and or foot, and to pluck out an offending eye,
rather than be cast with the whole body into hell, "into the fire that
never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched." Mark 9:43-48. But, says one of this class of expositors, the
maiming of the body is figurative language, and so is the representation
of the worm that never dies. Undoubtedly the maiming of the body is so;
and how far the unquenchable fire may also be a figure for the dread
reality that awaits the incorrigibly impenitent in the world to come we
pretend not to know. But in the lips of Jesus figures teach truth, not
fiction. The unhappy sinner who despises the grace of the gospel will
find the reality not less terrible than the figures by which Christ has
represented it. The story of the rich man and Lazarus is a parable; but
we cannot on this ground set aside the solemn lessons which it
inculcates. What these lessons are, it requires only candor and faith to
receive. They teach us that God's suffering children go immediately,
upon death, to a state of conscious blessedness; and "the men of the
world, which have their portion in this life," to a place of unmitigated
suffering. Whatever be the comprehension of the word _Hades_ (rendered
in our version by the word _hell_), there is an impassable gulf between
Lazarus in Abraham's bosom and the rich man in torment. The "great gulf
fixed" may be a figure; but it represents an awful reality; and that
reality is, that there is no transition from the one state to the other.

6. In the _allegory_ the higher spiritual transaction is, as we have
seen, directly represented by the lower. When we know, therefore, what
the allegory represents, we have the key to its interpretation, and all
its incidents fall naturally into place. If the sphere of the allegory
be the outward history of God's people, all its incidents--at least all
its _main_ incidents--ought to have a significance. If its sphere be
that of inward spiritual experience, as in the Song of Solomon, more
latitude must be allowed for the drapery of the story; yet here also the
essential parts will each correspond to something in the higher object
represented.

An example of pure historic allegory is that of the vine transplanted
from Egypt (Psa. 80), where the higher object, which gives the key to
the meaning, is _God's covenant people_. The casting out of the heathen
(ver. 8), is literally expressed, but in the verses followin