intended for scribes and Pharisees, his constant enemies and persecutors, not for apostles or believers, his friends and followers. If there was any thing which, for special reasons, might require to be conveyed and taught in the form of parable, and under the disguise of allegory, we may presume it would more especially apply to solemn and singular occasions of his teaching, like these; and would be addressed to an audience of such a character, rather than to one of a very different description.

It is a still stronger ground of presumption to the same effect, that of the twenty parables in question, some are ascertained and recognised to be allegories, on no less an authority than the testimony of our Lord himself; who, by having vouchsafed an interpretation of them, has set their real character in a light that cannot be mistaken. This is eminently true of the first, the second, and the eighth of the number which were delivered consecutively on the first occasion of teaching in parables; and by proving that these three were prophetical allegoriès, it leaves no good reason to doubt whether the remaining five were so likewise, or not. The ninth is a parable of the same description in general; as may certainly be collected both from the material representation itself, which is such as necessarily to be figurative, and from the personal application of the parts of the representation to our Lord himself, mixed up and incorporated with it. The twelfth, the nineteenth, and twentieth, are found in the course of a detail of prophetical matter, of which they carry on the progress, and contribute to the moral, respectively, as much as the rest of it. The fifteenth is

both preceded and summed up by a declaration of which the parable is explanatory, and that, manifestly prophetical of a future fact. Others are so obviously both allegorical and prophetical, as the tenth, the eleventh, the seventeenth, and the eighteenth, that it would be the height of absurdity to suppose they were ever intended for any thing but symbolical histories, adumbrating under that disguise some past or some future truths. The sixteenth was suggested, as the evangelist tells us, by the expectation of a future fact, and was expressly designed to correct that expectation, if not with respect to the fact itself, yet certainly with respect to the time of the fact. So that it appears there is in all the twenty, either so clear, or so presumptive an indication of their symbolical nature; either so express or so implicit a reference to the future; that it warrants us in concluding they are all in general allegories, and each in particular prophecies.

It is a further indication of the same truth, that to the ten of the number, recorded either by St. Matthew or by St. Mark, the phrase, “The king"dom of heaven or the kingdom of God is likened ; "the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God is

like,” (ώμοιώθη ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν, οι ὁμοία ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν, οι τοῦ Θεοῦ,) is actually found prefixed, and to two more, the thirteenth and sixteenth, as recorded by St. Luke, it is virtually, if not actually so; the ostensible occasion of the latter, and the subject matter, if not the occasion, of the former, proving them as plainly to relate to the same kingdom of heaven or God, as if the words in question had been premised to them. The fact of this relation appears further from a comparison of the thir

teenth, related by St. Luke, with the eighteenth, recorded by St. Matthew.

I observe upon this coincidence, that it implies in the subject matter of all these parables, a common reference to what was called, in the exposition of two of them, as given by our Lord himself, the mysteries (uvoτpia) of the kingdom in question. The mysteries of this kingdom, agreeably to the Greek idiom, are the mysteries of which that kingdom is the object; the mysteries which relate to, or concern it: nor need I to shew for the benefit of any one, who is acquainted, however superficially, with the meaning of terms in the original language, that μvoτýpov in Greek does not properly denote what we understand by a mystery in English-viz. some sublime and incomprehensible truth or doctrine; but simply what is intended by arcanum in Latin, and by a secret in English. The mysteries relating to the kingdom of heaven are, consequently, the secrets relating to that kingdom; which secrets, the exposition of the parables proves to be not doctrines, but facts; and facts, which might well be called secret and recondite, at this time, if they were the facts and truths of the future historical developement of the plan and progress of the Christian dispensation; and consequently were as yet concealed, and unless specially made known by one, who could take in the future no less than the present or the past, were as yet beyond the limits of human sagacity to discover.

Parables relating to such truths and secrets as these, it is manifest would be both allegorical and prophetical; allegorical in their outward form and constitution, prophetical in their inward meaning

and signification. The only division, then, and classification of the parables of the Gospels, which I propose, hereafter, to recognise, and yet, as I conceive, a just distribution and a competent arrangement of them all, is into the allegorical and prophetical on the one hand, and the historical and moral on the other; the criterion of the former being that they were never explained or applied by our Saviour at the time, that of the latter that they always were: the former being twenty in number, the latter seven; the first of the one being the sower, and the last the talents; the first of the other, the king taking account of his debtors, the last, the Pharisee and the publican; the former, all comprehended in the last eighteen months of our Saviour's ministry, and the latter, in the last six.

It is of the former in particular that I wish a preceding observation to be understood; viz. that if we possess a complete account of the parables that were actually delivered, in those which are actually recorded, it is more probably of the allegorical than of the moral. The number of the former is almost three times that of the latter; at least if twenty of the twenty-seven belong to the one class, and only the remainder to the other. The former too began to be used much earlier; and continued to be used when we have no proof on record that any use was still made of the latter.

But, in the nature of things, a history designed for an allegory; that is for something more than it seemed to be-could not fail to be more curious and interesting, and to excite a more lively attention, than one designed for a moral example; that is simply

for what it appeared to be: and a history, in like manner, which under the covering of allegory, was the vehicle of latent prophecy, could not fail to be rendered by that means not only more curious and interesting, but withal more dignified and important, than one which was to be received in its obvious sense, and merely prepared the way for some precept and rule of duty, or was given in illustration of one. It is probable, therefore, that the former would be more apt to be remembered, preserved, and perpetuated than the latter, wherever and whensoever they happened to be heard: for, independent of prophecy conveyed in parables, the other prophetical discourses of our Saviour, which he delivered occasionally in the discharge of his ministry, appear to have been much more uniformly recorded in detail, than the particulars of his ordinary instructions to the people. These discourses were no doubt of much rarer occurrence also; which would be an additional reason, why they should be all recorded. It is not on every day that we can probably suppose Jesus to have been speaking in the language of prophecy: but there is scarcely a day in the duration of his ministry, on which we can probably suppose him to have been silent in the way of instruction; to have preached no sermon, nor delivered any moral and practical discourse. His prophecies as such, or those parts of his discourses which contain the largest mixture of prophetical matter, with the least of moral admonition—or in which the revelation of the future, and not instruction in the rule of duty-or practical admonitions dependent on the knowledge of the future-is the main object of the speaker, occur certainly latest in the