Chapter 2

We have here two parables in one. In their union and relations they resemble the two seed-stones which are sometimes found within one fruit, attached to each other, and wrapped in the same envelope, but possessing each its own separate organization, and its own independent germ of life. The parable of the prepared, offered, and rejected feast, and the parable of the wedding garment, although actually united in the Lord's ministry and the evangelic record, are in their own nature distinct, whether you consider the secular scenes delineated or the spiritual lessons which they convey.

When the wedding was furnished with guests the king came in to see them. The representation is in strict accordance with the relations of the parties and the customs of society both in ancient and modern times. When a citizen entertains his equals he must himself be first in the festal hall to welcome the guests as they successively arrive; but when a sovereign invites subjects to his palace he appears among them only when the company have all assembled.

The instant that he entered the festive hall the king saw there a man who had not on a wedding-garment. Although this is the turning point of the parable, it is represented with extreme brevity. The great central facts are recorded with the utmost distinctness, but all the surrounding circumstances are in silence assumed: no explanation is given, and the reason doubtless is that no explanation is needed. Some customs and allusions connected with the scene remain obscure to us, after all that modern research has done to illustrate them, but the lesson which our Lord intended to teach stands relieved in clearest light and sharpest outline, like distant mountain tops when the sun has newly set behind them. Some points regarding which we might desire information are left in the shade, but in as far as the story is necessary to unfold and perpetuate the spiritual lesson, it is accompanied with no doubt and with very little difficulty.

1. The wedding garment was something conspicuous and distinctive. As soon as the king entered the room he detected the single man who wanted it in a great company of guests.

2. It was not a necessary part of a man's clothing, but rather a significant badge of his loyalty. The primary use of the symbol was neither to keep the wearer warm nor to make him elegant, but to manifest his faithfulness.

3. The want of it was, and was understood to be, a decisive mark of disloyalty. The man who came to the feast without a wedding-garment endorsed substantially the act of those who had proudly refused to comply with the king's invitation. It was the same heart-disobedience accompanied by a hypocrisy that would fain commit the sin and yet escape the consequences.

4. The question whether a wedding-garment was proffered to every guest as he entered, out of the royal store, is attended with some difficulty. The preponderance of probability seems to lie with those who think that these decorations were freely distributed in the vestibule to every entrant, in some such way as certain badges are sometimes given to every one of a wedding party amongst ourselves in the present day. But the point is not of primary importance. From what is tacitly assumed in the narrative it may be held as demonstrated alternatively that either the king gave every guest the necessary garment, or it was such that every guest, even the poorest, could on the shortest warning easily obtain it for himself. Two silences become the two witnesses out of whose mouths this conclusion is established,--the silence of the king as to the grounds of his sentence, and the silence of the culprit when judgment was pronounced. The judge does not give any reason why sentence should be executed, and the criminal does not give any reason why it should not. On both sides it is confessed and silently assumed that the guest had not, but might have had, the wedding-garment on. If there had been any hardship in the case the king would have vindicated his own procedure, and the condemned guest would not have remained speechless when he heard his doom.[47]

[47] "It should be assumed that the guests were not instantly hurried into the festal hall, but that an opportunity was afforded to them of changing their dress. This, however, is not expressly asserted in the narrative, but may be gathered from the term [Greek: ephimôthê] (he was speechless) in ver. 12; and must be understood on this account also, that, otherwise the sentence in ver. 13 would stand exposed to the charge of injustice."--_Storr, de parabolis Christi_, p. 113.

From the circumstances in which that motley company was collected and introduced into the palace, we may safely conclude that no kind of clothing, however torn and mean, would have been counted a disqualification. Over the whole surface of the scene is spread the proof that nothing in the character or condition of the attire which a street porter or a field labourer might happen to wear, when he was intercepted on the highway by the king's messengers, and hurried away to the palace without an opportunity of visiting his own home, could possibly have been a ground of exclusion. When such persons in such circumstances were invited to the banquet, assuredly the king was prepared to welcome them, as far as dress was concerned, precisely as his servants had found them. No man forfeited his place at that table on account of any defect in the quality or condition of the clothing which he wore when he unexpectedly met the messengers and was suddenly hurried away to the feast. Thus far, treading on firm ground, we tread surely.

