OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT

PRACTICALLY UNFOLDED.

BY

RT REV. WM. BACON STEVENS D. D.,

།

BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF PENNSYLVANIA

"And He taught them many things by parables."-ST. MARK.

Elegantly lustrated.

PHILADELPHIA:

PUBLISHED BY E. H. BUTLER & CO.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by

E. H. BUTLER & CO.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

L.M.M

PREFACE.

THIS work is designed to be, as its title indicates, a practical unfolding of the Parables of our Lord.

The author has not attempted to give the several explanations which various writers, in different ages, have made of these Parables, for that would require many volumes. Nor has he sought to store up in these pages the treasures of exegetical criticism which, under the minute labours of such men as Cocceius, Storr, Vitringa, Teelman, Ewald, Greswell, and Trench, have been accumulating since the days of Origen and Augustine. Neither has he inlaid his interpretations with those numerous gems of classical lore which tempt the scholar on every hand by the beautiful and pertinent illustrations which they furnish in support of the propriety and truthfulness of these Parables. Such a plan would have made the book more valuable to the student and the theologian, but it would have made it less acceptable to the DEC 101914 323144

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popular mind, which it has been his special aim to reach, enlighten,

and expand.

Waiving all these, he has kept steadily in view his original aim, and believing that there is a deep spiritual meaning in each one of these similitudes, which it becomes us as Christians to know and understand, he has sought to develop this with clearness and fidelity. If he shall be the means of alluring others to a more earnest study of these inimitable Parables, these "apples of gold in pictures of silver," and to a better understanding of their precepts and doctrine, he shall devoutly thank God, and feel that his labour has not been in vain in the Lord.