parable, and much more also in the Scripture, bear witness to the fact that there are conditions of heart in which the truth finds readier entrance than in others. "Being of the truth,"-" doing truth,"having the soil of "an honest and good heart,"—all signify the same thing. Inasmuch as they are anterior to hearing God's words-coming to the light-bringing forth fruit-they cannot signify a state of mind and heart in which the truth is positive and realized, but they indicate one in which there is a receptivity for the truth. No heart can be said to be absolutely a good soil, as none is good save God only. And yet the Scripture speaks often of good men; even so comparatively it may be said of some hearts, that they are a soil fitter for receiving the seed of everlasting life than others. Thus the "son of peace" will alone receive the message of peace (Luke x. 6), while yet not any thing except the reception of that message will make him truly a son of peace. He was before indeed a latent son of peace, but it is the Gospel which first makes actual that which was hitherto only potential. So that the preaching of the Gospel may be likened to the scattering of sparks: where they find tinder, there they fasten, and kindle into a flame; or to a lodestone thrust in among the world's rubbish, attracting to itself all particles of true metal, which yet but for this would never and could never have extricated themselves from the surrounding heap. Not otherwise among those to whom the word of Christ, as actually preached by himself, came, there were two divisions of men, and the same will always subsist in the world. There were first the false-hearted, who called evil good and good evil-who loved their darkness and hated the light that would make that darkness manifest, and refused to walk in that light of the Lord even when it shone round about them, drawing back further into their own darkness-self-excusers and self-justifiers, such as were for the most part the Scribes and the Pharisees, with whom Christ came in contact. But there were also others, sinners as well, often as regards actual transgression of positive law much greater sinners than those first, but who yet acknowledged their evil-had no wish to alter the everlasting relations between right and wrong-who, when the light appeared, did not refuse to be drawn to it, even though they knew that it would condemn their darkness-that it would require an entire remodelling of their lives and hearts: such were the Matthews and the Zacchæuses, all who confessed their deeds justifying God. Not that I would prefer to instance these as examples of the good and honest heart, except in so far as it is needful to guard against a Pelagian abuse of the phrase, and to show how the Lord's language here does not condemn even great and grievous sinners to an incapacity for receiving the word of life. Nathanael would be a yet more perfect specimen of the class here alluded to-" the Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile " which was saying in other words, the man with the soil of an honest and good heart, fitted for receiving and nourishing the word of everlasting life, and bringing forth fruit with patience;-one of a simple, truthful, and earnest nature; who had been faithful to the light which he had, diligent in the performance of the duties which he knew, who had not been resisting God's preparation for imparting to him his last and best gift, even the knowledge of his Son. For we must keep ever in mind that the good soil comes as much from God, as the seed which is to find there its home. The law and the preaching of repentance, God's secret and preventing grace, run before the preaching of the word of the kingdom; and thus when that word comes, it finds some with greater readiness for receiving it, as a word of eternal life, than others. When the different measures of prosperity are given, that the seed brought forth in some a hundred-fold, in some sixty, and in some thirty, it seems difficult to determine whether these indicate different degrees of fidelity in those that receive the word, according to which they bring forth fruit unto God more or less abundantly, or rather different spheres of action more or less wide, which they are appointed to occupy, as to one servant were given five talents, to another two; in which instance the diligence and fidelity appear to have been equal, and the meed of praise the same, since each gained in proportion to the talents committed to him, though these talents were many more in one case than in the other-I should suppose, however, the former.* The words which St. Luke records (ver. 18), "Take heed therefore how ye hear, for whosoever hath to him shall be given, and whosoever hath not from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have" (see also Mark iv. 23), are very important for the avoiding a misunderstanding of our parable, which else might easily have arisen. The disciples might have been in danger of supposing that these four conditions of heart, in which the word found its hearers, were permanent, immutable, and definitively fixed; and therefore that in one heart the word must flourish, in another that it could never germinate at all, in others that it could only prosper for a little while. Now the warning," Take heed how ye hear," obviates the possibility of such a mistake, for it tells us that, according as the word is heard and received, will its success be-that while it is indeed true, that all which has gone before in a man's life will greatly influence the manner of his reception of that word, for every event will have * So Irenæus (Con. Hær., 1. 