LECTURE XI. MATTHEW xiii. WE are now arrived at the thirteenth chapter of St. Matthew; in which our blessed Lord introduces a new mode of conveying his instructions to the people. Hitherto he had confined himself entirely to the plain didactic method, of which his sermon on the mount is a large and a noble specimen. But his discourses now assume a different shape, and he begins in this chapter, for the first time, to address his hearers in parables. “The same day," says the evangelist," went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea-side; and great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship and sat; and the whole multi tude tude stood on the shore, and he spake many things unto them in parables." The word parable is sometimes used in Scripture in a large and general sense, and applied to short sententious sayings, maxims, or aphorisms, expressed in a figurative, proverbial, or even poetical manner. But in its strict and appropriate meaning, especially as applied to our Saviour's parables, it signifies a short narrative of some event or fact, real or fictitious, in which a continued comparison is carried on between sensible and spiritual objects; and under this similitude some important doctrine, moral or religious, is conveyed and enforced. This mode of instruction has many advantages over every other, more particularly in recommending virtue, or reproving vice. 1. In the first place, when divine and spiritual things are represented by objects well known and familiar to us, such as present themselves perpetually to our observation, observation, in the common occurrences of life, they are much more easily comprehended, especially by rude and uncultivated minds (that is, by the great bulk of mankind) than if they were proposed in their original form. 2. In all ages of the world, there is nothing with which mankind hath been so much delighted as with those little fictitious stories, which go under the name of fables or apologues among the ancient heathens, and of parables in the sacred writings. It is found by experience, that this sort of composition is better calculated to command attention, to captivate the imagination, to affect the heart, and to make deeper and more lasting impres sions on the memory, than the most ingenious and most elegant discourses that the wit of man is capable of producing. 3. The very obscurity in which parables are sometimes involved, has the effect of exciting a greater degree of curiosity and interest, and of urging the mind to a more vigorous exertion of its faculties and powers, ** powers, than any other mode of instruction. There is something for the understanding to work upon; and when the concealed meaning is at length elicited, we are apt to value ourselves on the discovery as the effect of our own penetration and discernment, and for that very reason to pay more regard to the moral it conveys. 4. When the mind is under the influence of strong prejudices, of violent passions, or inveterate habits, and when under these circumstances it becomes necessary to rectify error, to dissipate delusion, to reprove sin, and bring the offender to a sense of his danger and his guilt; there is no way in which this difficult task can be so well executed, and the painful truths that must be told, so successfully insinuated into the mind, as by disguising them under the veil of a wellwrought and interesting parable. This observation cannot be better illustrated than by referring to two parables, one in the New Testament, the other in the the Old, which will amply confirm the truth, and unfold the meaning of the preceding remarks. The first of these which I allude to, is the celebrated parable of the good Samaritan. The Jews, as we learn from our Lord himself, had established it as a maxim, that they were to love their neighbour and to hate their enemy*; and as they considered none as their neighbours but their own countrymen, the consequence was, that they imagined themselves at liberty to hate all the rest of the world; a liberty which they indulged without reserve, and against none with more bitterness than the contiguous nation of the Samaritans. When, therefore, the lawyer in the Gospel asked our Lord, who was his neighbour? had Christ attempted to prove to him by argument that he was to consider all mankind, even his enemies, even the Samaritans, as his neighbours, the lawyer would have treated his answer with contempt * Matt. v. 43. |