thing. The devil is "a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour " (1 Pet. v. 8); yet this does not hinder the same title from being applied to Christ, "the lion of the tribe of Judah" (Rev. v. 5); only there the subtlety and fierceness of the animal formed the point of comparison, here the nobility and kingliness and conquering strength. Cyrilf then certainly goes too far, and could scarcely have had this parable in his mind, when he says: "Leaven, in the inspired writings, is always taken. as the type of naughtiness and sin." Ignatius shows rather by his own. application of the image, how it may be freely used, now in a good, now in a bad sense; for warning against Judaizing practices, he writes: "Lay aside the evil leaven which has grown old and maketh sour, and be transmuted into the new leaven, which is Christ Jesus." Nor is it to be forgotten that if, on one side, the effects of leaven on meal present an analogy to something evil in the spiritual world, they do also on the other, to something good, as it is universally agreed that its effects on bread are to render it more tasteful, lighter, and more nourishing, and generally more wholesome.

There is no need, then, to take the parable in other than its obvious sense, that it is concerning the diffusion, and not the corruptions, of the Gospel; by the leaven we are to understand the word of the kingdom, which Word, in its highest sense, Christ himself was. As the mustardseed, out of which a mighty tree was to grow, was the least of all seeds, so the leaven is also something apparently of slight account, and yet, at the same time, mighty in operation. Thus, too, of Christ it was said, "He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him;" but then presently again, "By his knowledge shall my righteous Servant justify many, . . . and he shall divide the spoil with the strong" (Isai. liii. 2, 11, 12); and when he had communicated of his life and spirit to his apostles, they too, in their turn, poor and mean and unlearned as they were, became the salt of the earth, the leaven of the world. For, in Chrysostom's words, "that which is once leavened becomes leaven to the rest; since as the spark when it takes hold of wood, makes that which is already kindled to transmit the flame, and so seizes still upon more, thus it is also with the preaching of the word."§

* See AUGUSTINE (Serm. 73, c. 2): Quod enim tam distat ad invicem, quàm Christus et Diabolus? Tamen leo et Christus est appellatus, et Diabolus. . . . Ille leo, propter fortitudinem: ille leo, propter feritatem. Ille leo ad vincendum: ille leo, ad nocendum. Cf. Serm. 32, c. 6.

Hom. Paschal., 19.

Ad Magnes., 10. Cf. GREGORY NAZ. (Orat. 36, c. 90), who says that Christ by his Incarnation sanctified men, ὥσπερ ζύμη γενόμενος τῷ παντὶ φυράματι, καὶ πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ἑνώσας.

In Matth., Hom. 46; see also Con. Ignaviam, Hom. 3. 2. So Cajetan: Christi

Is it only a part of the suitable machinery of the parable, that the act of kneading being proper to women, it should be here said, that it was "a woman" who took the leaven, and hid it in the three measures of meal? or may we look for something more in it than this? A comparison with Luke xv. 8, the woman who had lost and found her piece of money, may suggest that the Divine Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, which is the sanctifying power in humanity, (and it is of that sanctifying that the word is here,) may be meant. But if it be asked, why as a woman? to this it may be replied, that the organ of the Spirit's working is the Church, which evidently would be most fitly represented under this image. In and through the Church the Spirit's work proceeds: only as he dwells in the Church (Rev. xxii. 7), is it able to mingle a nobler element in the mass of humanity, to leaven the world.-So again, why should three measures of meal be mentioned? It may perhaps be sufficiently answered, Because it was just so much as at one time would be commonly mixed. (Gen. xviii. 6; Judg. vi. 19; 1 Sam. i. 24.)* Yet it may be that we should attach a further significance to this number three. Some perceive in it allusion to the spread of the Gospel through the three parts then known of the world: others again, as Augustine, to the ultimate leavening of the whole human race, derived from the three sons of Noah; which is nearly the same thing. And those who, like Jerome and Ambrose, find in it a pledge of the sanctification of spirit, soul, and body, are not upon a different track, if indeed, as has not been ill suggested, Shem, Japhet, and Ham, do indeed answer to these three elements, spirit, soul, and body, which together make up the man-the one or other element coming into predominance in the descendants severally of the three.

-a

But leaving this, we may observe how the leaven is at once different from, and yet acting upon, the lump; for the woman took it from elsewhere to mingle it therein and even such is the Gospel, a kingdom not of this world (John xviii. 36), not the unfolding of any powers which already existed in the world, a kingdom not rising as those other kingdoms "out of the earth" (Dan. vii. 17), but a new power brought into the world from above, not a philosophy, but a Revelation. The Gospel of Christ was a new and quickening power cast in the midst of an old and dying world, a centre of life round which all the energies which survived, and all which itself should awaken, might form and gather-by the help of which the world might renew its youth.t-And

discipuli, prima regni cælorum membra, spiritu penetrârunt corda hominum, crudaque ac acerba ad maturitatem ac saporem cælestis vitæ promoverunt. * In the two last places, the Septuagint has Tpía μÉTра.

† Augustine, in whose time the fading away of all the glory of the ancient

it is observable, that this leaven is said not merely to have been mingled with, but hidden in the mass, on which its influence was to be exerted. The true renovation, that which God effects, is ever thus from the inward to the outward; it begins in the invisible spiritual world, though it ends not there; for there beginning, it yet fails not to bring about, in good time, a mighty change also in the outward and visible world. This was wonderfully exemplified in the early history of Christianity. The leaven was effectually hidden. A remarkable evidence of this is the entire ignorance which heathen writers betray of all that was going forward a little below the surface of society,-the manner in which they overlooked the mighty change which was preparing, and this not merely at the first, when the mustard-tree might well escape notice, but, with slight exceptions, even up to the very moment when the triumph of Christianity was at hand. The leaven was hidden, yet, by degrees, it made itself felt, till at length the whole Roman world was, more or less, leavened by it. Nor must we forget, that the mere external conversion of that whole world gives us a very inadequate measure of the work which had to be done: besides this, there was the eradication of the innumerable heathen practices and customs and feelings which had enwoven and entwined their fibres round the very heart of society, a work which lagged very considerably behind the other, and which, in fact, was never thoroughly accomplished, till the whole structure of Roman society had gone to pieces, and the new Teutonic framework had been erected in its room.

