lines need no interpretation to the feeling mind. They are particularly designed, if we have conjectured right, to represent how much the anxiety discovered in the parting looks of the beloved object, had affected the heart of her husband. It is this, it should seem, which leads him, in the following lines, to give her fresh assurances of his love, and of his delight in her society: and which induces him to point out the conveniences and beauties of the residence, where she was to be left" till the day should breathe, and the shades be fled."

And in reading the history of our divine Master, when he visited this earth in great humility, we cannot but have noticed what precious promises, what kind assurances of his love, the sorrow discovered by the disciples, when he had intimated the approach of his departure, seemed to extort from his gracious lips!

"Because I have said these things unto you, sorrow has filled your hearts. hearts. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away," &c.—" Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away and come again unto you. If ye loved me ye would rejoice, because I said, I go to the Father." But let the whole of those parting sayings of our compassionate Redeemer, contained in the fourteenth and two following chapters of

St. John's gospel, be read as an exposition of this part of the Canticles. And then, I think, it must be acknowledged, that the expressions of the enraptured lover, in the symbolical representation before us, are not too strong, to paint the affection of the dying Jesus to the souls of his people.

"How pleasant is thy love, my sister, espoused, how much better is thy love than wine; and the odour of thy perfumes than of all perfumes. Thy lips, espoused, distil the virgin honey: honey and milk are under thy tongue, and the odour of thy garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon." Some of these figures we have already considered.-We may observe in general, that things esteemed the most grateful to the human senses are referred to in order to give us some notion and satisfactory assurance of the delight with which the gracious Saviour looks upon his people, especially when they testify by their actions their unfeigned love towards him; and whose lips express, in prayer and praise, the effusions of a grateful heart. grand inference which we are to draw is this," As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so will the Lord thy God rejoice over thee."—And thus are the nuptials of two faithful lovers consecrated to so excellent a mystery, that therein is signified and represented, the spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Christ and his church t."

The

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We come next to the description of the pleasant residence, where, as we have conjectured, the spouse is lett till the time appointed for her removal to the abode of her beloved. Pomegranates are the productions of thy garden," or "Thy plants are a paradise of pomegranates, with all precious fruits hennahs with nards, nard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices. The fountain of thy gardens is a well of living waters, and streams flowing from Lebanon."

The garden, or cultivated estate, is, as we have seen, described as being enclosed, and well secured from every depredator; and also as being well supplied with water, that most essential of all articles in these hot countries-springs of water are appropriated to its use. A garden it is described to be, like the paradise in which our first parents were placed, “Out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food "."-Its waters too are not like the wintry torrents, to which Job compares the deceitful friend: "which are blackish by reason of the ice, and wherein the snow is hid: what time they wax warm they vanish; when it is hot they consume out of their place; the paths of their way are turned aside, they go to nothing, and perish." But the fountain which supplies these gardens is a

;

well of living or spring waters, and streams flowing from Lebanon.

This delicious paradise is, no doubt, meant to portray the state and condition of those happy believers, who, having received the reconciliation, and being sealed by the spirit of adoption, are kept by the power of God unto the salvation ready to be revealed in the last day" whose heart the Lord has directed into the love of God and patient waiting for Jesus Christ x." "Theirs is the world, and life, and death, and things present, and things to come; all are theirs, for they are Christ's, and Christ is God's y."

The metaphor here employed to represent a state of spiritual prosperity, is very usual in Scripture. "Their soul shall be as a watered garden, and they shall sorrow no more at all."-"The Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make thy bones fat: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of waters, whose waters fail not "."" How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river's side, as the trees of lign-aloes which the Lord has planted, and as cedar-trees beside the waters"."" In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine: I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will

* 2 Thes. iii. 5. y 1 Cor. iii. 22, 23. z Jer. xxxi. 12. a Isai. lviii. 2. b Num. xxiv. 5, 6.

keep it night and day."-" Salvation will the Lord appoint for walls and bulwarks."-" Lest they which go by the way should pluck her, lest the boar out of the wood should waste it, and the wild beast of the field devour it "."

The expressions indeed of our blessed Master himself, as well as the constant use of the metaphor in the Old Testament, guide to the particular interpretation of this spring locked up, this fountain sealed-well of living waters, as it was, and streams from Lebanon; nor can we hesitate, after considering the following passages, to understand it of that supply of the Holy Spirit, which God doth shed abundantly on them that believe.

"But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of living water, springing up into everlasting life."

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If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified"."

These streams of divine grace are, moreover, represented as wholly appropriated to the use of the

c Isai. xxvii. 2, 3.

d Ps. lxxx. 12, 13. f John, vii. 38, 39.

e John, iv. 14.