Parables

Knowledge to the Minds of Men, and they often stick Chrift's with them, when the Impreffions, made by other rational Speaking in Difcourfes, are obliterated and forgotten. Hence Phedrus vindicated. fays of the fopick Fables.

Diligenter intuere has nanias;

Quantam fub illis utilitatem reperies!

Mark well these Tales, for though they idle feem,
The greatest Profit may be had from them.

And he farther fhews how

fop, in his Condition,

was best able to teach Men their Duties this Way.

Servitus obnoxia,

Quia quod volebat non audebat dicere ;
Affectus proprios in fabellas tranftulit,
Calumniamq; fictis eclufit Focis.

Poor Slave! he durft not plainly fay,
The noble Truths which in his Bofom lay:
The good Advice in merry Tales he dreft,
And Calumny avoided by the Jeft.

And History gives us an Account, that sometimes thefe Fables have had greater Force to perfuade, than the most strenuous Argumentation of another kind. By one of thefe, Menenius perfuaded the Commonalty of Rome, which was all in an Uproar, to be recónciled to the Senate; and by another of the like Kind, Demofthenes escaped being delivered up to Alexander. But the Jews, above all Nations, delighted in this Way of Reafoning, as St. Hierom, who lived long in Palaftine, informs us in his Comment on Math. xiv. And the Jewish Books, at this Day, are full of fuch Parables as our Saviour uses.

And they are, oftentimes, ufhered in with the fame Phrase and Way of Speaking, as our Saviour introduces his; Whereunto fhall I liken fuch a Thing? fays Chrift. The Jewish Books fay, A Parable: To what is the Thing like?

T

Our Savi

To a Man, to a King of Flefs and Blood. Nay, in the
Talmudical Treatifes, there are Parables to be found, al-
moft the very fame with thofe of our Saviour. In the
Treatife Killaim, there is a Difpute of ferving upon the Rocky
and Stones, and of mixing Wheat and Tares together. And
in Peah, a Tract in the Talmud of Jerufalem, they speak
of a Tree of Mustard-feed, which one might climb up
into, like other Trees. Now, when this parabolical
Way of teaching Morality was the most celebrated Me-
thod among
the Jews, you ought not to blame our Sa-
viour, who always induftriously avoided Singularity, for
his falling in with their common Practice.

But fuppofing Chrift, as you would have had him, our's Dif- fhould have taught Morality in the Way of the Heathen courfes a Philofophers; the Jews then would have defpifed his Sergreeable to the Eaftern mons more, than you do now. The Eastern Way of Way of Reafoning was fo different from that of the West, that Reasoning. the foundest Philofophy of Greece or Rome would have been mere Jargon and Cant, if it had been propofed in the philofophick Way, at Jerufalem. The only Method of Reafoning, which agreed with their Palates, was to ufher in an handfome Simile, or Story, appofite to the Matter difcourfed of; to apply a fmart Saying of fome ancient Worthy; or to bring good Proofs from their Law, or ancient Tradition; but to go to prove Morality to them, as Plato and Tidly do, from the eternal Rules of Juftice, from the Rectitude and Honorablenefs of Virtue, and the Pravity and Turpitude of Vice, would have been metr Heathen Greek to that Nation, and fuch a Way of Talking, as the wifeft Men of their Way of Education would have vilely defpifed. Indeed, the Greeks and Ro mans were forced to argue after that Manner, becauf they wanted Revelation to inftruct them in Morality; and they had no other Way, to come to the Knowledge of particular moral Obligations, but only to deduce them from general and uncontroverted Principles; but the fer muft contemn this round-about Way, as having a thorte

Vid. Dr. Lightfoot's Harmony of the New Teftament. p. 30.

Method,

Method, to come to the Knowledge of their Duty, only by having Recourfe to the infallible Word of God. Their Proof was, not that Socrates or Plato had faid this, or that Reafon did dictate it; but becaufe God had commanded it.

Therefore our all-wife Redeemer, (who well knew the Temper and Breeding up of the People he converfed with, and preached to) took Care that his Way of inftructing them fhould be that which was moft agreeable to their Education, and fuch which might tend more to their Edification, than if he had brought among them a Philofophick Method of Morality, which was in ufe only amongst the idolatrous Heathen. I warrant, fome of you polite Gentlemen would have had our Saviour to have talk'd always fome, fuch fpruce Speeches, as you find in Ifocrates or Libanius; but our bleffed Lord underflood his Office better than fo: For that would have but expofed him, to the Mockery of his Auditors; nay fuch an unufual Rhetorick would have been as ridiculous, at Jerufalem, as a School Boy's Declamation would be, at one of our English Bars.

you.