Alike from the facts of the case, from the analogy of others, and from the corresponding spiritual lesson as elsewhere declared in Scripture, we conclude with confidence that the wedding garment was a well understood distinctive badge, expressive generally of loyalty, and specifically constituting and declaring the wearer's fitness for sitting as a guest at the marriage supper of the king's son. In appearance it must have been conspicuous; but its value may not have been great. It was not the inherent worth of the material but the meaning of the symbol that bulked in the estimation of both the entertainer and his guests. It may from analogous cases be shown to be probable that a loyal heart could have easily extemporized the appropriate symbol out of any material that lay next at hand. Where there is a will there is a way. Italian patriots at the crisis of their conflict with multiform oppression, and while the strong yoke of the despot was still upon their necks, contrived to display their darling tricolor by a seemingly accidental arrangement of red, white, and green among the vegetables which they exhibited in the market or carried to their homes. Nay more, the loyalty of a loyal man may in certain circumstances be more emphatically expressed by a rude, extemporaneous symbol, hastily constructed of intractable materials, than by the most elaborate and leisurely products of the needle or the loom. In such cases, the will of the man is everything; the wealth of the man nothing. The meanest rag suddenly thrown across the shoulders, arranged so as unequivocally to express the wearer's faith may be a better evidence of loyalty than the richest silks of the East.[48]

[48] A custom connected with funerals, which prevails in some districts of England, if not in all, approaches closely in some of its essential features to that which occupies the most conspicuous place in this parable. A scarf of black silk, large, conspicuous, and expensive, yet constituting no part of the proper garments of the wearer, is given by the person who invites, and worn by every one who accepts the invitation. A single person without the badge in the procession would be instantly detected, and the omission would, in the circumstances, be taken as proof of disrespect.

* * * * *

Let us now endeavour to appreciate and express the spiritual lesson. True to nature on the earthly sphere the parable represents the invitation, the assembling of the guests, and the entrance of the king, as three several and successive acts; but in the processes of the spiritual kingdom these three operations advance simultaneously. Some are in the act of hearing the invitation,--some are accepting it and going to the feast,--some are sitting at the table under the inspection of the king,--all at the same moment. The process is like the habit of some species of fruit trees, on which flowers, green berries, and ripe fruit may be seen at the same time; the flowers of this season become the green berries of the next, and the green berries of this season become the ripened fruit of the next; and thus a constant succession is maintained. In like manner, as the generations pass, all the processes of Christ's kingdom are simultaneously carried forward.

The guests who have come at the call of the servants, and taken their places at the table of the king, are those who hear the Gospel and fall in with its terms,--who adopt Christ's name and enrol themselves among his people,--who hope in his mercy and commemorate his death. Herein they are broadly distinguished from those who made light of the message, and those who persecuted the messengers; but it is not yet certain whether they are forgiven and renewed. The profession which they have made distinguishes them from those Jews who refused the invitation, and those Gentiles who have not yet heard it; but among those who thus far comply with the call, another distinction must still be made. That goodly heap must be tossed up and winnowed yet again, that the chaff may be driven before the wind, and only the wheat gathered into the husbandman's garner.

As in the parable, we are not informed what were the shape, size, colour, or material of the wedding garment, but only that it was necessary that every guest should wear it; so we do not find here any specific doctrinal instruction as to the method of redemption and the decisive characteristics of believers. We learn from the parable that every sinner must simply comply with God's terms in order that he may be saved; and elsewhere in Scripture we are fully taught what these terms are. An abundant answer to the question, "What must I do to be saved?" is recorded by the Spirit: the only point regarding it which this parable teaches, is that a sinner must abandon his own method, and fall in with Christ's. The meaning of the man who sat at the feast without a wedding garment seems to have been, "I am my own master, and I shall work my own way to heaven:" the meaning of the men who meekly wore it was, "We are not our own; we are bought with a price; our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, but the Lord is our righteousness."

Thus the lesson of the parable concentrates itself at last upon a point; but that point is the turning-point of life or death to men. Is any one disposed to complain that it stakes all upon an opinion? It does, and why not? One man's opinion is that his own righteousness, especially when he has gotten time to improve it, may be safely presented in the judgment, and ought to satisfy the judge. Another man counts all his efforts vile, as lacking the vital element of love, and at God's command places his trust wholly in Christ his substitute: the first does deepest dishonour, the second gives highest glory to God. A man's opinion on a trifling subject, may be of trifling import; but a man's opinion--his mind on how he may be just with God, is the greatest and most pregnant fact in creation. Opinion here is nothing less and nothing else than the attitude of a fallen creature towards his Maker and Judge: one opinion is the alienated heart of a rebel, another is the glad trustfulness of a dear child.

