pure and pleasant in herself, but adapted to com municate blessings all around her; and, in short, to be the mother of a numerous and happy offspring. That this is the clear and established meaning of these metaphors appears, not only from the use of parallel expressions in the eastern poets, and the concurrent testimony of the Jews, but especially from the following passage in the same inspired writer.

'Drink waters out of thine own cistern;
And running waters out of thine own well.
'Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad;
'And rivers of waters in the streets.
'Let them be only thine own,

And not a stranger's with thee.

Let thy fountain be blessed;

'And rejoice with the WIFE of thy youth'.

among other crimes he had 'rent her veil,' which D' Herbelot explains of having dishonoured her. (Bib. Orient. p. 644.)-In a famous Persian romance, a princess assures her husband of her fidelity in his absence in these terms: The jewels of the treasury of secrecy are still the same as they were, and the casket is sealed with the same seal.' (Bahur Danush, vol. III. 65.)

Now the two last instances, relating to married women, cannot be confined to the sense which Mr. Harmer and others have imposed on such terms, it is therefore probable that the other should not be so confined; Solomon's assertion therefore that the garden was locked, and the fountain sealed, will not prove that the marriage was yet incomplete, as the hypothesis of Mr. Harmer requires. On the other hand, the language of the author in the first verse of chap. ♥. appears to me decissive, that the marriage had been consummated.

1 Prov. v. 15-18. That is, as good Bp. PATRICK (who speaks the general sense of the commentators) paraphra

The fountain of gardens, and streams from Lebanon, are taken locally by an old writer', who fixes the former six miles from Tripoli, and the latter about a mile to the south of Tyre. It is a circumstance, however, of little or no importance. JOSEPHUS tells us that Solomon took great delight in his gardens and fountains of waters', which indeed, with their perfumes, are the grand objects of luxury in eastern countries.

There can be no difficulty in the application of these images, which are often employed by the prophets, particularly ISAIAH.

They consider the world, filled with ignorance and vice, as a wilderness, dry and barren, or

ses the text: Marry; and in a wife of thine own enjoy 'the pleasures thou desirest; and be content with them alone; innocent, chaste and pure pleasures :-Of whom 'thou mayest have a lawful issue, which thou needest not 'be ashamed to own; but openly produce and send them 'abroad, like streams from a spring, to serve the public ' good,' &c.

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So among the modern Jews, the bridegroom offers the the following petition: Suffer not a stranger to enter into 'the sealed fountain, that the servant of our loves (i. c. the bride) may keep the seed of holiness and purity, and not 'be barren.'-Selden's Uxor Hebraica, lib. iii. chap. 2.Addison's present State of the Jews, chap. v.

The same idea of chastity is certainly intended by the 'garden locked,' or shut up; on which the TARGUM thus comments: Thy women, which are married to modest men, are as a modest damsel, and as the garden of Eden, into which no man hath power to enter, except the righteous, whose souls are by angels carried into it.'

1 Adrichonius Theatrum terræ Sanctæ, quoted in Gill. Josephus, Antiq. lib. viii. chap. 7.

only producing weeds, and thorns, and briars. But

'When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, And their tongue faileth for thirst;

I, JEHOVAH, will hear them.

I, the God of Jacob, will not forsake them.

'I will open rivers in high places,

And fountains in the midst of the valleys;

I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
And the dry land springs of water.

I will plant in the wilderness the cedar,

The shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the olive tree;
I will set in the desert the fir tree,

The pine and the box tree together1.'

Such is the power of divine grace, that it can convert weeds and brambles into trees the most choice and beautiful-can make the desert blossom as a rose-and change the wilderness into an Eden- the garden of the Lord.'

Comparing the prophet with King Solomon, we may observe,

1. That the church is a Garden-not a Field, or a Common; she may sing in the language of her favourite poet,

'We are a garden wall'd around,
• Chosen and made peculiar ground;
A little spot inclos'd by grace

Out of the world's wide wilderness.'

WATTS.

2. The church is a garden planted by the hand of God, and watered by his Holy Spirit, which is frequently compared to springs and living streams of water.

1 Isa. xli. 17-19.

Nn

'Like trees of myrrh and spice we stand,
'Planted by God the Father's hand;
And all the springs in Sion flow

To make the young plantation grow.

3. The garden is locked; the fountain sealed; i.e. it is secured from intrusion, and from violation. "Holiness unto the Lord," is inscribed upon the gate, and these are the mottos of the seal: The Lord knoweth them that are his." And, Let every one that nameth the name of 'Christ depart from iniquity'.'

These are hints only dropped for the enlargement of the reader at his leisure.

Spouse.

Ch. IV. 16. Ch. V. 1.

Awake, O north wind, ' and come, O south!" Breathe upon my garden that its aromaties may flow out!

My beloved shall come into his garden,

And eat his precious fruits.

Bridegroom. I am come into my garden, my sister [my]

spouse,

I have gathered my myrrh with my aromatics;

I have eaten my honey in the comb;

I have drank my wine with my milk.

To the Com-Eat, O friends!

panions.

Drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.

In the first of these verses two difficulties occur: Who is the speaker? and what is the import of his invocation? On the former question we can derive no light from the original, and the critics and commentators are much divided. Sup

1 2 Tim. ii. 19.

posing the Bridegroom to continue speaking, after describing the bride as a garden of aromatics, &c. he invokes the gale to breathe on this garden, that he may inhale from it the greater fragrancy; which is not unnatural, nor improper. But conceiving, as I am still inclined to do, the Bride to be the speaker, it forms a part of her reply : as if she had said: My beloved compares me to ' a garden, to a paradise; O that I were more fruitful and more fragrant; that I might enter'tain him better with my odours', and my fruits!' This I conceive to be more natural, just, and beautiful.

The nature of the invocation has been also disputed, though I think with less reason. If the wind must be invoked, yet why invoke it from opposite points, which certainly could not blow at the same time? True: but they might blow alternately; and were alternately desirable and necessary". The office of the north wind, according to the same poet, was to drive away rain; and, consequently, to produce that clear, brilliant, glowing sky, which the patriarch

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.without a pronoun בשמים

1 For its aromatics, the LXX. Syriac, Arabic, and Coptic read my; and one of Kennicott's (198) MSS. reads On the other hand, in the next line, one of his MSS. (145) reads my garden, and four of De Rossi's appear to have read so. These variations all arose, probably, from the uncertainty of the person speaking.

2 If it were thought necessary to obviate the supposed absurdity of calling on opposite winds to blow, it would be easily done by rendering the vau, as a disjunctive particle, OR, as it often is by our translators.

3 Prov. xxv. 23.