But while much has thus been effected, while the leavening of the mass has never ceased to go forward, yet the promise of the parable has hitherto been realized only in a very imperfect measure, and we cannot consider these words "till the whole is leavened," as less than a prophecy of a final complete triumph of Christianity; that it will diffuse itself through all nations, and purify and ennoble all life. And we may also fairly see in these words a promise and an assurance that the word of life, received into any single heart, shall not there cease its effectual working, till it has brought the whole man in obedience to it, sanctify

world was daily becoming more apparent (mundus tantâ rerum labe contritus, ut etiam speciem seductionis amiserit), delighted to contemplate and to present the coming of Christ under this aspect. Thus Serm. 81: Parum tibi præstitit Deus, quia in senectute mundi misit tibi Christum, ut tunc te reficiat, quando omnia deficiunt? . . . Venit cùm omnia veterascerent, et novum te fecit. Res facta, res condita, res peritura jam vergebat in occasam. Necesse erat ut abundaret laboribus venit ille, et consolari te inter labores, et promittere tibi in sempiternum quietem. Noli adhærere velle seni mundo, et nolle juvenescere in Christo, qui tibi dicit; Perit mundus, senescit mundus, deficit mundus, laborat anhelitu senectutis. Noli timere, renovabitur juventus tua sicut aquila.

ing him wholly, so that he shall be altogether a new creation in Christ Jesus.* It shall claim every region of man's being as its own, and make itself felt in all. In fact, the parable does nothing less than set forth to us the mystery of regeneration, both in its first act, which can be but once, as the leaven is but once hidden; and also in the consequent renewal by the Holy Spirit, which, as the ulterior working of the leaven, is continual and progressive. This side of the truth is that exclusively brought out by Hammond, who thus paraphrases our Lord's words: "The Gospel hath such a secret invisible influence on the hearts of men, to change them and affect them, and all the actions that flow from them, that it is fitly resembled to leaven, so mixed thoroughly with the whole, that although it appeareth not in any part of it visibly, yet every part hath a tincture from it." We may fitly conclude, in the words of St. Ambrose: "May the Holy Church, which is figured under the type of this woman in the Gospel, whose meal are we, hide the Lord Jesus in the innermost places of our hearts, till the warmth of the Divine wisdom penetrate into the most secret recesses of our souls."†

* Corn. à Lapide quotes from an earlier commentator: Dicit autem, Donec fermentatem est totum, quia charitas in mente nostra recondita eò usque crescere debet ut totam mentem in sui perfectionem commutet, quod hic quidem inchoatur, in futuro verò perficitur.

† Exp. in Luc., 1. 7, c. 187.—Clemens of Alexandria (p. 693, Potter's ed.) gives an admirable exposition of the parable, and in very few words. The kingdom of heaven, he says, is likened to leaven, ὅτι ἡ ἰσχὺς τοῦ Λόγου σύντομος οὖσα καὶ δυνατὴ, πάντα τὸν καταδεξάμενον καὶ ἐντὸς ἑαυτοῦ κτησάμενον αὐτὴν, ἐπικεκρυμμένως τε καὶ ἀφανῶς πρὸς ἑαυτὴν ἕλκει, καὶ τὸ πᾶν αὐτοῦ εἰς ἐνότητα συνάγει.

V.

THE HID TREASURE.

MATTHEW Xiii. 4.

THE kingdom of God is not merely a general, it is also an individual, thing; it is not merely a tree overshadowing the earth, leaven leavening the world, but each man must have it for himself, and make it his own by a distinct act of his own will. He cannot be a Christian without knowing it. He may come under the shadow of this great tree, and partake of many blessings of its shelter. He may dwell in a Christendom which has been leavened, and so in a manner himself share in the universal leavening. But more than this is needed, and more than this in every elect soul will find place. There will be a personal appropriation of the benefit, and we have the history of this in these two parables* which follow. They were spoken, not to the multitude, not to those "without," -but within the house, and to the more immediate disciples. These are addressed as having found the hid treasuref-the pearl of price; and are now warned of the surpassing worth of these, and that, for their sakes, all things are to be joyfully renounced. The second parable does not merely repeat what the first has said, but repeats it with a difference. The two are each the complement of the other: so that under one or other, as finders either of the pearl or hid treasure, may be ranged all

* Origen (Comm. in Matth.) observes that these would more fitly be called similitudes (duoiwσeis) than parables, which name, he says, is not given to them in the Scripture yet see ver. 53.-For a series of these briefer parables as in use among the Jews, see SCHOETTGEN's Hor. Heb., v. 1, pp. 83-85.

† Θησαυρός, i. e. συναγωγὴ χρημάτων κεκρυμμένη, as an old Lexicon explains it. Neither of the derivations greatly commend themselves; not rienu and alpor= aurum, the receptacle of gold, since the word alpov seems not so old as noavpós itself, and that from Tinu eis aupiov, that put by for to-morrow, is artificial.-The Jurisconsult Paulus gives its legal' definition, Thesaurus est tam vetus depositio pecuniæ, ut ejus non exstet memoria, et jam dominum non habeat.