ART. V.-Christendom in the Parables of our Lord.

THE HE parables which I propose to consider in this article are those which give in outline the origin, development, and issue of the kingdom of heaven in its present earthly and embodied form.

They are chiefly "The Sower;" "The Tares of the Field;' "The Mustard-Seed;" "The Leaven;" "The Unjust Judge;" "The Ten Virgins;" "The Talents," and "The Pounds."

The word Christendom, in the sense in which we commonly use it, as covering the whole extent of organised or professing Christianity, is the nearest approach to an exact modern equivalent for the term "kingdom of heaven," as used in these parables, that I can find. We may regard these parables as embodying our Saviour's anticipations concerning the kingdom within the period defined by Himself.

From the parable of the Sower we learn His anticipation with respect to the immediate results of the preaching of the word, which is the chief means He instituted for founding, maintaining, and extending His kingdom in the world. This parable clearly shows that He anticipated only partial and not complete nor immediate success. There are four classes of hearers described by Him. One class only is wholly unaffected by the word. One class only is permanently and beneficially affected by it. Two classes are only temporarily affected. These results are represented as following the sowing of the good seed of the word in such a manner as to show that the Saviour was thinking of what would ordinarily and generally be the effect of the preaching of the gospel in the world. He did not, I conceive, intend to indicate the exact proportion in which these results would follow the sowing of the word, nor teach that the state of different classes of hearers is an unchangeable one, so that men cannot pass from one state to another, or that men may not, at different periods of their lives, belong to different classes of hearers. All that He meant to teach was, that there would always be such varieties among hearers, and such mixed results from preaching. This parable is peculiarly well fitted to check the excesses of a certain type

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of preaching which is not uncommon in our day, in which strong statements are made, sometimes before large audiences, about the instantaneous conversion of every soul present, followed by prayers in the same key. Nothing could be more foreign to the spirit, at once calm, sober, hopeful, and strong, which a due consideration of the significance of the parable of the Sower would induce. A reaction unfavourable to the gospel is almost certain to follow exaggerations of this kind, and the strained state of feeling they are naturally fitted to produce, and do very often produce. The parable is also fitted to correct the defects of another type of preaching, which does not seem to contemplate or aim at any immediate or early results at all of the highest spiritual kind,—a type which, in its extreme form, is fitted to quench real zeal, hinder growth, and put people to sleep. It is hardly needful to point out how the history of preaching in Christendom has just been a fulfilment of the forecast given us by our Lord Himself in the parable of the Sower. The parable of the Sower is really the preacher's vade It forewarns us that the results of the preaching of the gospel at best will always be mixed. It encourages us to expect that it will never be wholly fruitless. We learn from it Christ's own anticipations on the subject.

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The next parable I propose to consider shows us that our Saviour anticipated that His Church would be a mixed society, and that it would not be wholly free from alien elements. It is interesting to notice that while we have a sower and seed in the parable of the Tares, as well as in the parable of the Sower, in the former the sower of the good seed is the Son of Man, in the latter the preacher of the gospel, whoever he may be; in the former the children of the kingdom are the good seed, in the latter the word of the kingdom is the seed. The mixed state of matters described in the parable of the Tares cannot therefore be attributed to the sower of the good seed, but is traced to the action of a hostile agent.

The Saviour's own interpretation of the parable of the Tares seems to give a wider application of it than to the Church. He says, "The field is the world." In the parable He says, 'The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field." He seems simply to teach that there will be good and bad till the end of the world. All this is, of

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course, true, but without excluding the widest reference, past and future, that the words of the parable and of the interpretation fairly suggest, the point of immediate practical importance to us suggested by the parable is this, that in the parts of the wide field in which the Son of Man has sowed the children of the kingdom, the enemy will sow tares,—that the enemy will follow hard on the heels of the Son of Man, as it were, and of malicious intent sow tares.

