and foolish, and lascivious and idolatrous,"[1] and that the sooner this immoral book is rejected from the sacred canon the better.
1728. About five years afterwards appeared the bulky Exposition of Dr. Gill on Solomon's Song, consisting of one hundred and twenty-two sermons, which the Doctor delivered to his congregation. In this confused mass of accumulated learning Gill warmly refutes both Whiston and others who had written against this book. He acknowledges "the profit and advantage" which he had received from "the sweet observations of the excellent Durham," and affirms that this divine poem is wholly allegorical; "and sets forth in a most striking manner the mutual love, union and communion, which are between Christ and his Church; also expresses the several different frames, cases, and circumstances which attend believers in this life, so that they can come into no state or condition, but there is something in this Song suited to their experience; which serves much to recommend it to believers, and discovers the excellency of it."[2] In vain do we look even here for an exposition based upon the sound rules of grammar and philology.
1753. It was reserved for Bishop Lowth to commence in this country a new era in the interpretation of this book. Two of his admirable "Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews" are devoted to the investigation of the import and interpretation of this Song, and the conclusion he arrived at is almost the same as that of Grotius and Bossuet. "The subject of the Canticles," says this learned Prelate, "appears to be the marriage-feast of Solomon, (who was, both in name and reality, the Prince of Peace); his bride is called Shulamite. . . . Who this wife of Solomon was, is not clearly ascertained; but some of the learned have conjectured, with an appearance of probability, that she was the daughter of Pharaoh, to whom Solomon was
