fuch as prefent themfelves perpetually to our obfervation, in the common occurrences of life, they are much more cafily comprehended, especially by rude and uncultivated minds (that is, by the great bulk of mankind) than if they were propofed in their original form.

2. In all ages of the world there is nothing with which mankind hath been fo much delighted as with thofe little fictitious stories, which go under the name of fables or apologues among the ancient heathens, and of parables in the facred writings. It is found by experience, that this fort of compofition is better calculated to command attention, to captivate the imagination, to affect the heart, and to make deeper and more lalting impreflions on the memory, than the moft ingenious and most elegant difcourfes that the wit of man is capable of producing.

3. The very obfcurity in which parables are fometimes involved, has the effect of exciting a greater degree of curiofity and intereft, and of urging the mind to a more vigorous exertion of its faculties and powers, than any other mode of inftruction. There is fomething 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 dif cernment, and for that very reafon to pay more regard to the moral it conveys.

4. When the mind is under the influence of ftrong prejudices, of violent paffions, or inveterate habits, and when under thefe circumftances it becomes neceflary to rectify error, to diffipate delufion, to reprove fin, and bring the offender to a sense of his danger and his guilt; there is no way in which this difficult task can be fo well executed, and the painful truths that must be told fo fuccessfully infinuated into the mind, as by difguifing them under the vcil of a well-wrought and interelling parable.

This obfervation cannot be better illuftrated than by referring to two parables, one in the New Testament, the other in the Old, which will amply confirm the truth, and unfold the meaning of the preceding remarks.

The first of thefe which I allude to is the celebrated parable of the good Samaritan.

The Jews, as we learn from our Lord himself, had ef tablished it as a maxim that they were to love their neighbor and to hate their enemy; and as they confidered none, as their neighbors but their own countrymen; the confequence was, that they imagined themselves at liberty to hate all the reft of the world; a liberty which they indulged without referve, and against none with more bitterness than the contiguous nation of the Samaritans. When, therefore, the lawyer in the Gofpel afked our Lord, who was his neighbor? had Chrift attempted to prove to him by argument that he was to confider all mankind, even his enemies, even the Samaritans, as his neighbors, the lawyer would have treated his answer with contempt and difdain; all his native prejudices and abfurd traditions would have rifen up in arms against fo offenfive a doctrine; nor would all the eloquence in the world, not even the divine eloquence of the Son of God himself, have been able to fubdue the deep-rooted prepoffeffions of the obftinate Jew.

Jefus therefore, well knowing the impoffibility of convincing the lawyer by any thing he could fay, determined to make the man convince himself, and correct his own error. With this view he relates to him the parable of the Jewish traveller, who fell among robbers, was ftripped and wounded, and left half dead upon the spot; and though paffed by with unfeeling indifference and neglect by his own countrymen, was at length relieved and reftored to health by a compaffionate Samaritan. He then afks the lawyer, who was neighbor to this distressed traveller? It was impoffible for the lawyer not to answer, as he did (not forefeeing the confequence) He that foowed mercy to him; that is, the Samaritan. Here then he at once cut up his own abfurd opinion by the roots. For if the Samaritans, whom of all others the Jews most hated, were, in the true and fubftantial fenfe of the word, their neighbors, they were bound by their own law, by their own

Matth. v. 43.

traditions, and by this man's own confeffion, to love and to affift them as fuch. The conclufion was therefore, Go and do thou likewife.

This then affords a ftriking proof of the efficacy of parable in correcting ftrong prejudices and erroneous opinjons. But there is another thing ftill more difficult to be fubdued, and that is, inveterate wickedness and hardened guilt. But this too was made to give way and humble it. felf in the duft by the force of parable. I mean that of Nathan.

