ated spirits towards their beneficent Creator, has prevailed from time immemorial in Asia: particularly among the Persian theists, both ancient Hushangis and modern Sufis. This singular species of poetry consists almost wholly of a mystical religious allegory, though it seems, on a transient view, to contain only the sentiments of a wild and voluptuous libertinism. Passages in Barrow on the love of God, and the mysterious union of the soul with him, border on quietism and enthusiastic devotion; and differ only from the mystical theology of the Sufis and Yogis, as the flowers and fruits of Europe differ in scent and flavour from those of Asia; or as European differs from Asiatic eloquence; the same strain, in poetical measure, would rise up to the odes of Spencer on divine love and beauty; and in a higher key, with richer embellishments, to the songs of Hafiz and Jayadeva, the raptures of the Masnavi, and the mysteries of the Bhagavat. Many zealous admirers of Hafiz insist that by wine he invariably means devotion, by kisses. and embraces the raptures of piety. The poet himself gives a colour in many passages to such an interpretation; and without it we can hardly conceive that his poems, or those of his numerous imitators, would be tolerated in a Musselman country, especially at Constantinople, where they are venerated as divine compositions."* The Sufis have a regular lexicon of large size, the express design of which is to give the * Sir W. Jones's essay on "The Mystical Poetry of the Persians and Hindus."-Works, vol. i. p. 445. allegorical meaning of the words most frequently used in this kind of poetry-as in the following specimens; wine means devotion; sleep, meditation; perfume, religious hope; kiss, pious rapture; ebriety, religious ardour; lips, mysteries of God; beauty, perfections of God; tresses, glory of God. То As the Song is an oriental production, the allegorical interpretation is the natural one to a person acquainted with the spirit of oriental literature. such, the literal interpretation is that which appears far-fetched, vapid, and unnatural. 3. The names employed to designate the two important persons in this Song, prove it to be an allegory. Shelomoh and Shulamith differ from each other only as Cornelius differs from Cornelia. They are in as perfect keeping with the tenor of the allegory, as John Bunyan's Christian and Christiana are with the scope of the Pilgrim's Progress. According to prophecy, Jesus was to be called the Prince of peace; and angels heralded his coming as "peace on earth." The names here adopted are in accordance with such a character-Shelomoh meaning Prince of peace; and Shulamith, the bride of Shelomoh, the Princess of peace. 4. There are many things in the Song, which cannot be explained by any knowledge we have of Hebrew customs; nor indeed in any way, without taking the book as an allegory, rather than a personal narrative, without reference to facts as existing, and solely to illustrate truth. Such departure from rigid. facts and customs is allowable in an allegory. In reading history, our object is to have reproduced before the mind a picture of events as they really existed: in an allegory we look for nothing further than the illustration of truth; and therefore he who weaves it, is not bound, in bringing together the incidents, to follow any order of nature or of facts; but is at liberty to combine incidents in any way that imagination, guided by reason, sees conducive to the end in view. "By what other means," says Warburton, "except by revelation, can an allegorical writing be known to be allegorical, but by circumstances in it which cannot be reconciled to the story or fable that serves both for a cover and vehicle to the moral? When the allegory is of some length, it can scarce be otherwise but that some circumstances in it must be varied from the fact to adapt it to the moral."* such compositions as the vision of Mirza or of Theodore, the history of Seged or the Pilgrim's Progress, the adventures of Sir Guyon or of Faustus, we do not expect an adherence to facts, or even to probabilities. "The poet is universally allowed to place his personages, even when strictly historical, in circumstances which we know could not have been those that actually surrounded them." And we must notice the difference between an allegory and a type. Types are incidents, personages, or objects, appointed under the Old Dispensation as illustrations of truths to be thereafter fully revealed. The meaning conveyed by them * Warburton's Divine Legation, book iii., 274. In is metaphorical, but the incidents in which that meaning is embodied, are not to any degree imaginary, but are throughout real. While an allegory is a continued metaphor, the materials composing it may be drawn indiscriminately from the domains of fact or of fiction. This Song is not a typical, but an allegorical representation of the love of Christ and his Church, a love that existed and needed elucidation under the Old Economy, no less than under the New. Hence many things are found in it, that are a deviation from Jewish customs, and from human facts; and are here written down for setting in a clear light this wondrous love. It will be sufficient now to refer to chap. iii. 2, chap. v. 7, and chap. iii. 10, "paved with love." Therefore it is that Rosenmüller says, on chap. iii. 4, Hinc satis patet ananyopixŵs hæc intelligenda esse. And it is for obviating the difficulty arising from the disagreement of circumstances here mentioned, with Jewish antiquities, that some commentators have resorted to the supposition that a part of the incidents here recorded, occurred only in a dream. When the book is viewed as an allegory, all these difficulties disappear. 5. The obvious connection of this Song with the forty-fifth and seventy-second psalms, is another claim for giving it an allegorical meaning. The thirty-seventh psalm bears a very strong resemblance to the book of Proverbs, and the thirty-ninth psalm to the book of Job; as the Song does to the psalms just mentioned. There are certainly trilogies to be found in the book of Psalms, though we would run no parallel whatever between them and the trilogy of the Greek drama. Thus, according to Hengstenberg, psalms cviii. cx. and exi. form a trilogy. The same is true of the Song of Solomon, and psalm xlv. and lxxii. They are all the parts of a whole, and draw their imagery from the court and reign of Solomon. Psalm lxxii. represents the nature of the reign of the Prince of Peace as righteous, universal, gracious, and enduring; psalm xlv. sets forth, under the marriage of a noble, beauteous, conquering prince with a foreign princess, the relation of the Messiah to his chosen people; the Song of Solomon illustrates under a comparison drawn from the mutual affection of such a king and queen, doubtless the same referred to in psalm xlv.-the reciprocal love of Jesus and his redeemed. The oldest interpreters, both Jewish and Christian, give these two psalms no other than an allegorical interpretation. Considering, therefore, their identity with this book, in imagery, spirit, and aim, all correct principles of exposition require that we give to the Song, equally with them, an allegorical interpretation. 6. The Scriptures apply the spirit of this allegory to Christ and the Church. This is not indeed done within the narrow compass of the book called the Song. It is enough that such application be found in the limits of the Bible. The clew to the meaning of the parable of the sower was not given at the time it was spoken, but afterwards, when the disciples had been made to feel themselves unable to see through the mystery, and had come to Jesus for an explanation. The interpretation of this parable and |