search diligently through the Sacred Records, and gain the same faith in Christ, which I, their progenitor, attained, ages before either the incorporation of the Law, or the manifestations of the Prophets. Let them cast off their evil sense of security; let them seek in the Scriptures for the Truth in the mind of the despised Lazarus, and they will gain the favor which he has acquired, "for they are they which testify of Christ."

An examination into the other parables, will reduce all within the circle of the same secret doctrine; varied to meet the peculiar circumstances of the persons to whom they were primarily addressed,but all referring and tending, more or less remotely, to the truths of Christianity. The same fact is also perceptible in the miracles which he wrought. They have all a general and broad application to the mind of the individual whose recovery they effected, or the religious state of the nation to whom he belonged. If the blind were restored to sight by the power of Christ, the inference is easily deduced, that the light of their minds is to be opened, and darkness dispelled by the saving doctrines of our Redeemer. If the lame and the halt receive their strength, and walk upright before men, we infer from the miracle a lesser state of evil, than that of total blindness; and the weaknesses and obliquities of their minds having been healed by Christ, they stand erect before God, and justified in his sight. If the servant of the centurion is cured from his malady, we infer from it, not only that the favor and grace of Christ are extended to the most averted from his Law of Truth; -to those, whom from the greatness of their iniquity,

no message has been sent; but that each soul amongst mankind will be restored in proportion to the soundness and the fervency of his Faith,-“ as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee."

This is a principle, like that contained in the parables, too obvious to require proof;-but from very many a design of a different character is evolved; one which, as we have said, is nearly assimilated to the histories of the Old Testament. The miraculous draught of fishes will at once illustrate this position, and give a remarkable exemplification of the overrulement by Christ of the ordinary actions of men, and their adaptation to the designs of his own spiritual counsels, of which so many instances have already been given in the course of the present subject.

Our Saviour in his first progress through Judæa, having gone into Galilee, stood by the sea of Tiberias. His fame has preceded him; and the people press eagerly upon him to hear him. Two barks belonging to fishermen are drawn upon the strand. The owners are near them mending* and washing† their nets. Their toil has been unsuccessful; they have returned empty.

This was the view that met the eye of Jesus, as, accompanied by the multitudes, he descended on the shore; and these simple facts he determined to make subservient to a point of doctrine, and exhibit in them a living parable of divine truth. The fishermen, like the people, were ignorant of Jesus, except from the distant report of others. They stood under the figure of the natural soul without Redemption. † Luke v. 2.

*Mark i. 19.

They had toiled all the night, and had caught nothing. They had broken and clogged their nets in the fruitless labor. The mind of Jesus saw in these things the emblem of the soul toiling to no purpose in the time of its darkness;—its systems of seeking truth too weak and fragile to withstand the shocks of the evil world. On this idea he acted. Entering into one of the vessels, he prayed the fisherman to whom it belonged "to thrust a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people." "A little from the land." The mind of the multitude required in its emblematic character, the elements of knowledge; and Christ in this first action exhibited the mode in which it must be dealt with in its first advances towards faith. The water stands, in its usual Scripture acceptation, as Truth ;-or Christianity. Jesus therefore in opening the saving doctrines of the Gospel to the natural mind of the people, expounds them only in their easiest and simplest form; -the rudiments of faith. He is on the water;—but he has at first sat down to teach a little only from the land. When however he had left speaking to the multitudes, he turned round to the owners of the vessel, whom he already in his mind had enrolled amongst his disciples; and designing to exhibit the full powers of his doctrine, enjoined them" to launch out into the deep, and let down their nets for a draught." The mind prepared by the first principles of faith required to be launched forth into the deep unto the great and hidden mysteries of Redemption-to gain any recompence for its toil. The one was requisite from the low state of the soul's knowledge; he taught a little from the land;-but

the elements acquired, the more abstruse truths became essential, and it was imperatively demanded of the soul, in order to its profit, that it should thrust boldly from the land and fathom the deep waters. Peter, whom he addressed, was, as yet, ignorant of his occult design. He answered by a single reference to the external circumstance. "Master," he replies -"we have toiled all the night, and have caught nothing." True;-in the natural sense ;-and true also in the sense which Jesus adopted ;-in the night of Heathenism; and even, through their perversion of its disclosures-in the night of the Mosaic Covenant. Still, though half doubtful of success, the future disciple fails not to obey the voice, which had already initiated him into the true Faith. He launched out. He let down the nets. A multitude of fishes, far greater than he had ever seen, were enmeshed;-so great, that the nets began to give way under the pressure of those, who strove to be enclosed in them. Then was it that Christ laid open the mystic intent of what had been done;-that he revealed the secret counsel which had so overruled their ordinary actions to his purposes of doctrine; and showed them convincingly that what had happened had been exhibited to them in a figure. "Fear not," he exclaims, in calming the awe of their minds from the miracle which he had wrought

"Fear not; from henceforth"-(by adopting the same course and by obeying my law)-" thou shalt catch men!"

One thing alone is wanting to complete the type, and re-produce the miracle amongst men, continually, to the latest generations;—the conduct of the en

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lightened fishermen. "When they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him."

To the same test, and perhaps with even greater power, would we subject the miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes.

A vast multitude of every age and sex have congregated around Jesus in the wilderness to listen to his instructions. They have been three days with him; and of necessity, from the situation, have fared scantily. He is about to dismiss them; but knowing their hearts well; reading their inmost thoughts; he feels that they require a further sign of his Divine Power, in order that the lessons of Faith which he has impressed upon them, may be received in their full profit. He selects the hunger which they suffer, as the medium of this design. Again then, the multitudes rise in the figure of the natural mind without Redemption. They are in a desert. They are without food. They hunger, and faint, and seem about to perish in the way. Sorrow is on every cheek. The disciples themselves despair of satisfying their cravings. They are at fault; and turn to Jesus for advice and assistance in their extremity. "Whence," say they in reply to an expressed feeling of compassion from Jesus-" whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness to feed so great a multitude?"* The question gave the desired movement to his intention. Seven loaves and a few little fishes are brought to him. The multitudes are commanded to sit down: to wait in faith for the food which shall satisfy their hunger, and reinvigorate their wasted strength. The loaves are

*Matt. xv. 33.