There seems reason to believe that King David, after he had committed the complicated crime of adultery and murder, had by fome means or other contrived to lull his confcience to fleep, and to fupprefs the rifings of any painful reflection in his mind. This appears almost incredible, yet fo the fact seems to have been; and it fhews in the strongest light the extreme deceitfulness of fin, its aftonishing power over the mind of man, and the inveterate depravity of the human heart. When we fee a man who had perpetrated fuch atrocious deeds, totally infenfible of his guilt, and not difcovering the flighteft refemblance to his own cafe in the affecting and awakening story which the prophet related, it affords a ftriking and a melancholy proof what human nature is when left to itself even in the best of men; even in thofe who, like King David, are, in the general tenor of their life, actuated by right principles, and even animated (as he evidently was) with the warmest fentiments of piety and devotion. And it demonstrates in the clearest manner the abfolute neceffity of that help from above in the discharge of our duty, which the Chriftian revelation holds out to us, and which men of the world are fo apt to despise and deride as a weak delufion and fanatical imagination; I mean the divine influences of the Holy Spirit: without which there is not a fingle individual here prefent, however highly he may think of the natural rectitude and invincible integrity of his own mind, who may not in an evil hour, when he leaft thinks of it, be betrayed by fome powerful and unex pected temptation into as much guilt, and become as

blind to his own fituation, as was that unhappy prince of whom we are now fpeaking.

It was indispensably neceffary to roufe the finner out of this dreadful lethargy; but how was this to be done ?— Had Nathan plainly and directly charged him with all the enormity of his guilt, the probability is, that either in the first transport of his refentment he would have driven the prophet from his prefence, or that he would have attempted to palliate, to foften, to explain away his crime; would have pleaded the strength of his paffion or the violence of the temptation, and perhaps claimed fome indulgence of his rank and fituation in life. But all these pleas were at once filenced, and his retreat completely cut off, by making him the judge of his own cafe, and forcing his condemnation out of his own mouth. For after he had denounced death on the rich man for taking away the ewe lamb of the poor one, he could with no decency pretend that he who had deftroyed the life of one fellow-creature, and the innocence of another, was deferving of a milder fentence.

There was nothing then left for him but to confess at once, as he did, "that he had finned against the Lord;" and his penitence we know was as fevere and exemplary as his crime had been atrocious.

It is much to be lamented that these indirect methods fhould be found neceffary, in order to fhow men to themfelves, and acquaint them with their real characters, efpecially when it is their own intereft not to be mistaken in fo important a concern. But the wife and the virtuous in every age have condescended to make use of this innocent artifice; the necessity of which is founded in the fad corruption of human nature, and in that grofs and deplorable blindness to their own fins and follies, which is obfervable in fo large a part of mankind. They engage with warmth and eagernefs in worldly purfuits, which employ their attention and excite their paffions; fo that they have little time, and lefs inclination, to reflect calmly and ferioufly on their own conduct, in a moral and religious point. of view. But if their thoughts are at any time forced in

wards, and they cannot help taking a view of themfelves, a deeper fource of delufion is ftill behind. The fame actions which, when committed by others, are immediately difcerned to be wrong, are palliated, explained, quali fied, and apologized away, when we happen to be guilty of them ourselves. The circumstances in the two cafes are discovered to be perfectly different in fome effential points; our paffions were ungovernable, the temptation irresistible. In fhort, fomehow or other, all guilt vanifhes away under the management of the dextrous cafuift, and the intrufion of felf-condemnation is effectually precluded,

Still there remains, it may be faid, the admonition of fome zealous friend or faithful inftructor; but zeal is generally vehement, and often indifcreet. By exciting the refentment, and inflaming the anger of those it means to reform, it frequently defeats its own defigns. For whoever is offended inftantly forgets his own faults, and dwells wholly upon thofe of his imprudent monitor. But when the veil of parable conceals for a moment from the offender that he is himfelf concerned in it, he may generally be furprized into a condemnation of every one that is guilty of a bafe difhonorable action; and when the unexpected application, Thou art the man, comes thundering fuddenly upon him, and points out the perfect fimilarity of the fuppofed cafe to his own, the astonished criminal, overwhelmed with confufion, and driven from all his ufual fubterfuges and evafions, is compelled at length to condemn himself.

It was probably the confideration of thefe delufions, and the other reafons above affigned, which gave rise to fo general and fo ancient a custom of conveying moral inftruction under the cover of imaginary agents and fictitious events. We find traces of it in the earliest writers; and it was more peculiarly cultivated in the eaft, the region where religion and science firft took their rife. The moft ancient parables perhaps on record are thofe we meet with in the Old Teftament; that of Jotham, for inftance, where the trees defired the bramble to reign over them* * Judges ix. 14.