How mournful is the thought which irresistibly forces itself upon the mind, in reviewing this imperfect sketch of what has befallen this poem! This book, we have seen, is made to describe the most contradictory things. It contains the wanderings of the Jews, how they will ultimately “fill their stomachs with the flesh of the Leviathan and the best of wines preserved in grapes,” and is the sanctum sanctorum of all Christian mysteries. It is denounced as a love song, and extolled as declaring the incarnation of Christ; it speaks of the meridian church in Africa, and of the betrayal of the Saviour; it contains a treatise upon the doctrine of free grace against Pelagianism, and an Aristotelian disquisition upon the functions of the active and passive mind; it is an apocalyptic vision, a duplicate of the Revelations of St. John, and records the scholastic mysticisms of the middle ages; it denounces Arianism, and describes the glories of the Virgin Mary; it “treats of man’s reconciliation unto God and peace by Jesus Christ, with joy in the Holy Ghost,” and teaches lewdness, and corrupts the morals; it records the conversation of Solomon and Wisdom, and describes the tomb of Christ in Egyptian hieroglyphics; it celebrates the nuptials of Solomon, and gives us a compendium of ecclesiastical history to the second advent of Christ; it records the restoration of a Jewish constitution by Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and the mysteries of marriage; it advocates monogamy and encourages polygamy; it assists devotion and excites carnal passions. What a solemn lesson we have here never to depart from the simple meaning of the word of God! SECTION VI.—THE DIFFERENT VIEWS CLASSIFIED AND EXAMINED. The various opinions, enumerated in the preceding section, respecting the design of this book, may be divided into three classes, the literal, the allegorical, and the typical. The first considers the description as real, that the words should be taken as representing an historical fact; the second considers that the description has no historical truth for its basis, but contains some latent meaning; whilst the third admits the literal meaning, but regards it as typical of spiritual truth. The literal view adopted by us having been given in sections iii. and iv., we have to examine here only the claims of the allegorical and typical. THE ALLEGORICAL VIEW. The allegorical view principally maintained is, that this poem, in language borrowed from that which characterises chaste affections between the sexes, expresses the mutual love subsisting between the Lord and his Church. REASONS FOR THE ALLEGORICAL VIEW EXAMINED. 1. The existence of this book in the sacred canon has been adduced as an argument for its allegorical interpretation.