Clavis cantici, or, An exposition of the Song of Solomon

Obj. 2. If any say, the raising of such Gospel-Doctrines, makes this Song look more like the Gospel of the New Testament, than a Song of the Old. Ans. 1.

Is it the worse, that it look like the Gospel? Or, are not such Doctrine• (if they follow from it) the better & more comfortable? Certainly there is no Doctrine, more edifying and comfortable to Believers, and more like, or more becoming Christs way with Believers, or their's with him (which is the scope and subject of this ⟨p. 35⟩Song) then Gospel-Doctrines are. High soaring words of vanity, and mysteries having nothing but an empty sound, are much more unlike this spiritual Song, t•an these. 2. If it set out Christs way to Believers, even under the Old Testament, and Believers way of keeping communion with God even then; is not that the same Gospel-way which we have now? Their faith and communion with God, stood not in the outward Ceremonies, which were Typical; but in the exercise of inward Graces, faith, love, &c. which are the same now as then; Was not Christ the same to them as to us? Had they not the same Spirit, Covenant, &c. and so the cases and experiences of, or incident to Believers then, are also applicable to us now? That Christ was then to come, and hath now suffered, and that the way of revealing him then, was some way different from that we have now, will not make another Gospel, Covenant, Faith, yea, nor Church; we being grafted in that same Stock which they once grew upon, and being by Faith Heirs of the same promises, which sometime they possessed.

Object. 3. If any should yet doubt, if Solomon knew or intended such Doctrines as these, and that therefore, they cannot be well digested, if drawn from this Song, beyond his mind and meaning. Ans. 1. Our great purpose is to know what the Spirit intended, and not what Solomon understood; and if this be the Spirit's intention, to set out Christ's way with his Church; then such Doctrines as agree therewith, must be agreeable to his meaning. 2. Yea, suppose Solomon and other Prophets should be ignorant, in a great measure, of the meaning of such things, as the Spirit foretold by them (as it is not impossible in some extraordinary things, especially when their knowledge in these was not essential to the truth of their Prophecy, for they might have a kind of nescience in the particulars, though they were sure the thing they delivered were in the complex Prophecy God's word) yet, will any say, that we should limit the words spoken by them, to their understanding of them? If so, by what rule would we know, if, or how they did understand them?