John Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: March 26

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John Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: March 26


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Spirituality of the Song of Songs

We do think that the reasons produced yesterday ought to be satisfactory in showing that the allegorical or spiritual interpretation of the Song of Songs, is not only the right one, but the only possible one. In this sense the Jewish writers, from the earliest time, have always understood it—and we must allow them to know something of their own literature. Without this interpretation, it is hardly possible that, with their views, they would have received it into their sacred canon. We possess, indeed, in the Chaldee Targum or paraphrase, an allegorical interpretation of this book, made several centuries before the time of Christ, and probably before the traditional interpretation from the author himself would be entirely lost. In the same sense it has been understood by the Jewish interpreters, as well as by almost every one of the early Christian writers. Finding, therefore, this Oriental poem, in an Oriental collection of religious books, and attended with an unbroken tradition respecting its meaning, which is, further, in perfect conformity with the poetical usages of the East, all the presumption is entirely in favor of the allegorical interpretation. Indeed, it is not difficult to perceive that if the poem have any historical basis, the circumstances are so modified as to suit the spiritual purposes of the allegory, but which would have been most unsuitable in a real history. This has been shown by an able American scholar, Note: Professor C. Stowe, D.D., in a paper on Solomon’s Song, in the American Biblical Repository for 1847: Reprinted in the Journal of Sacred Literature for January 1852. whose words we produce—

“1. The names of the two principal characters, namely, Shelomoh and Shulamith, are in the original quite as significant as John Bunyan’s Christian and Christiana, Obstinate and Pliable, Faithful and Hopeful, etc.

“2. The sudden changes from the singular to the plural number in the part of the dialogue sustained by Shulamith, indicate that her name is to be taken in a collective sense. Draw me, we will run after thee. The king has brought me into his chambers; we will be glad, etc. Son_1:4, and many other places.

“3. Shulamith is put in situations, and made to utter expressions, which, if literally understood, are so entirely abhorrent to Oriental manners, that no sane writer, certainly no writer so skilful as the author of this poem shows himself to be, would ever put into a literal love-song: though they are all very beautiful and appropriate when understood allegorically. Such are Son_3:1-4; Son_5:7; Son_8:1-2. Such scenes and expressions are not uncommon in the allegorical poetry of the East, but in their literal amatory songs they never can occur. Literally understood, they would doom their heroines to everlasting infamy, and certainly no poet ever thus treats his favorites.

“4. The entire absence of everything like jealousy, in situations where that passion must appear in a literal love-song, is proof of the allegorical character of the piece. See Son_1:4; Son_5:1; Son_6:8-9.

“5. The dreamy and fanciful, and even impossible, character of many of the scenes, shows that they cannot be understood literally. Son_2:14-16. Shulamith is in the cleft of the rocks, in the concealment of the precipices, and Shelomoh wishes to see her, and hear her speak. He is in the garden at night, and she tells him to catch the jackalls that are destroying the vines. She sees him feeding his flocks in a distant field of anemones. She sees him beyond the mountains which separate them, and calls upon him to leap over them like the gazelle and the fleeting fawn, to rejoin her at evening. All these things occur together. Son_6:8, Shelomoh calls Shulamith to go with him to the snowy peaks of Lebanon and Hermon, among the lions’ dens and the leopards’ lairs, and enjoy the fine prospect over the plains of Damascus.

“Numerous impossibilities of this kind will occur to every intelligent reader of the poem.

“There are people who take up Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and read it all through as a delightful story, without once suspecting that it is an allegory, who scarcely allow themselves to suspect that it is not all literally true, and who would think rather meanly of so extensive a traveller as Mr. Buckingham, if he had never seen the Hill Difficulty, or the Delectable Mountain—had never visited the Palace Beautiful, or Vanity Fair. The indications of allegory in that beautiful story of the Pilgrim, considering the lapse of time, and the comparative length of the two pieces, are scarcely more conspicuous than in the exquisite Song of Israel’s wisest king. How do we know the Pilgrim’s Progress to be an allegory any more than Robinson Crusoe? Because we have the tradition from the author, the names of the characters, the circumstances, and the aptness of the application. The same evidence we have in respect to the Canticles; only, as the work is shorter, more ancient, and more remote, the evidence is less obvious at first sight.”

