The Parables of Our Lord | Page 2

of the ancient masters suffice. A mere
reproduction, for example, of the Puritan theology would not be
suitable in our day; while the truth, which constitutes its essence,
remains the same, it must be cast in the moulds of modern thought, and
tinged with the hues of modern experience.
Engineers surveying for a railway lay down the line level, or as nearly

level as the configuration of the surface will permit; but an engineer's
level is not a straight line; it is the segment of a circle,--that circle being
the circumference of the globe. The line which practically constitutes a
level bends downwards continually as it goes forward, following the
form of the earth, and at every point being at right angles to the radius.
If it were produced in an absolutely straight line, it would, in the course
of a few miles, be high and dry above the surface of the earth, and
entirely useless for the practical purposes of life. Such would sacred
literature become if in blind admiration of the fathers, the children
should simply use the old, and not produce the new. As we advance
along the course of time, we are, as it were, tracing a circle; and he who
would be of use in his generation, must bend his speculations to the
time, and let them touch society on the level at every point in the
progress of the race. To throw a new contribution into the goodly store
does not, therefore, imply a judgment on the part of the writer that the
modern theology is better than the ancient. We must make our own: it
concerns us and our children that what we make be in substance drawn
from the word of God; and in form, suited to the circumstances of the
age.
Still further, the accumulations of the past should be used by those who
inherit them, as a basis on which to build. It is the business of each
generation to lay another course on the wall, and so leave the structure
loftier than they found it. The Bible, like the world, is inexhaustible; in
either department hosts of successive investigators have plied their
tasks from the beginning, and yet there is room.
Some observations are here submitted, more or less strictly
introductory to a treatise on a specific branch of Scriptural
exegesis--the Parables of Our Lord.
I.--ANALOGY.
As the husbandman's first care is neither the fruit nor the tree which
bears it, but the soil in which the tree must grow: so an expositor,
whose ultimate aim is to explain and enforce the parables of Jesus,
should mark well at the outset the fundamental analogies which
pervade the works of God, and constitute the basis of all figurative

language, whether in human teaching or divine.
The Maker and Ruler of the universe pursues an object, and works on a
plan. His purpose is one, and he sees the end from the beginning: the
variations, infinite in number, and vast in individual extent, which
emerge in the details of his administration, are specific
accommodations of means to ends.
The material and moral departments of the divine government are, like
body and soul of a human being, widely diverse from each other; but
one Master administers both with a view to a common end. The two
departments are different in kind, and therefore the laws which regulate
the one cannot be the same as the laws which regulate the other; but in
both one designer operates towards one design, and therefore the laws
which regulate the one must be like the laws which regulate the other.
From the duality of creation, there cannot be identity between the
physical and moral laws; but from the unity of the Creator there must
be similarity.
Nor is it only between the two great departments of the divine
government generically distinguished, that analogies may spring:
within either department, analogies innumerable may be found between
one species and another, and even between individuals of the same
species. Between two parts of the material world, or two portions of
human history, or two processes of mental effort, analogies may be
traced, as well as between the evolutions of matter and the laws of
mind.
It is not strictly correct to speak of the similitudes which we have been
accustomed to admire in literature, as "creations of genius;" the utmost
that is competent to genius is to observe and exhibit the similitudes as
they lie in nature. An observing eye, a suggestive mind, and a loving
heart constitute all the necessary apparatus; with these faculties in
exercise, let any one stalk abroad upon the earth among his fellows, and
analogies will spring spontaneously around him, as manifold and as
beautiful as the flowers that by daylight look up from the earth,