5, c. 39, (2) must have understood it, and Cyprian (Ep. 69): Eadem gratia spiritualis quæ æqualiter in baptismo à credentibus sumitur, in conversatione atque actu nostro postmodum vel minuitur vel augetur, ut in Evangelio Dominicum semen æqualiter seminatur, sed pro varietate terræ aliud absumitur, aliud in multiformem copiam vel tricesimi, vel sexagesimi, vel cente simi numeri fructu exuberante cumulatur. tended either to the improving or deteriorating the soil of his heart, and will therefore render it more or less probable that the seed of God's word will prosper there, yet it lies in him now to take heed how he hears, and through this taking heed to insure, with God's blessing, that it shall come to a successful issue. (Compare Jam. i. 21.) For while this is true, and the thought is a solemn one, that there is such a thing as laying waste the very soil in which the seed of eternal life should have taken root-that every act of sin, of unfaithfulness to the light within us, is, as it were, a treading of the ground into more hardness, so that the seed shall not sink in it, or a wasting of the soil, so that the seed shall find no nutriment there, or a fitting it to nourish thorns and briers more kindly than the good seed; yet on the other hand, even for those who have brought themselves into these evil conditions, a recovery is still, through the grace of God, possible:-the hard soil may again become soft-the shallow soil may become rich and deep -and the soil beset with thorns open and clear. For the heavenly seed in this differs from the earthly, that the latter as it finds its soil, so it must use it, for it cannot alter its nature. But the heavenly seed, if it be acted upon by the soil where it is cast, also reacts more mightily upon it, softening it where it is hard (Jer. xxiii. 29), deepening it where it is shallow, cutting up and extirpating the roots of evil where it is encumbered with these, and wherever it is allowed free course, transforming and ennobling each of these inferior soils, till it has become that which man's heart was at first, good ground, fit to afford nourishment to that Divine Word, that seed of eternal life.† *So Augustine (Serm. 73, c. 3): Mutamini cùm potestis; dura aratro versate, de agro lapides projicite, de agro spinas evellite. Nolite habere durum cor, unde citò verbum Dei pereat. Nolite habere tenuem terram, ubi radix charitatis alta non sedeat. Nolite curis et cupiditatibus secularibus offocare bonum semen, quod vobis spargitur laboribus nostris. Etenim Dominus seminat; sed nos operarii ejus sumus. Sed estote terra bona. Cf. Serm., 101, c. 3; and the author of a sermon, August. Opp., v. 6, p. 597, Bened. ed.: Si verò te terram infœcundam aut spinosam vel siccam sentis, recurre ad Creatorem tuum. Hoc enim nunc agitur, ut innoveris, ut fœcunderis, ut irrigeris ab illo qui posuit desertum in stagna aquarum, et terram sine aquâ in exitus aquarum. (Ps. cvi. 35–37.) † As our Saviour in this parable, so the Jewish doctors divide the hearers of the words of wisdom into four classes. The best they liken to a sponge that drinks in all that it receives, and again expresses it for others; the worst to a strainer which allows all the good wine to pass through (see Heb. ii. 1, μn Tоте Trapaßßvŵμev), and retains only whatever of dregs is worthless and of no account, or to a sieve that lets through the fine flour and retains only the bran.-Prudentius (Con. Symm., 1. 2, v. 1022) has put this parable well into verse. These are a few lines: Christus... dedit hæc præcepta colonis : Quod seritur: primò quoniam præfertile germen II. THE TARES. MATTHEW Xiii. 24-30, and 36-43. "ANOTHER parable put he forth unto them." Of this parable also, that "of the tares of the field," we have an authentic interpretation from the lips of our Lord himself. And this is well for it is one, as all students of Church history are aware, on the interpretation of which very much has turned before now. Allusion to it occurs at every turn of the controversy which the Church had to maintain with the Donatists; and the whole exposition of it will need to be carried on with reference to disputes which, though seemingly gone by, yet are not in fact out of date, since in one shape or another they continually re-appear in the progress of the Church's development, and in every heart of man. To these disputes we shall presently arrive.-" The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man that sowed good seed in his field.” From our Lord's own lips we learn," He that sowed the good seed is the Son of man." This is the most frequent title by which our Lord designates himself, though it is never given him by any other, except in a single instance (Acts vii. 56), and then it would seem only to indicate that the glorified Saviour appeared bodily to the eyes of Stephen. He was often understood, in the early Church and among the Reformers, by this title to signify nothing more than his participation in the human nature; while others have said that he assumed the name as the one by which the hoped-for Messiah was already commonly known among the people. But it is *Пaрénкev. The word implies that he set it before them as one would set forth or propose a riddle, and is used because the parable has always something of the spiritual enigma, and as such is to call into exercise the spiritual sense of those to whom it is proposed, that they may discover its solution. (Mark iv. 34, étéλve, he solved them.) Rosenkranz (Gesch. d. Deuts. Poesie in Mittelalt., p. 484 seq.) quotes from an old German poem a whole string of riddles proposed for solution under the form of parables. |