remembering the heavy doom pronounced against such false shame- Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and my words, of him shall the Son of Man ⚫ be ashamed when he cometh in his glory ",' &c.

VER. 2.I would lead thee, and bring thee into my

mother's house, who would instruct me; I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine, of the juice of my pomegranate.

Here, as in the former verse, the Hebrew has all in the future, as have Jerom and the LXX. I will lead, &c.-Our insertion of who,' as connecting it with the mother, is not necessary in the natural sense, and gives a very unfavourable turn to the spiritual. Marius Calasio and Jerom make it according to grammar, without the relative, docebis me, thou wilt teach me, an office more proper to, and more efficacious from, the Beloved, than can be said of the mother. [The rest of this verse has been already considered 3, as have also the next two verses.]

VER. 3.-His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me.

VER. 4.-I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

Only upon this last verse, I would now observe, that this is the third time we meet with this solemn charge, and always after having found and met with her Beloved. And as I own myself so much an admirer of this Song of Songs, as to believe every, the most minute, circumstance about it to have a particular design, I would fain think, that this observation, trivial as some may think it, will at least be of use to justify the spiritual application I have made of this adjuration, when it first occurred in a fuller form.

VER. 5.-(Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved)? I raised thee up under the apple-tree; there thy mother brought thee forth, there she brought thee forth that bare thee.

The first part of this verse, which our Bibles inclose in a parenthesis, is evidently a rapturous exclamation without any necessary connexion, and as it manifestly indicates a change of the speaker, we may take it as a beautiful stroke of the Poet's own pen, describing, as in vision, the spouse most delightful attitude, like the exhibition he had given of the Beloved in the 3d chapter-Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness, &c. leaning on

in a

her

6

her Beloved? The word for leaning is another of the words in this Song, which are not found anywhere else; but by its position here, especially with the preposition ol, upon,' can have no other meaning but what the versions have given it, of leaning upon, guided and supported by her Beloved, in her weary journey through the wilderness of this world: Or rather, as this, though certainly true, does not answer the full force of the verb, oleh, 'cometh up,' we must extend it to another event, where the Beloved's support must be had, and is in fact promised that full and final coming up from the wilderness of the grave, the land of silence, where all things are forgotten, not only at the call of the Beloved, Come ye blessed,' &c. but by his very personal assistance- I will come again, and, Tagaλmpoμaι upas, will take you to myself.' This gracious promise, thus particularly expressed, when contemplated in all its extent, would do much to satisfy the pious mind, as to a question which, I dare say, is often started, How, or in what way, the saints shall, or can go to heaven at last? 'Go

ing to heaven,'is a familiar way of speaking; and its being so familiar, I suspect, weakens the importance of what it means. No thought can be more awful, no curiosity more commendable: And this curiosity the Beloved has, I think, abundantly gratified by the above declaration, I will take you to myself,' into his arms, as it were, into that vast expanse of LIGHT which his glorified humanity will then have concentered in itself; and which, by its 2T2

in

inherent quality, which we now call electricity', will, we may suppose, be powerful enough to lift, support, carry, the blessed millions, into the several mansions prepared for them. And thus will be literally, in a manner, answered our Poet's visionary question, Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, (the terminus a quo), and goeth up to heaven (the terminus ad quem), leaning upon her Beloved? The other clause of the verse is neither so easy, nor so delightful. I raised thee up under the apple-tree; there thy mother brought thee forth; and then follows, as we read, a kind of tautology unworthy of a Solomon's pen, she that bare thee brought thee forth. The adherers to the literal sense have seen the impropriety of women of quality bearing their children under trees, and have therefore adopted another of the senses of the root an, habl,

to pledge,' thy mother pledged thee unto me,' which is an addition to the text necessary for their scheme. Jerom has given a rendering which conveys a distinct enough idea, Sub arbore malo suscitavi ⚫te, ibi corrupta est mater tua, ibi violata est genitrix tua-Under the apple-tree I have raised thee up; 'there thy mother was corrupted, there she that bare thee was violated.' Corrupting is a very frequent sense of habl, and our poet has used it accordingly, where he says, the little foxes, mehablim, that spoil the vines, which the LXX. and Jerom have

* Compare St Luke viii. 46. Virtue, duvais, power is gone out of me.' 2 Chap. ii. 15.

have rendered in the same way. But there is an objection to Jerom's translation, especially in the first part, thy mother was corrupted,' that it is not consistent with grammatical construction, which cannot admit this passive sense to be put upon the original habltka amka. However, it can very well bear an active sense, thy mother corrupted thee;' and the second clause may stand, as Jerom makes it, ildtika hble, was corrupted'. This rendering by Jerom, therefore, (which belongs as much to the word habl as pledging' does, and much more so than our bringing forth,' for which it is never used but here), presents to our minds a double view of humiliation and comfort, and carries us back to the early period of human nature, corrupted in the person, and by the fault of, the original mother, from a tree, which she imagined was capable to inspire wisdom, till the Beloved was pleased to raise her up, and restore her, and us in her, to the full enjoyment of his love and favour: And this short sketch of Solomon's may pass for a miniature picture of the same figure, which was afterwards drawn on a larger scale, and with stronger colourings, by the prophet Ezekiel3. The design is the same in both, and so must also the interpretation be, however mortifying to the proud conceits of carnal reason.

* Like Job's ruhi hble, ' my breath is corrupt,' Job xvii. 1.

2 Gen. iii. 6.

3 Chap. xvi. 3-15.

VER.