If the head of a Hebrew family, on the dread night of the Exodus, had said within himself, What shall I gain by sprinkling a lamb's blood upon my door-posts? Or, if a conspicuous mark be necessary, may not the blood of this animal suffice, that was killed for the use of my family in the ordinary way? If moved by some self-confident speculations regarding the constancy of nature, he had entered through the portals of the twilight into that awful night, he would have perished while his neighbours were preserved: not that a lamb's blood had power to save, but because this man refused to take God's way of being saved, and trusted in his own.[49]

[49] I do not attach much value to the question which has been much canvassed here, whether the wedding garment specifically signifies Faith or Charity,--whether it points to what the saved get from God, or what they do in his service. To wear the garment at the feast means that the wearer takes God's way of salvation and not his own; to want it, means that the wanter takes his own way of salvation and not God's. This is the conclusion of the whole matter. If you suppose that the garment means evangelical obedience, you must assume that faith in Christ is the root on which obedience grows; if, on the other hand, you suppose that the garment means faith in Christ, you must assume that it is a living not a dead faith,--a faith that will work by love and overcome the world.

The rest may be expressed in few words. He saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment. Here, first of all, it is not intimated that ordinarily there is only one hypocrite in a large company of professors: it is no part of the Lord's design in this parable to tell us whether the false members of the visible Church are many or few. The single point on which the Master has fixed his eye is the certainty that the false will be detected: the parable does not reveal their numbers, but it assures us that none of them shall escape in the crowd. If the representation had been that a large proportion, say a half or three-fourths of the guests, had been detected at the table without the appropriate symbol of loving loyalty to the king, the omniscience of the visitor, and the certainty of the criminal's doom would not have been so clearly and strongly expressed. That the king's eye instantly detects the undecorated guest, although he is only one in a multitude, is the most emphatic warning that could possibly be conveyed to the unbelieving. None who live without Christ in the world shall be permitted to glide into heaven with the crowd in the great day. The constancy of nature is sometimes wielded as a weapon of assault against revealed religion: it will one day strike a heavy blow on the other side. When a mixture of wheat and chaff is thrown up in the wind, the solid grains drop down on the spot, and the light chaff is driven away. You never expect, in such a case, that to please some fancy of yours, the solid grain will fly away on the wings of the blast, and the chaff drop down at your feet. The constancy of nature prevents. Well; by a law as constant and changeless--a law of the same God, reigning over the world of spirit, "the wicked is driven away in his wickedness, but the righteous hath hope in his death" (Prov. xiv. 32).

He was speechless. The judgment will be so conducted that the condemned will be compelled to own the justice of their sentence. Conscience, brought again into contact with God, will be awakened and restored to the exercise of its functions; like a mirror it will receive and repeat the decree of the Judge. Persecutors were wont to gag their victims while they burnt them; it was found necessary to put iron on the tongues of the witnesses, to make them silent while they suffered. No such clumsy device is needed in the assize which the righteous God will hold upon the world. Conscience swelling within will stifle the complaint of the guilty. The courage of the despiser will fail: the last poor comfort of the blasphemer, to hurl against the judgment seat the last despairing, defiant word, will be taken away. The history of the fact written by divine prescience before the time, makes no mention of what the condemned will say. The record simply runs, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment."

"Outer darkness:" tell us in detail what the condition the outcast will be, and what will be the constituents of their suffering? We cannot. Rome has impiously traded upon this weakness of humanity. She has parcelled out her purgatory, as we delineate this upper world on a map. This is the machinery whereby she is enabled to traffic in the souls of men. No; that condition lies in outer darkness; I cannot see through the veil, and tell the specific sufferings that lie beneath it. My Lord has told me that it is in outer darkness; but he has covered it from my sight. He hath done all things well. He often warns us that the wicked shall be cast away; but he never tells us the particulars of their torments. For teaching about this terror let me listen to his word; for safety from it, let me hide in his bosom.

THE TEN VIRGINS AND THE ENTRUSTED TALENTS.

MATT. xxv. 1-30

Both historically and logically the two parables, of the ten virgins and of the talents, are connected and constitute a group: in place they are contiguous, and in nature they are reciprocally complements of each other, making together a complete whole. De Valenti has by a happy generalization placed their relations in an interesting and instructive light. He points out that there are two kinds of almost-Christians, the bustling labourers, and the mystic-dreamers. One class tries to live on works without faith, and the other on faith without works. From opposite causes both efforts fail. The parable of the ten virgins addresses its warning to the Almost-Christianity which is all body with no spirit; and the parable of the talents addresses its warning to the Almost-Christianity which is all spirit with no body.

