CANTICLES

The relationship of the affections of the heart of the spouse with Christ. This, on the ground of the special form of the relationship, is to be realized properly in Israel, though capable of an application, abstractedly, to the church and to the individual. (What Canticles treats of is not relationship, but desires, faith, getting the joy of the relationship with occasional glimpses, but not established known relationship. The place of the church, though the marriage is not come, is that of being in the relationship. Israel will not have this.)

There is a kind of progress observable.

(1) "My beloved is mine" - this is the lowest point.

(2) "I am my beloved's" - the consciousness of belonging to Him.

(3) "I am my beloved's, and his desire is towards me."

We have had thus, subsequent to the history, the moral development of the heart of man, and of the Spirit of God working in various ways in his heart: specially in Ecclesiastes, the heart of man making itself a centre, and trying to feed itself; in Canticles, the heart getting out of itself into the heart of Christ.