blance, though perhaps not easy to be formed into such regular arrangement as the fastidious critic would require, we may have some conception of what is here promised to be done for the little sister.

VER. 10. -I am a wall, and my breasts like towers; then was I in his eyes as one that found favour.

This joyful declaration is generally put into the spouse's mouth, and under that appropriation has something in it that looks like envying or beholding with jealousy the little sister, and robbing her as it were of the blessing intended for her, under the supposition of her being a wall. Jerom's version, supposing the speaker here to be the Gentile church, the little sister, renders the passage thus, Ego murus, et ubera mea sicut turres, ex quo facta 'sum coram eo quasi pacem reperiens-I am a 'wall, and my breasts like towers, from the time ⚫ that I became before him as finding peace.' In this view of the delaration before us, every thing is plain and intelligible; and in what the little sister says of herself, there are two beautiful strokes of language which claim notice: When I was jbp, quethnt, little, my breasts were so too, indeed almost nothing; now that I am become a wall, and have a palace of silver built upon me, they are become big,, megdlut, from, gedl, big,' the word always opposed to quethn, little.' And again, I am now become (not, as we read it,

hav

ing found favour,' which is rather a feeble translation, but) a finder of peace, (shalum, the root of the name Solomon), invested in a manner with the title of Shulamite, in allusion to what is said of that character in the conclusion of the 6th chapter. The Hebrew language delights, as I have hinted before, in such allusions, which the scoffer will no doubt sneer at, as an idle lusus verborum, a play of words. All, however, that is contained in these two verses, as proposed in the one, and realized in the other, will, upon examination, be found to belong to the Gentile church', the little sister, beautified with full breasts, connected with Solomon, and blest with the heavenly mahanaim, as is clearly referred to, and confirmed by the next verse.

VER. 11.-Solomon had a vineyard at Baalhamon; he let out the vineyard to keepers; every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of silver.

This is another of those passages which certain writers lay hold of, to countenance their applica

tion

I Prophesied of-Isaiah xi. 10. To it, the root of Jesse, shall the Gentiles seek.' Isaiah 1x. 3. 5. The Gentiles shall come to thee,' &c. Their acceptance is foreseen as certain-St John x. 16. Them ' also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice.' The salvation of 'God is sent unto the Gentiles, and they will hear it,' Acts xxviii. 28. Declared as fact- The gospel which I preach among the Gentiles,' Galat. ii. 2. Gentiles in times past in the flesh-now in Christ Jesus, for he is our peace,' Eph. ii. 11. 13, 14. 'The Gentiles become fel'low heirs and of the same body, and partakers of the promise of Christ 'by the gospel,' Ephes. iii. 6, &c.

tion of the Song to the marriage of Pharaoh's daughter, from the relation which they fancy Baalhamon must have to Egypt. But this conceit proceeds either from ignorance of, or inattention to, the word here used. The Hammon of the Egyptians, which we are told is the Egyptian name for Jupiter, and constitutes the famous Cyrenaic oracle of Jupiter Hammon, is written, with the heth,, and is derived from their graceless progenitor Ham; from whom Egypt is, by the Greeks, sometimes called Xapa, Chamia,' the land of Χαμια, Cham'. The hamon of our word is written with the he,, hemun, and is the foundation of that great change in Abraham's name made by God himself',

Thy name shall no more be called, Abrm, 'but thy name shall be 8, Abrem; for a father of, hemun guim, many nations, multitude of nations, I have made thee.' Accordingly Jerom's version looks this way, Vinea fuit pacifica (alluding to the pacem reperiens' before) in ea quæ habet populos- The peace-giver had a vineyard, in that which has peoples;' but in conformity to the text of Genesis, which he seems to have had in his eye, more properly, and as he there renders it, gentes, nations.' There is a material distinction in scripture-style between these two terms; the faithful are honoured with the peculiar title of God's y, om, people; the unconvert

6

ed

Psalm 1xxviii. 51. zaμ, LXX.

2 Gen. xvii. 5.

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ed are always called, guim, nations, 9, Gr. from which we have the word heathen,' gentes, Latin, whence our Gentiles,' so frequent in our translation. It is in this distinguishing sense, that the promise above quoted is to be taken; for the peculiarity of the berith, the redeeming covenant, was even then fixed in Isaac', 'In Isaac shall thy seed be called.' In fulfilment of this promise, we know that nations, Gentiles, came out of Abraham's loins, not only through Ishmael and his twelve princes, but also through the six sons which he had by his second wife Keturah 3. Of this vast, hemun, multitude, and indeed of the universal hemun of all nations, the Beloved, in terms of the eternal ' covenant",' and by virtue of his early title of 'the seed of the woman 5,' was the true original,

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, Baul, Lord-husband, as the word, especially in prophetic language, signifies; though, in process of time, the guim, Gentiles, went a-whoring from him, and set up, Baalim, of their own; and even many times drew off his chosen, dear spouse, into the same provoking, and, in her, most uncharacteristic apostasy. Yet still he was the "Lord of a vineyard,' such as it was, among them, and had it always in contemplation, in his own time and way, to bring them back, and be once more the 2 x 2 only

only Baal of the great Hemun of them. This must be the real, indeed the only meaning of our Baalhamon. We find no city or place, under this name, nor the word itself anywhere else in all the Bible: So it may be considered, like several others in this Song, as a word of the Poet's own fabrication, to express what he intended in the emblematic style, which he had all along adopted. And in this sense it will be found applicable to the character of the little sister; little, by the account here given, not in stature or quantity, but in quality and esteem, for want of the magnifying' privileges of the spouse, being, as her apostle, St Paul, describes her', Without Christ, aliens from 'the commonwealth or polity of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.' 'He let out the vineyard to keepers; every one, for the fruit thereof, was to bring (brings,' says Je'rom, will bring,' say the Hebrew and LXX.) a thousand pieces of silver. Let us turn to our Lord's parable of the servants, and we shall find a sufficient analogy between it, and the description before us, to elucidate the general purport of both, upon making proper allowance for the parabolical strain of the one, and the emblematical design of the other.

VER.

Eph. ii. 12.

* St Matth. xxv. 14-23.