1764. The excellent and judicious remarks of Lowth were followed by an elegant version of Solomon’s Song, with a brief Commentary and Annotations, by Thomas Percy, D.D., Bishop of Dromore. The author vindicates the theory of Grotius, Lowth, &c., that this poem literally describes the nuptials of Solomon; and, like Bossuet and Lowth, divides it into seven parts, answering to the seven days of the supposed duration of the nuptials, which are distinguished from each other by different solemnities. In terms, even more severe than those of Bishop Lowth, Percy censures those commentators, “who have been so busily employed in opening and unfolding the allegorical meaning of this book as wholly to neglect that literal sense which ought to be the basis of their discoveries. If a sacred allegory may be defined a figurative discourse, which, under a lower and more obvious meaning, delivers the most sublime and important truths; then it is the first duty of an expositor to ascertain the lower and more obvious meaning. For till this is done, it is impossible to discover what truths are couched under it. Without this all is vague and idle conjecture. It is erecting an edifice without a foundation, which, however fair and goodly to the view, will be blown down by the slightest breath of true criticism.” [99] 1765. Wesley, however, opposed this theory. He maintained that “the description of this bridegroom and bride is such as could not with decency be used or meant concerning Solomon and Pharaoh’s daughter; that many expressions and descriptions, if applied to them, would be absurd and monstrous; and that it therefore follows that this book is to be understood allegorically, concerning that spiritual love and marriage which is between Christ and his Church.” [100] 1768. Harmer advanced a new theory. Whilst advocating with Grotius, Bossuet, Lowth, Percy, &c., that this Song in its literal and primary sense celebrates the nuptials of Solomon with the daughter of Pharaoh, he maintained that the heroes of the plot are not two, as generally believed, but three—viz., Solomon, the Shulamite, who is the principal wife and a Jewish queen, and the daughter of Pharaoh, whom Solomon afterwards married, with which the Jewish queen was exceedingly displeased, and looked with jealousy upon the Gentile wife as an intruder. “This event of Solomon’s marrying a Gentile princess, and making her equal in honour and privilege with his former Jewish queen, and of her being frequently mentioned afterwards in history, while the other is passed over in total silence, resembles the conduct of the Messiah towards the Gentile and Jewish Churches.” ... “Nothing more, according to that,” says Harmer, “is to be sought for of the mystic kind, than the making out the general resemblance between Solomon’s behaviour with respect to his two queens, and the situation of affairs between the Messiah and the two Churches; of those that observed the laws of Moses and those that did not.” [101]