An explanation of the parables

no art nor malice, pride nor envy could frustrate; so judge from the Parables, how firm are my decrees to fulfil every word I spoke in thee. And here I have given them line upon line, precept upon precept; here a little and there a little, that they may be broken, snared, and taken; that meaneth, the unbelieving world, that hath erred in judgment, and stumbled in visions; but the wise will see it, and consider how deep are the words I spoke in thee; and then they will see the likeness of the Parables, and know they were brought forward by the wisdom of a God, to shew you all the end is at hand, and shew you what the end will be.

And now I shall come to the Dreams that followed. In like manner let them appear. And now discern from the first dream that I ordered thee to put in print, brought forward like the parables; how he followed the warning, and was enriched thereby * ; and now discern, how the dream is like the parable, where Providence enriched them both; the one following the directions of his dream, and the other a firm decree: and so were the dreams in my Gospel, that were sent as warnings in the beginning unto Joseph, concerning my Birth; and how he was warned to flee into Egypt, in a dream. And now mark thy own dreams, of what I warned thee in the beginning of my Visitation the period when Southcott believed she was first being visited by a divine spirit to man; and shewed thee in dreams how many would be convinced; and the happy end of those that were convinced; and how I shewed thee in thy dream of the Sheep in the Air † ; and so I tell thee from these dreams, that I ordered thee to bring forward, they are parables of the end, unto such as have faith to believe in the dreams and visions I shewed thee, as the man believed in the dream that was shewn to him: For these dreams were ordered to be brought

• See p. 26 of What manner of Communications are these; but the beginning of the dream being omitted there, it was afterwards inserted in Mr. Foley's Answer to the World, p. 45.
  † See p. 159 of the Strange Effects of Faith, Part IV. Joanna Southcott's first major work, published in 1801.