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

3. The reason why she breaks in with this discourse, upon the back of the former (which shows the connection) may be two-fold, 1. To remove an objection that might be made, if any should say, What needs all this rejoicing? Are ye not both stained with sin, and blackened with suffering? She answers by a distinction, granting that in part she was black, and that was truth, yet that blackness was not inconsistent with comeliness, which she clears, and that therefore she might in part rejoice also. The other way that this depends on the former is, that she may further her project of engaging others to rejoice with her, she endeavours to remove these two occasions of stumbling (taken from the failings and sufferings of the Godly) out of the way of weak Professors, that she may get them alongst with her; and so it agrees well with the scope.

3. The reason why she breaks in with this discourse, upon the back of the former (which shews the connexion) may be two-fold, 1. To remove an objection that might be made, if any should say, What needs all this rejoicing? Are ye not both stained with sin, and blackned with suffering? She answers by a distinction, granting that in part she was black, and that was truth, yet that blacknesse was not inconsistent with comlinesse, which she clears, and that therefore she might in part rejoice also. The other way that this depends on the former is, that she may further her project of ingaging others to rejoice with her, she endeavours to remove these two occasions of stumbling (taken from the failings and sufferings of the Godly) out of the way of weak Professors, that she may get them alongst with her; and so it agrees well with the scope.

4. More particularly consider the words, wherein she endeavours to satisfy these doubts, and ye will find these things in them. 1. She concedes what is truth. 2. Qualifies it by a distinction. 3. Illustrates it. And these three are in the 5. vers. (4.) In vers. 6. She applies it. And 5. more particularly explicates it. First then (saith she) I answer, by conceding what is truth, I am black, both with crosses and corruptions, that cannot be denied. 2. She qualifies her concession, though I be black, yet I am comely, that is, I am not universally or altogether unlovely, mine estate is mixed, being made up of crosses and comforts, corruptions and graces, beauty and blackness. 3. She illustrates this description of her self, or her mixed condition, by two similitudes, both tending to one thing, or one of them tending to set forth her blackness, the other her beauty. I am (saith she) like the Tents of Kedar, which were blackish, and of no great value, being, by these who lived in them, so frequently transported in such hot countries; this sets forth her blackness. The