It appears from all that has been said, that there is a state of mind and feeling which enables men to appropriate to themselves strong spiritual nutriment from such writings as these—seizing with a sharply apprehensive sense the spiritual which is set forth to them under carnal symbols, that the carnal is lost sight of and forgotten under the spiritual. Thus faculty is very strong among the Orientals; and, although less vigorous among, the Occidentals (as the doubts respecting this book too clearly show), it is not entirely wanting to them, and has been evinced by the relish with which men of eminent holiness and spiritual feeling have extracted refreshment to their souls from the Song of Songs. Indeed, it might be contented that it is because the sensuous is in general more vigorous than the spiritual apprehension, that the purpose of this book has ever been doubted or its real value questioned; and that it is only those who are greatly experienced in the mysteries of man’s inner life, and whose souls have been tried by passing through many fires, that can truly feel all that this book means, and feeling, are enabled to understand it. This may be seen in the Sion’s Sonnets of Quarles—of which take this specimen—

“My faith, not merits, hath assured Thee mine;

Thy love, not my deserts, hath made me thine;

Unworthy I, whose drowsy soul rejected

Thy precious favors, and (secure) neglected

Thy glorious presence, how am I become

A Bride befitting so divine a groom?

It is no merit, no desert of mine,

Thy love, thy love alone, hath made me thine.”

And this, from the close—

“Most glorious love, and honorable Lord,

My heart’s the vowed servant of thy word,

But I am weak, and as a tender vine

Shall fall, unpropt by that dear hand of thine:

Assist me, therefore, that I may fulfill

What Thou command’st, and then command thy will;

O leave thy sacred Spirit in my breast,

As earnest of an everlasting rest.”

Dr. Watts also manifested the same apprehensive spiritual faculty with regard to this song of love, in some of his hymns especially the one beginning—

“The voice of my beloved sounds

Over the rocks and rising grounds—

O’er hills of guilt and seas of grief

He leaps, he flies to my relief.”

And in the one which begins—

“We are a garden, walled around,

Chosen, and made peculiar ground,” etc.

A writer, already cited (Professor Stowe), points out Jonathan Edwards, “who, although the driest and most astute of scholastic theologians, had a heart and imagination of oriental richness and fervor.” In the account which he gives of his religious experience, he says: “The whole book of Canticles used to be pleasant to me, and I used to be much in reading it about that time, and found from time to time an increased sweetness, that would carry me away in my contemplations. This I know not how to express otherwise than by a calm delightful abstraction of the soul from all the concerns of the world; and sometimes a kind of vision, or fixed ideas and imaginations—of being alone in the mountains, or some solitary wilderness, sweetly conversing with Christ, and rapt and swallowed up in God. The sense I had of Divine things, often would, of a sudden, kindle up an ardor in my soul that I knew not how to express…. While thus engaged, it seemed natural to me to sing and chaunt forth my meditations; or to speak my thoughts in solitude with a singing voice.”

The writer to whom we owe this indication, well adds: “The soft, rich, glowing, all-absorbing devotional feeling of Jonathan Edwards, would soon cure people of all their scruples in respect to the Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.”

Take, again, the instance of Dr. Chalmers, who, when he comes to this book in his Horœ Biblicœ Quotidiancœ, at once throws himself unreservedly upon the spiritual sense of the Song, and finds in it such refreshment and enjoyment, that the few pages he allows to it form the most exclusively devotional part of his entire work. Thus he begins—“My God, spiritualize my affections. Give me to know what it is to have the intense and passionate love of Christ. Let me find of this love that it is better than all earthly desires and gratifications. Draw me, O God, to Christ. (Son_1:4; and Joh_6:44.) … The church is black, sometimes with misfortune, as when persecuted; at others, with corruption, as when tempted. My God, have I not kept other vineyards than thine? gone over to the cause of secular interest and secular management, to the neglect of spiritualities! O, may I seek first thy kingdom, and thy righteousness. Let me seek now unto it, and not turn aside from Him unto other causes that may appear cognate with his, but which, as far as they are good, are best promoted by the direct work of Christianizing and spiritualizing the souls of men. Direct me aright, O God.”

