poem, the Canticles, should distinguish and depict the most sacred of all subjects with similar outlines and in similar colours. (D) It is not, however, sufficient, that the image be apt and familiar; it must also be elegant and beautiful in itself: since it is for the purpose of a poetic parable, not only to explain more perfectly some proposition, but frequently to give it more animation and splendour. The imagery from natural objects is superior to all other in this respect; for almost every picture from nature, if accurately drawn, has its peculiar beauty. As the parables of the sacred poets, therefore, consist chiefly of this kind of imagery, the elegance of the materials generally serves to recommend them. If there be any of a different kind, such as may be accounted less delicate and refined, it ought to be considered, whether they are not to be accounted among those, the dignity and grace of which are lost to us, though they were perhaps wanting in neither to people of the same age and country. If any reader, for instance, should be offended with the boiling pot of Ezekiel,12 and the scum flowing over into the fire; let him remember, that the prophet, who was also a priest, took the allusion from his own sacred rites: nor is there a possibility, that an image could be accounted mean or disgusting, which was connected with the holy ministration of the temple. It is also essential to the elegance of a parable, that the imagery should not only be apt and beautiful, but that all its parts and appendages should be perspicuous and pertinent. It is, however, by no means necessary, that in every parable the allusion should be complete in every part; such a degree of resemblance would frequently appear too minute and exact: but when the nature of the subject will bear, much more when it will even require a fuller explanation; and when the similitude runs directly, naturally, and regularly, through every circumstance, then it cannot be doubted that it is productive of the greatest beauty. Of all these excellencies, there cannot be more perfect examples than the parables which have been just specified. I will also venture to recommend the well know parable of Nathan,13 although written in prose, as well as that of Jotham,14 which appears to be the most ancient extant, and approaches somewhat nearer the poetical form. (E) To these remarks I will add another, which may be considered as the criterion of a parable, namely, that it be consistent throughout, and that the literal be never confounded with the figu14 Jun. ix. 7-15. 12 EZEK. Xxiv. 3, &c. 13 2 SAM. xii. 1-4. rative sense. In this respect it materially differs from the former species of allegory, which, deviating but gradually from the simple metaphor, does not always immediately exclude literal expressions, or words without a figure. But both the fact itself, and this distinction, will more evidently appear from an example of each kind. The psalmist, (whoever he was) describing the people of Israel as a vine,15 has continued the metaphor, and happily drawn it out through a variety of additional circumstances. Among the many beauties of this allegory, not the least graceful is that modesty, with which he enters upon and concludes his subject, making an easy and gradual transition from plain to figurative language, and no less delicately receding back to the plain and unornamented narrative. "Ex Aegypto eduxisti vitem; "Eiecisti gentes eamque plantâsti: "Ante faciem eius praeparâsti locum After this follow some figurative expressions, less cautiously introduced in which when he has indulged for some time, how elegantly does he revert to his proper subject! "Revertere, o Deus exercituum; "De coelo despice et intuere, "Et germinis quod tua plantavit dextera, "Et sobolis quam tibi confirmâsti. "Igni comburitur penitusque succiditur ; "Per vultus tui increpationem pereunt. "Sit manus tua super virum dexterae tuae, "Super sobolem illam hominis quam tibi confirmâsti."”(F) You may easily perceive, gentlemen, how, in this first kind of allegory, the literal may be mingled with the figurative sense; and even how graceful this practice appears, since light is more agreeably thrown upon the subject in an oblique manner, without too bare and direct an explication. But it is different, when the same image puts on the form of the other sort of allegory, or parable, as in Isaiah.16 Here is no room for literal, or even ambiguous expressions; every word is figurative; the whole mass of colouring is taken from the same pallet. Thus what, in the former quotation, is expressed in undisguised language, namely, "the casting out of the nations, the preparation of the place, and its destruction from the rubuke of the 15 PSAL. lxxx. 9-18. 16 Chap. v. 1-7 Lord," is by Isaiah expressed wholly in a figurative manner :"The Lord gathered out the stones from his vineyard, and cleared it: but when it deceived him, he threw down its hedge, and made it waste, and commanded the clouds that they should rain no rain upon it." Expressions, which in the one case possess a peculiar grace, would be absurd and incongruous in the other. For the continued metaphor and the parable have a very different aim. The sole intention of the former is to embellish a subject, to represent it more magnificently, or at the most to illustrate it; that, by describing it in more elevated language, it may strike the mind more forcibly: but the intent of the latter is to withdraw the truth for a moment from our sight, in order to conceal whatever it may contain ungraceful or disgusting, and to enable it secretly to insinuate itself, and obtain an ascendency as it were by stealth. There is, however, a species of parable, the intent of which is only to illustrate the subject, such is that remarkable one of Ezekiel,17 which I just now commended, of the cedar of Lebanon: than which, if we consider the imagery itself, none was ever more apt or more beautiful; if the description and colouring, none was ever more elegant or splendid; in which, however, the poet has occasionally allowed himself to blend the figurative with the literal description:18 whether he has done this because the peculiar nature of this kind of parable required it, or whether his own fervid imagination alone, which disdained the stricter rules of composition, was his guide, I can scarcely presume to de termine. 