3dly. The Greek and Roman fables are most of them founded on improbable or impossible circumstances, and are supposed conversations between animate or inanimate beings, not endowed with the power of speech; between birds, beasts, reptiles, and trees; a circumstance which shocks the imagination, and of course weakens the force of the instruction.

Our Saviour's parables on the contrary are all of them images and allusions taken from nature, and from occurrences which are most familiar to our observation and experience in common life; and the events related are not only such as might very probably happen, but several of them are supposed to be such as actually did; and this would have the effect of a true historical narrative, which we all know to carry much greater weight and authority with it than the most ingenious fiction. Of the former sort are the rich man and Lazarus, of the good Samaritan, and of the prodigal son. There are others in

which our Saviour seems to allude to some historical

historical facts which happened in those times; as that wherein it is said, that a king went into a far country, there to receive a kingdom.

This probably refers to the history of Archelaus, who, after the death of his father, Herod the Great, went to Rome to receive from Augustus the confirmation of his father's will, by which he had the kingdom of Judæa left to him.

These circumstances give a decided superiority to our Lord's parables over the fables of the ancients; and if we compare them with those of the Koran, the difference is still greater. The parables of Mahomet are trifling, uninteresting, tedious, and dull. Among other things which he has borrowed from Scripture, one is the parable of Nathan, in which he has most ingeniously contrived to destroy all its spirit, force, and beauty; and has so completely distorted and deformed its whole texture and composition, that if the commentator had not informed you, in very gentle terms, that it is the parable

of

of Nathan a little disguised, you would scarcely have known it to be the same. Such is the difference between a prophet who is really inspired, and an impostor who pretends to be so.

Nor is it only in his parables, but in his other discourses to the people, that Jesus draws his doctrines and instructions from the scenes of nature, from the objects that surrounded him, from the most common occurrences of life, from the seasons of the year, from some extraordinary incidents or remarkable transactions. "Thus, as a learned and ingenious writer has observed*, upon curing a blind man, he styles himself the light of the world, and reproves the Pharisees for their spiritual blindness and inexcusable obstinacy in refusing to be cured and enlightened by him. On little children being brought to him, he recommends the innocence, the simplicity, the meekness, the humility, the docility of that lovely age, as indispensable qualifications

* See Bishop Law's Considerations on the Theory of Religion.

qualifications for those that would enter into the kingdom of heaven. Beholding the flowers of the field, and the fowls of the air, he teaches his disciples to frame right and worthy notions of that Providence which supports and adorns them, and will therefore assuredly not neglect the superior order of rational beings. Observing the fruits of the earth, he instructs them to judge of men by their fruitfulness under all the means of grace. From the mention of meat and drink, he leads them to the sacred rite of eating his body and drinking his blood in a spiritual sense. From external ablutions, he deduces the necessity of purifying the heart, and cleansing the affections. Those that were fishers, he teaches to be fishers of men; to draw them by the force of argument and persuasion, aided by the influence of divine grace, to the belief and practice of true religion. Seeing the money-changers he exhorts his disciples to lay out their several talents to the best advantage. Being among the sheep-folds, he proves himself

the

the true shepherd of souls. Among vines, he discourses of the spiritual husbandman and vine-dresser, and draws a parallel between his vineyard and the natural one. Upon the appearance of summer in the trees before him, he points out evident signs of his approaching kingdom. When the harvest comes on he reminds his disciples of the spiritual harvest, the harvest of true believers; and exhorts them to labour diligently in that work, and add their prayers to heaven for its success. From servants being made free in the sabbatical year, he takes occasion to proclaim a nobler emancipation and more important redemption from the slavery of sin, and the bondage of corruption, by the death of Christ. From the eminence of a city standing on a hill, he turns his discourse to the conspicuous situation of his own disciples. From the temple before him, he points to that of his own body; and from Herod's unadvisedly leading out his army to meet the King of Arabia, who came against him with a superior force

and