ON SIMILE AND METAPHOR IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 121 



in the religious community of Christian denomination. The vital 

 relation of the one to the many and the necessity of maintaining the 

 right order of precedence if all are to progress is surely a lesson for 

 the Church in all times. 



Mr. C. Fox writes : While in this Vale of Tears we see through a 

 glass darkly — ex delicta, owing to our Fall. Even things here we 

 see not as they are and " they are not what they seem." Moses 

 must " be hid," even from our eager gaze, and the veil, even over 

 the prosopopoeia of his Mosaic System, must cover his face, as on 

 Tabor it might shine. Not only is the veil — even like that of all 

 ceremony and type — over it to the incredulous Jew, but, alas ! to 

 hosts of " Christians " hardly less, who would be termed Judaised 

 by Paul. When we see " with open face " we are changed into the 

 Image we see ; not till then. 



Thus things as well as personalities Divine have to be shown and 

 given us, and cannot be perceived here totus, teres atque rotundus. 

 As in fulness or amount, so too in kind they transcend, and our 

 knowledge is limited by our mind. The spiritual needs spiritual 

 faculties, or cognate, to discern. Hence the prophets were them- 

 selves shown and then exhibited symbols, and Hosea said, I have 

 used similitudes," and a fortiori our Saviour gave us a new natural 

 theology of metaphor, evidently most familiar with and sympathising 

 towards all nature, a prince of poetry and observation, and it is 

 said, even, " Without a parable spake He not unto them." For, 

 with His unfathomable knowledge, including what was in man. He 

 knew Divine truth could not be presented to or understood by us 

 as it is, and we had to be condescended to in this as in all other 

 respects. The true and more easy apprehension of all of it we here 

 knew of, and would know truly, will doubtless be a chief joy above. 



What can be more natural and often more perfect, yet plain, than 

 His parables ? This didactics is almost His proprium. It shines 

 in and characterises His short earthly life in our flesh like His amazing 

 shower of dicta and repartee or ever-irrefutable arguments, so that 

 He would be a unique wonder if but a man, and His Divinity is 

 further demonstrated thereby. What a galaxy of similes all relating 

 to one central, divinely simple entity, the seed, is in Matthew xiii. — 

 in His loving, persistent efiort to render intelligible the profound 

 mystery with which it was fraught. 