17 Chap. xxxi. 18 See v. 11, 14—17. LECTURE XI. OF THE MYSTICAL ALLEGORY. The definition of the Mystical Allegory-Founded upon the allegorical or typical nature of the Jewish religion-The distinction between this and the two former species of allegory; in the nature of the materials; it being allowable in the former to make use of imagery from indifferent objects; in this, only such as is derived from things sacred, or their opposites; in the former, the exterior image has no foundation in truth; in the latter, both images are equally true-The difference in the form or manner of treating them-The most beautiful form is when the corresponding images run parallel through the whole poem, and mutually illustrate each other-Examples of this in the second and seventy-second Psalms-The parabolic style admirably adapted to this species of allegory; the nature of which renders it the language most proper for prophecy-Extremely dark in itself, but it is gradually cleared up by the series of events foretold, and more complete revelation; time also, which in the general obscures, contributes to its full explanation. THE third species of allegory, which also prevails much in the prophetic poetry, is when a double meaning is couched under the same words; or when the same production, according as it is differently interpreted, relates to different events, distant in time, and distinct in their nature. These different relations are termed the literal and the mystical senses; and these constitute one of the most difficult and important topics of Theology. The subject is, however, connected also with the sacred poetry, and is therefore deserving of a place in these lectures. In the sacred rites of the Hebrews, things, places, times, offices, and such like, sustain as it were a double character, the one proper or literal, the other allegorical; and in their writings these subjects are sometimes treated of in such a manner, as to relate either to the one sense or the other, singly, or to both united. For instance, a composition may treat of David, of Solomon, of Jerusalem, so as to be understood to relate simply either to the city itself and its monarchs, or else to those objects, which, in the sacred allegory of the Jewish religion, are denoted by that city and by those monarchs: or the mind of the author may embrace both objects at once, so that the very words which express the one in the plain, proper, historical, and commonly received sense, may typify the other in the sacred, interior, and prophetic sense. From these principles of the Jewish religion, this kind of allegory, which I am inclined to call mystical, seems more especially to derive its origin, and from these we must endeavour at an explanation of it. But its nature and peculiar properties will probably be more easily demonstrable, if we previously define in what respects it is different from the two former species of allegory. The first remarkable difference is, that in allegories of the kind already noticed, the writer is at liberty to make use of whatever imagery is most agreeable to his fancy or inclination: there is nothing in universal nature, nothing which the mind perceives, either by sense or reflection, which may not be adapted in the form of a continued metaphor, or even of a parable, to the illustration of some other subject. This latter kind of allegory, on the contrary, can only be supplied with proper materials from the sacred rites of the Hebrews themselves; nor can it be introduced, except in relation to such things as are directly connected with the Jewish religion, or their immediate opposites. For to Israel, Sion, Jerusalem, in the allegorical as well as the literal sense, are opposed Assyria, Bablon, Egypt, Idumea; and the same opposition exists in other subjects of a similar nature. The two former kinds of allegory are of the same general nature with the other figures, and partake of the common privileges of poetry; this latter, or mystical allegory, has its foundation in the nature of the Jewish economy, and is adapted solely to the poetry of the Hebrews. Hence that truly Divine Spirit, which has not disdained to employ poetry as the interpreter of its sacred will, has also in a manner appropriated to its own use this kind of allegory, as peculiarly adapted to the publication of future events, and to the typifying of the most sacred mysteries: so that should it, on any occasion, be applied to a profane and common subject; being diverted from its proper end, and forced as it were from its natural bias, it would inevitably want all its power and elegance.(^) There is likewise this further distinction, that in those other forms of allegory, the exterior or ostensible imagery is fiction only; the truth lies altogether in the interior or remote sense, which is veiled as it were under this thin and pellucid covering. But in the allegory, of which we are now treating, each idea is equally agreeable to truth. The exterior or ostensible image is not a shadowy colouring of the interior sense, but is in itself a reality; and although it sustain another character, it does not wholly lay aside its own. For instance, in the metaphor or parable, the lion, the eagle, the ce |