Song of Solomon 2:12

The flowers appear on the earth: this and the following clauses are here alleged as evidences of the spring time, which in the mystical and principal sense seems to signify the day of grace, or the glad tidings of salvation proposed to sinners in the time of the law, by types, and shadows, and promises, but much more clearly and fully in the gospel, and all the discoveries and communications of God's grace to mankind in holy ordinances, in the gifts, and graces, and comforts of the Holy Spirit, vouchsafed unto and appearing in believers, as buds and blossoms do in the spring time. The time of the singing of birds; when birds sing most freely and sweetly, as they do in the spring. Or, as the ancient translator's render it, of cutting or cropping, not trees, which agrees not with that season, but the flowers, last mentioned, for nosegays, or other uses. The turtle; which changeth its place according to the season, as is observed. Jeremiah 8:7, and by all other writers, who affirm that it disappears in winter, and appears in the spring, as some other birds also do; but this seems particularly to be mentioned, because it doth not only give notice of the spring, but also doth aptly represent the Spirit of God, which even the Chaldee paraphrast understands by this turtle, which appeared in the shape of a dove, and which worketh a dove-like meekness, and chastity, and faithfulness in believers. In our land; in Immanuel's land, as Canaan is called, Isaiah 8:8, in the church.