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other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord "."

But, in concluding, we seem called upon to reflect, how extremely unimportant it is to search the meaning of these allegories if our hearts are strangers to the sacred passion which they describe ! Is the blessed Jesus then, indeed, the object of our choice, "fairer" in our eyes "than the children of men;" the object on whom our "thoughts find all repose," and whose loved image the busiest scenes and most alluring pleasures cannot long banish from our minds? Is he our "glory," our "perfection?" Is it the prospect of being taken to his heavenly abode, and placed for ever near his dear person, that is our solace in toil and trouble, the recompense and rich amends which we propose to ourselves for every loss and sacrifice? If such an affection has been kindled in our hearts towards him who "first loved us," then we may hope to read the Canticles with pleasure and profit. But if, from all that we know concerning the Saviour of the world, nothing in his person and character has particularly struck our wayward fancies, or served to give Christ the pre-eminence in our affections

Rom. viii. 38, 39.

above other objects; if, with the ungrateful world at large, we are compelled to acknowledge, "he has no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire in him;" then, indeed, it were in vain to think of reading these songs of love: they cannot be to our taste and mind. "Frustra enim ad legendum amoris carmen, qui non amat accedit, quia non potest capere ignitum eloquium frigidum pectus,"" Lingua amoris ei, qui non amat barbara erit."

"For this cause," therefore, let us bow our "knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant" us, "according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in" our

our "hearts by faith; that" we, "being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend, with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that we may filled with all the fulness of God." AMEN*.

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* The relation between Christ and his Church, it is evident, must be of a nature not to be adequately typified by any thing in the material world; and nothing could be found in human life which might so aptly represent it as the relation of husband and wife in the holy state of wedlock: and in this the analogy is so

perfect, that the notion of the ancient Jews has received the express sanction of St Paul, that the relation of the Saviour and the Church was typified in the union of our first parents, and in the particular manner of Eve's formation out of the substance of Adam."- "The union in both cases, in the natural case of man and wife, and the spiritual case of Messiah and the Church, is a union of the most entire affection and the warmest mutual love, between unequals; contrary to the admired maxim of the heathen moralist, that friendship was not to be formed but between equals. The maxim may be true in all human friendship, except in the conjugal, but fails completely in the love between Christ and his Church, in which the affection on both sides is the most cordial, though the rank of the parties be the most disparate."

BISHOP HORSLEY.

CANTICLES;

OR,

SONG OF SOLOMON.

IDYL THE FIRST.

Corresponding with the first six Verses of the first Chapter of our public Translation.

THIS Idyl may perhaps, with propriety, be considered as introductory to the series. The fictitious event, or simile, which forms the exterior or ostensible part of the allegory, appears to be the conducting of a bride to her home. She is plainly supposed, as we shall discover, to have been a person in a low station: one at least who, by the ill treatment of her relations, had been employed in servile labours. The bridegroom, into whose house she is conducted, is said to be the King; and as Jerusalem is mentioned, it is of course the King of Israel. But as no real incident, that we know of, was the occasion of the idyl, we may consider the allegory as belonging to the parabolical species, according to the distinctions noticed in the Preface.

This little poem consists of a dialogue between the bride and the daughters of Jerusalem, who are sent to

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