The Parables of the Gospel: An Exegetical and Practical Explanation (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Parables of the Gospel: An Exegetical and Practical Explanation

So said the poet, wisely, of the symbolic teachings of the Gospel; and assuredly nowhere has divine Truth assumed a more win ning air, nowhere worn a more condescending yet conquering guise than in those tales told by a divine Teacher. And yet can it be said that their true and full meaning is easily seized? Have not their details and their general drift alike been from the beginning disputed and misunderstood? Has not human falli bility found herein room to stray and heretical obstinacy means for self-blinding? Nay, has not there hung round the parables from the beginning a peculiar and mysterious dispensation of obscurity? That seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand?1 In them, truly, are set forth the divine lore of the kingdom of Heaven, of God's fatherhood, of the Redemption, of the service of God, of man's duties on earth and destinies hereafter, in the most appealing and vivid form. Yet it is clear that Christ intended many things to be necessary ere all this become, for any one of us, actually the Word of Life. Qui potest capere, capiat. There must be docility of spirit, the beginnings (at least) of Faith, the desire for more light, and humility, - unless ye become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. There must be, normally, finding and acceptance of the enlightened and authorized ex pounder. To teach men through these means to lead to sal vation by external ministries of grace this is the strangely constant method of Providence.

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