Greek Phi

been under

Befides, if the Men of Learning and Education could By making have understood fuch fet and rational Difcourfes, as ufe of the would have our Saviour to have fpoken, yet the ordinary lofophy and People, whom our Saviour was to do moft Good among, Eloquence, muft only have come to have gaped at his Lectures, with- he would out understanding a tittle of them. Poffibly fome fuch not have Men as Philo, or Jofephus, Men of an Alexandrian Edu- food by cation, who had converfed among the Heathen Philofo- People. phers, might have understood fuch a Vein of Arguing as you contend for; but the poor ordinary Jews, and Men, who only had an Education in Judea, could never have understood him. In fhort, that, which our Saviour took up with, was the Country and the popular Eloquence, and which he muft expect to do moft good by; and therefore, upon very wife Grounds, he chofe to make ufe of this, rather than to pleafe the itching Ears of a few Men, who could relish nothing but the Eloquence of Greck and Latin Books.

Another

lixity.

He avoided Another very good Reason, why our Saviour did not by this Pro- give a Rationale of all the Moral Duties he preached was, Betaufe that would have run his Lectures out into too great a Length; it would too much have burthened the Memory of his Auditors; and would have hindred his Sermons from being fuch comprehenfive Compendiums of Divinity, as they now are. To have given a Rationale of but one or two Heads of fome of his Discourses; to have fhewn all the particular Excellencies, viz. of a peaceable Difpofition, the imvard Quiet and Satisfaction, and the outward Love and Efteem, the bleffed Fruits of it in Families, and Societies, in Church and State, &c. To have gone through all the other Duties, after this Method, would have made the Sermon upon the Mount bigger than Aquinas's Sums; and fo our Saviour must have been a great Deal longer a preaching, than he lived.

But laftly, there was no Need, that our Saviour should make ufe of fuch rational Harangues as others do. He taught as one having Authority, and not as the Scribes. He himself had Authority to command what was to be done, and not only to prove it. Other Doctors among the Jews, were to prove a Thing to be a Duty, because it was commanded in God's Word, or delivered heretofore by the infpired Prophets; but our Saviour was infpired himfelf, and his Miracles proved what he faid to be the Word of GOD, better than any Arguments or Gloffes upon Scripture.

Phil. I have fomething to urge against one of your Arguments, which afferts, That Chrift's Way of fpeaking by Parables, and fuch Jewish Ways of Reasoning, was beft understood by the People; when 'tis plain they were not: For Matth. xiii. Chrift is faid purpofely to speak in Parables, that the Jews might not understand him. Which by the way is a very odd Way of giving Laws, or obliga tory Rules, in fuch dark Terms, as no body can tell what they mean.

Cred. All the Parables of our Saviour, (as particularly thofe which gave Reprefentations of Moral Duties, fuch as that of Dives and Lazarus, and of the wife and foolish Vi

Parables in

gins, &c.) are not difficult to be understood; and when he Chrift does peaks as a Legiflator, as in the Sermon on the Mount, he not speak lays down his Rules in plain and direct Terms. But his Legiflawhen he fpeaks of fome of the Myfteries of Chriftianity, tions; nor of the Rejection of the Jews, and the Preaching the generally Gofpel to the Gentiles, or the like; he then only makes ufe difficult. of obfcure Similies, which fome of the captious Jews, who followed Christ out of no good Defign, might not underftand. And herein he did no otherways, than what Iam-/ blichus fays Pythagoras did, who faid many Things in a hidden and covert Manner, which those, who came to learn of him with a pure Mind might understand; but others, though they heard him, could not perceive his Meaning. And fo in the 13th Chapter of St. Matthew, there was a promifcuous Multitude, which followed Chrift; all of which did · not come with a good Defign to learn his Doctrine; and that made him, at that Time, propofe it more obfcurely; but when those captions People were gone off, he then explained himself more openly to his Difciples, and fome other good People which were probably with them. Or it was fufficient if he did it only to his Difciples, who would make it fufficiently known after his Death; there being very fufficient and material Reasons, that all the Doctrines of Christianity should not be revealed, till the World fhould be in a better Difpofition to receive them.

Phil. There are feveral of Chrift's Actions likewife, which do very much disgust me, as particularly the Cavalcade he made upon his Afinego, as one of our riends *has expreffed it. To ride To ride upon fuch an odd Sort of Beaft at the Head of a Mob, is an Action not becoming a wife or grave Man, more especially the Meffias or Son of God. And does it not look like an Affectation of PopuLarity, to fuffer the Rabble to hofannah him all along upon the Road, and to throw their Cloaths in the Way to grace the Triumph? If you and I were to fee the fame Thing done, by one whom we were not prejudiced by a previous Refpect to, we could not but think it to be Vanity, or Enthufiafm.

Oracl. of Reaf. p. 163.
E e

great

Cred.