What think you of a book which exerts influences, and awakens thoughts, such as these?

It will be observed that most persons who once come upon the spiritual sense, whatever view they take of that sense, fall particularly into the habit of treating it as a representation of their own soul’s history, and of its intercourse with God. And this is right; for if it represents the union between the Lord and his church, every member of that church will find that it suits his case, and he has full right to take to himself what he finds suited to his wants and conditions. Like the Psalms, the book belongs essentially to experimental—that is, personal religion—and it is this which constitutes its peculiar charm; and it is thus also that, like the Psalms, it becomes no less suited to religious use and application under the new dispensation than under the old; perhaps even more suited, viewing it through Christ. Beholding him in it, and making him its object—He the Bridegroom and his Church the Bride—gives to many portions of it a fulness of meaning, and a richness of significance, scarcely attainable under the more limited views that the old law allowed. “If Solomon,” says a recent writer, Note: Meditations on the Song of Solomon. London, 1848. “searched what, or what manner of time, the spirit of Christ which was in him did signify, when he spake this beautiful song; it was probably revealed to him, that not unto himself, but unto us, he did minister these things. To no period do they appear so fitly to belong, as to the present dispensation.”

With a few more remarks from this pious and learned writer, we may suitably close this humble endeavor to vindicate the Song of Solomon from disesteem.

“Probably there has never been very considerable diversity of thought among really spiritual minds as to the subject of this book. Its deeply experimental character accounts for the misapprehension of the mere critic, while it finds many a response in the hearts of the faithful, who perceive in it a mirror of their varied spiritual conflicts and exercises, a rich treasure of privileges, and a spring of freshest and fullest joys. Perhaps no book in Scripture affords a more searching test of the state of the heart; or is more calculated to revive the abated ardor of the affections, and direct them to Him, on whom alone of all other objects, love may be set without danger of excess or disproportion.

“When a religious activity, and a zealous contention for certain points of truth, have outlived the early warmth of love, and the mind is busied while the heart is cold; or when anxious and restless longings, the early rising and the late repose, with only the ‘bread of carefulness’ as the result, have been permitted to disquiet the soul—what Scripture affords a better remedy for either than this? Where is attachment to the person of Christ more commended and enforced? what other more sweetly and emphatically declares, ‘Lo, he giveth his beloved sleep?’

“If it be both comforting and strengthening to the believer to contemplate a picture of his failings and infirmities, drawn by Him who alone thoroughly knows their character and extent, when at the same time He reveals a love which, unquenched by many waters, tenderly wins back the spoiler of his own peace, to lost yet longed-for happiness—such a picture and such a love are exhibited in the Song of Solomon. Variableness, and more or less of unfaithfulness, mark the path of the best and holiest of the Lord’s people, but Jesus is the same yesterday, and today, and forever; and he is presented to us here in the exercise of unwearied grace. The bride may leave her first love; her spikenard may no longer send forth the smell thereof; she may forsake the retreats where alone her Beloved is to be found, and vainly expect to meet him in worldly scenes, never countenanced or gladdened by his presence; the spirit of slumbering may cause her to miss many a happy season of communion; she may so act, that though ever able to say, ‘Lord, thou knowest that I love thee;’ the reality of her love, appreciable indeed to Him who knows all things, might at times be questioned, if her outward conduct were the sole criterion. But although her course be strangely diversified by intense love and forgetfulness, faithfulness, and inconstancy, she finds Him ever unaltered, always indulgent to her failings, ever courting her love. However many her wanderings and mistakes, and however humiliating the results of her folly, He never ceases to be the admirer of her person, the sharer of her joys, the guardian of her rest. She can say, ‘I am my Beloved’s, and my Beloved is mine;’ even when she has wilfully wandered far from the lilies where He feeds.”