We need not regard the enemy's action as confined to these enclosures, but as chiefly directed to the end of spoiling them. The specific character of the persons meant by the tares, the children of the wicked one, may be inferred from the parable. They are persons who so resemble the wheat that they are mistaken for it, and cannot be detected in their true character till the time of fruit-bearing. They are therefore those who assume or bear the Christian name, but are destitute of the essential elements of Christian character and life. Christ represents these elements as introduced into the Church in spite of any reasonable precautions1 that can be taken to prevent it, and as getting so inextricably mixed with the wheat as to render it impossible for merely human agents to attempt successfully the work of separation, and on this ground He puts a warning into the mouth of the owner of the field against the intemperate zeal that would rashly undertake the work. For the sake of the wheat, the tares are to be permitted to grow side by side with it till the time of harvest, which is the end of the world (or the age), when the work of separation will be intrusted to competent hands. Christ then anticipated that the Church would be a mixed body up to the very end of its career in this age; He discouraged all attempts that should have for their object the attainment of a perfectly pure church, in the sense that none but the children of the kingdom, sown by Himself, should be permitted to remain in its fellowship, such attempts as really involved an anticipation of the final judgment of men's character and state before God.

Short of this, the Saviour cannot be supposed to forbid the

1 The words, "while men slept," are designed to show the stealth of the enemy, not to expose the sloth of the husbandmen: men must have rest.

exercise of such discipline as is essential to the existence of any society at all, as He Himself elsewhere expressly sanctioned and enjoined, and as the apostles afterwards inculcated and practised. Into the laws and limits, the nature and object, of such discipline it would be quite beside the purpose of this paper to enter, as I believe it was quite beside the purpose of our Lord in uttering this parable. His purpose was of the most general and comprehensive kind, and did not permit the introduction of such details.

It is interesting to notice that our Lord seems to have distinctly anticipated an outbreak of that intolerant zeal within His Church, which has led at different times and in different degrees, on the one hand to bloody persecutions, and on the other to the establishment of separatist communities which arrogate to themselves the exclusive position of the true Church, excommunicate all without, and practically claim to be infallible. None, perhaps, of the great historic Churches has a record altogether free from the taint of intolerance in the form of the persecuting spirit, but to Rome must be assigned the palm in this direction.

Among the smaller and more recent separatist bodies who have made the attempt to form associations composed only of real Christians, and who claim that they tolerate none else in their fellowship, the Strict or Darbyite section of the self-styled Brethren carry off the palm for exclusiveness.

The next parable--the Mustard-Seed-represents the growth and extent of the kingdom of heaven in the world as it strikes the eye of the beholder. The comparison instituted by the Saviour is between the present small beginnings and the ultimate extension of the Church, the visibility it should at length attain in the world. It was to become of such account in the world that its shelter would be sought by those who never would have thought of associating themselves with it, had it not become within its own area a great overshadowing and influential society. Flocks of birds were to come and lodge in the branches of it.

Christ, from this parable, clearly anticipated that His kingdom would become a great world-power. The field in this parable is doubtless the world, as it is in the parable of the Tares, and the relation of the extension of the Church to

the world in which it is planted is fittingly and fairly represented by the relationship which a full-grown mustard-tree would bear to the field in which it grew. The parable represents the kingdom of heaven in its external aspect only, and gives no insight into its internal condition.

The parable of the Leaven hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened does give an insight into the state of the Church, and what it would in time become. The comparison in this parable is, I conceive, between the kingdom of heaven and the whole incident which is the subject-matter of the story, and not simply between the kingdom of heaven and the leaven. What the Saviour represented in the parable as done by the woman was to be done in the Church, and with the same result. The woman introduced leaven into the meal, and gradually the whole was leavened. The thing symbolised by the leaven was to be introduced into the Church, and its influence was to become general. Now, what does the leaven symbolise? What would it naturally and inevitably suggest to the minds of the hearers, and what light do we obtain upon its significance from our Saviour's use of it in His teaching, and from apostolic usage?

The legal prohibitions of the use of leaven in connection with the Passover and other offerings clearly show that in Israel it symbolised evil. In only one case was the use of leaven in any offering enjoined. "Leavened bread was to be offered with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of the peace-offerings." It may, however, in this case have been designed to represent the imperfection that cleaves to our best works and services. However this may be, the term leaven would naturally suggest the idea of evil, of moral corruption, to the minds of a Jewish audience. A consideration of the nature of leaven itself would suggest this. It is matter in a state of putrefaction.

At a later period of His own ministry our Lord warned His disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees. In one place this is said to refer to their doctrine, and in another place the hypocrisy of the Pharisees is said to be signified. It is only necessary to allude to St. Paul's use of the word. Deriving it from the legal enactments in relation to the Passover, he takes it to represent malice and wickedness. Scripture usage then, as a whole, would lead us to regard it as symbolising formalism, corrupt doctrine, and evil dispositions and conduct. Unless,