the parables in particular, compared with the rest of our Lord's discourses in general. The parables were a special kind of his discourses, as such and such miraculous acts were special kinds of his miracles. It is not more improbable that none of the days of our Lord's three years' ministry passed over without some instructive or interesting discourse, than without some wonderful miracle: but if it was not every day that produced a miracle worthy of special or peculiar record, it might not be every day that produced a discourse, sufficiently novel or different from common, to require a particular account of it,—like a parable. Our Lord's ordinarily teaching and preaching is mentioned almost as often as his ordinarily performing miracles, and healing the people; but the particulars of what he taught on those ordinary occasions, are given in detail only in the two sermons on the mount. If there is reason to suppose that the evangelists have not passed over the special miracles of their Master, without specific notice, there seems equal reason to believe that they have been careful to do the same by his special discourses; of which number the parables would be one class, and upon the whole as important and as interesting a class, as any.

CHAPTER II.

On the division and classification of the parables.

THE supposition of a possible division of the parables supposes also a difference of kinds amongst them, according to which, and to which alone, they can properly be distributed or classified. The existence of such a difference is no new discovery, having occurred before, more or less completely, to former expositors: nor is much ingenuity or penetration concerned in perceiving it; the slightest consideration of these parts of the Gospels being sufficient to convince us, that many of the parables agree in some respects with each other, and stand distinguished so far from the rest.

I am not aware, however, that former commentators have carried the true principle of their distribution to its legitimate extent; or ascertained and pointed out the groundwork of a comprehensive general division, which might include them all, and yet distribute them intelligibly asunder; exhibiting at one view both the assortment which may be made of the parables in common, and to which head or department of the arrangement any given parable is to be referred in particular. Yet this, I believe, it was possible to have done; and this is what, in the course of the present chapter, I shall endeavour to effect.

Were we to be satisfied with looking at any one characteristic circumstance of distinction, which would include a certain number of the parables, and

exclude the rest, very many classes or distributions of them might be made. Some were delivered with premeditation, others without; and so far would constitute respectively two classes out of the whole: some were delivered in public, others in private; some to the people at large, others to the disciples in particular; some were inserted as part of a more continuous discourse, others were the substance of a discourse themselves; some were ushered in with an object of comparison premised to the substance of the history which followed, others were not; some have a common subject matter, a material structure and composition of their history more or less the same, others are entirely without parallel in the rest. All these, and such like distinctions, however, it is evident, are purely accidental and unessential, and, therefore, insufficient to furnish the basis of a regular and comprehensive assortment of the parables; or a just division of the particulars or species belonging to their common genus.

Among these distinctions, notwithstanding, there is one, not yet enumerated, which though it may seem to be founded in a circumstance of accident as much as the rest, and apparently not to be more essential than any of them, may nevertheless lead, upon further consideration, to the discovery of the true principle of that just division, of which we are in search. All the parables which our Saviour is said to have delivered, were either applied and explained by himself, at the time when they were delivered, or they were not. Those which he applied and explained, at the time, will form one comprehensive portion of the whole, and those which he left unapplied and unexplained, will form another;

and both together will make up the sum total of the parables, which the Gospel history has placed on record, and which are comprised in our syllabus or list.

The existence of this characteristic distinction among the parables is a matter of fact, the truth or the falsity of which any one may put to the test, by the mere inspection of the parables, as they occur in the Gospel narrative. There is one precaution, however, which I think it but fair and reasonable to suggest beforehand, to any who may be inclined to make this examination; and that is to the following effect.

As every parable, which they will find on record, was delivered by our Lord himself at a particular time and place; was addressed to a particular audience, and designed for a particular purpose; the question whether any thing is to be met with, premised or subjoined to a given parable, and calculated to throw light upon its meaning, is in all reason, to be considered a question, whether any thing occurs, so premised or subjoined, which would be likely to possess such an use, at that particular time and place, and for that particular audience; yet proceeded from the mouth of our Saviour himself. If the reasonableness of this precaution be admitted -whatever was no part of his own discourse at the time; whatever was no part of the parable as such, or of any exposition of it as such, whether it declares the scope and design of the parable, or not, if it was not delivered along with the parable, or addressed to the same persons who heard that; can justly be considered an exception to our general rule. Notices, therefore, of the origin, design, or purport

of a particular parable, which come directly from the historian of it, that is, from the evangelist who relates the parable, writing so long after the time of its first delivery, and for the benefit of the Christian world at large, or of some portion of it in particular;—are not to be confounded with explanations proceeding from the Author of the parable himself: nor yet explanations of parables delivered to one class of persons in public, without note or comment, and afterwards interpreted to another in private: nor yet again declarations of the import of particular parables, premised or subjoined to the delivery of them, which are but apparent explanations, and in order to be fully understood, would require explanation themselves.

Thus much being premised by way of admonition, before the application of the criterion in question, the several parables of which we may assume it as an undeniable fact that they were delivered originally without comment or observation, and were never explained in any shape that we know of, subsequently; or that they were addressed at first without explanation to a certain audience, and explained afterwards only to another; or that, if any clue to their meaning is premised or subjoined to them, it is from the pen of the historian who records them, not from the mouth of the Speaker who first pronounced them; or that, if they were delivered in proof or illustration of any position at the time, it was in proof or illustration of what could not be understood, without more light and explanation than were vouchsafed at the time; are twenty in number: 1. the parable of the sower; 2. the tares; 3. the seed growing secretly; 4. the grain of mustard