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 maiden was faithful to her espousals, and desired that he whom she prized above all things would come and rescue her.

3. It is urged that the same language and imagery employed in the Song, and the bridegroom and the bride here introduced, are elsewhere spiritually applied to the Lord and his people.

"This sort of imagery," says Professor Stuart, "is frequent in the Old Testament, and in the New. Frequently are the Jews charged with 'going a whoring after other gods,' Exod. xxxiv. 15, 16; Lev. xx. 5, 6; Numb. xv. 39; Deut. xxxi. 16; 2 Chron. xxi. 13; Ps. lxxiii. 27; Ezek. vi. 9. Here the idea is, that they were affianced to the true God, and could not seek after idols without incurring the guilt of adultery. So God calls himself the husband of the Jews, Isa. liv. 5. The nation of Israel is his bride, Isa. lxii. 4, 5. In Isa. l. 1, Jehovah asks, 'Where is the bill of divorcement' on his part, that Israel has departed from Him? Jeremiah speaks of the espousals of Israel, when young, in the wilderness.

"In Jer. iii. 1-11, the prophet speaks of Israel as playing the harlot, and committing adultery, in forsaking Jehovah. In Ezekiel, two long chapters (xvi., xxiii.) are occupied with carrying through the imagery drawn from such a connexion. Hosea (i.-iii.) recognises the same principle, and carries out the imagery into much detail. These are merely specimens. Ps. xlv. presents the Mediator, the King of Zion, in the attitude of a husband to the Church, and celebrates the union between the former and the latter. So in the New Testament this imagery is very familiar: see Matt. ix. 25; John iii. 29; Rev. xix. 7; xxi. 2. Especially consult 2 Cor. xi. 2, and Eph. v. 22-32, where the Apostle has gone into much particularity as to the duties of the marriage relation, and then avows that he 'speaks concerning Christ and the Church.'

"Such is the custom of the Hebrew writers and of the Apostles. If, now, this imagery is so often employed in all parts of the Bible, what forbids the idea, that there may be one short book in which it occupies an exclusive place, and is designed to