Othee books of Solomon lie more obvious and open to common under- standing ; but, as none entered into the holy of holies but the high priest, Lev. xvi. 2, seq., and Heb. is. 7, so none can enter into the mysteiy of this Song of songs, but such as have more near communion with Christ. Songs, and specially marriage songs, serve to express men's own joys, and others* praises. So this book contains the mutual joys and mutual praises betwixt Christ and his church.
And as Christ and his church are the greatest persons that partake of human nature, so whatsoever is excellent in the whole world is borrowed to set out the excellencies of these two gi-eat lovers.
It is called ' Solomon's Song,' who, next unto Christ, was the greatest son of wisdom that ever the church bred, whose understanding, as it was ' large as the sand of the sea,' 1 Kings iv. 29, so his affections, especially that of love, were as large, as we may see by his many wives, and by the delight he sought to take in whatsoever nature could afford. Which affec- tion of love, in him misplaced, had been his undoing, but that he was one beloved of God, who by his Spirit raised his soul to lovely objects of a higher nature. Here in this argument there is no danger for the deepest wit, or the largest affection, yea, of a Solomon, to overreach. For the knowledge of the love of Christ to his church is above all knowledge, Eph. iii. 19. The angels themselves may admii'e it, though they cannot com- prehend it. It may well, therefore, be called the ' Song of Solomon ;' the most excellent song of a man of the highest conceit* and deepest appre- hension, and of the highest matters, the intercourse betwixt Clirist, the highest Lord of lords, and his best beloved contracted spouse.
There are divers things in this song that a corrapt heart, unto which aU things are defiled, may take offence ; but ' to the pure all things are pure,' Titus i. 15. Such a sinful abuse of this heavenly book is far from the inten- tion of the Holy Ghost in it, which is by stooping low to us, to take * That is, ' imagination.' — G.
6 BOWELS OPKNlil). [SeRMON T.
advantage to raise us higher unto him, that by taking advantage of the sweet- est passage of our life, man-iage, and the most dehghtful affection, love, in the sweetest manner of expression, by a song, he might carry up the soul to things of a heavenly nature. We see in summer that one heat weakens another ; and a great light being near a little one, draws away and obscures the flame of the other. So it is when the affections are taken up higher to their fit object ; they die unto all earthly things, whilst that heavenly flame consurnes and wastes all base affections and earthly desires. Amongst other ways of mortification, there be two remarkable —
1. By emhitterinfj all earthly things unto us, ivhereby the affections are deaded* to them.
2. By shelving more noble, excellent, and fit objects, that the soul, issuing more largely and strongly into them, may be diverted, and so by degrees die unto other things. The Holy Spirit hath chosen this way in this song, by elevating and raising our affections and love, to take it oft' from other things, that so it might run in its right channel. It is pity that a sweet stream should not rather run into a garden than into a puddle. What a shame is it that man, having in him such excellent affections as love, joy, delight, should cleave to dirty, base things, that are worse than himself, so becoming debased like them ! Therefore the Spirit of God, out of mercy and pity to man, would raise up his affections, by taking comparison from earthly things, leading to higher matters, that only deserve love, joy, delight, and admiration. Let God's stooping to us occasion our rising up unto him. For here the greatest things, the ' mystery of mysteries,' the communion betwixt Christ and his church, is set out in the familiar comparison of a marriage, that so we might the bet- ter see it in the glass of comparison, which we cannot so directly conceive of ; as we may see the sun in water, whose beams we cannot so directly look upon. Only our care must be not to look so much on the colours as the picture, and not so much on the picture as on the person itself represented ; that we look not so much to the resemblance as to the person resembled.f
Some would have Solomon, by a spirit of prophecy, to take a view here of all the time, from his age to the second coming of Christ, and in this song, as in an abridgment, to set down the several passages and periods of the church in several ages, as containing divers things which are more cor- respondent to one age of the church than another (a). But howsoever this song may contain, we deny not, a story of the church in several ages, yet this hinders not, but that most passages of it agree to the spiritual estate of the church in eveiy age, as most interpreters have thought. In this song there is,