Pilgrim and Tom, I feel much as both of you do about spiritual experiences, having had some myself that I believe were from God and some that were likely from other sources. The puritans and Lloyd-Jones have been very helpful to me to distinguish between the two by various tests. With regard to the SOS I would highly recommend Burrowes’ commentary which MLJ felt was that best available on the book. Banner of Truth began reprinting it in 1958 and it should be available at least used through such as bookfinder.com. Unfortunately they printed at least one addition that leaves out most of Burrowes 86 page introduction which goes into the history of the interpretation of the Song, from which the following quote is taken. The longer version has 527 pages in it, to help distinguish between the printings, if any are interested in the history, which is quite thorough and fascinating. It is so sad to me that true hallowed spiritual experience seems to be so little know or talked about among the more sober minded these days. It is not surprising as it seems almost as if the devil has been loosed on the earth in our generations and has scared serious people away from the genuine by his multiplicity of counterfeits. May we all seek God with the balance that comes only from the blessed Spirit and leads to a deep communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Blessings!

“This Song is not so much a favourite in the early stage of the religious life, as at subsequent periods when we have grown in grace. It is the manual of the advanced Christian. When love has been more perfected by the Spirit, hither do we come for expressions of that love. When we are anxious to hear from the lips of Jesus the fullness of his love to us, here do we rejoice to sit and listen. The Jews were not wrong when they represented this book as the holy of holies in the fabric of revelation; for assuredly, the voice here speaking, the living oracles here uttered, can be heard only by those who have been initiated into the mysteries of godliness and dwell under the shadow of the Almighty…there is, and always has been, in the Church, a class of persons of no questionable character for ability, learning, or holiness, who esteem this book among the choicest portions of the word of God. Were we to speak of the partiality of Lady Guyon for this book, some might reply she was a mystic. Whether mystic or not, far better would it be for the world, were the tone of her deep, fervent, energetic piety, more common. But who will bring the charge of mysticism against Leighton, Owen, Romaine, President Edwards, and Chalmers. The most profound metaphysicians, the immortal author of the treatise on the Freedom of the Will, was peculiarly fond of the book of Canticles, and read and meditated much upon it. “The whole book of Canticles,” says he, “used to be pleasant to me, and I used to be much in reading it about that time, and found from time to time an inward sweetness that would carry me away in my contemplations.” The great leader of the Free Church of Scotland in her exodus, speaking of Dr. Pye Smith’s asserting the non-inspiration of the Song, says: “It would bespeak not only a more pious but a more philosophic docility, to leave that book in undisturbed possession of the place which it now enjoys, where it might minister, as in ages heretofore, to the saintly and seraphic contemplations of the advanced Christian, who discovers that in this poem a greater than Solomon is here, whose name to him is as ointment poured forth, and who, while he luxuriates with spiritual satisfaction over pages that the world has unhallowed, breathes of the ethereal purity of the third heavens, as well as their ethereal fervor.” Owen says: “Then may a man judge himself to have somewhat profited in the experience of a mystery of a blessed intercourse and communion with Christ, when the expression of love in that holy Dialogue, the Song, do give light and life to his mind, and efficaciously communicate unto him an experience of their power. But because these things are little understood by many, the book itself is much neglected, if not despised.” In the words of the saintly McCheyne, “No book furnishes a better test than does the Song of the depth of a man’s Christianity. If his religion be in his head only, a dry form of doctrines; or if it hath place merely in his fancy, like Pliable in Pilgrim’s Progress, he will see nothing here to attract him. But if his religion have a hold on his heart, this will be a favourite portion of the word of God." Beza, the friend and associate of Calvin, writes: “Those instructed and advanced in the divine life, the writer of the Song does, as it were, carry away with him beyond the regions of earth to the contemplation of heavenly things – as though being now citizens of heaven, they might knock for admission at its gates.” Rutherford’s Letters, so rich in pious affection and heavenly unction, take their colouring from the Song; and McCheyne, who found in these “Letters” daily delight, though dying at the age of nine and twenty, had scarcely left himself a single text of the Song on which he had not already discoursed.” – Introduction to George Burrowes’ The Song of Solomon.

p.s. I gave away my copy of a shorter version so I don't know what year it was printed, but my present copy, which is the longer version, is the 1973 reprint of the original 1958 reprint by B of T. That may help if you'd like the complete copy, as book listings do not always say how many pages are in the book for sale.

Last edited by hdbdan; Tue Feb 15, 2011 10:22 PM.