These constitute a pair; or rather they are the right and left sides of one living lesson. Both represent the character and condition of the Church and its members, while they wait for the coming of the Lord; both apply decisive tests to a seemly profession, and thereby separate between the true and the false: but they differ in that the first searches the heart, and the second examines the life. The first test detects the want of secret faith; the second the want of active obedience. The parable of the ten virgins prepares and throws into the mass of Christian profession a solvent which serves to determine whether and where there is life _in_ the Lord; the parable of the entrusted talents prepares and throws into the mass of Christian profession a solvent which serves to determine whether and where there is life _for_ the Lord.

These two,--the inward grace of faith and the outward life of obedience, constitute the two sides,--the right and left of the new man. To that new man as a whole both parables alike refer; but the one touches him for testing on the right side, and the other on the left. The first tests his works by his faith, and the second tests his faith by his works. The first goes directly to the root and inquires whether the tree is good or bad; thus determining what the character of the fruit must be; the second goes first to the fruit, and by its sweetness or bitterness ascertains the character of the tree. The parable of the ten virgins speaketh on this wise,--If there be true faith in the heart, there will be active obedience in the life: the parable of the talents speaketh on this wise,--If there be active obedience in the life, there must be a root of faith unseen whereon that good fruit grows.

XIII.

THE TEN VIRGINS.

"Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not."--MATT. xxv. 1-12.

Here is one of the larger and grander pictures in this gallery of various glory. It is sublime in its ample outline, and exquisitely tender in its details. It is charged with many precious lessons, which flow freely at the gentlest touch; and it is cruel to put it to the torture to compel it to give meanings which it never received from its author.

The painful search for precisely identical customs in eastern countries and ancient times is here, for the most part, unnecessary and unprofitable. The usages incidentally photographed in such a parable as this are indeed true sections of the place and the time, but others, agreeing in general character though differing in detail, might have been substituted in perfect consistency with the circumstances. There is some elasticity even in Oriental manners. It is not probable that all marriages were conducted on precisely the same plan. There might, for aught I know, be a difference between a wedding among the rich and a wedding among the poor, and another difference between the method of celebrating a marriage in the city and the country,--in Galilee and Judea. In examining analogous cases, I would look for similarity of style rather than identity of individual features. Looking on the parable of the ten virgins as a grand original, I don't trouble myself with the work of hunting for corroboration of its truth or explanations of its meaning in the form of identical observances recorded in other books.

The more important portion of the nuptial ceremonies were performed at night. They consisted in a great measure of processions along the road and festivals within the dwelling. The out-door part of the pageant is of course conducted by torch-light. A small cup, filled with rags and resin, is affixed to a rod, that it may be held aloft. At the proper time the rags are lighted, and the flame is fed from time to time by pouring oil into the cup. Each processionist carries such a lamp, and the many separate lights dancing and crossing each other, and changing places as the bearers advance on the undulating and tortuous path, impart great liveliness to the joyful nocturnal scene.

From the nature of the case there must be two successive processions, one in which the bridegroom with his friends goes for the bride to her father's house, and another in which bride and bridegroom, together with the friends of both families, march to the future home of the married pair. There was more or less of ceremonial and feasting in either mansion. It is not certainly known, and the knowledge would not be important although it were obtained, whether the principal feast was held in the home of the bride's father or in that of the bridegroom. It is probable that the practice in this matter varied according to the wealth of the parties and the capacities of the several mansions. In one case the father of the bride, and in another the bridegroom, might possess the more commodious dwelling, and be more able, in virtue of ampler resources, to entertain the company. I am not aware that there is any ascertained law or habit of the places and times demanding that the principal feast should be always given by the father or by the bridegroom.

In this case there is nothing in the narrative that determines with certainty whether the bridegroom, when the ten virgins waited for him, was on his way for the bride to her father's house or with her to his own. On the whole, the balance of probability inclines to the side of those who think that this is the procession coming for the bride rather than the procession returning with her. The particular expression, "The bridegroom cometh," among other circumstances, points in this direction. Lange's conception commends itself as probable that the virgins are in some sense representatives of the bride, that they go forth to meet the bridegroom, that he has come from afar, and that some unexpected delays have occurred on the journey.

The house whose door was shut ere the foolish five came up was obviously the house in which the grand marriage festival was held: to be shut out of that house was to be shut out from the marriage.

When the curtain rises and the scene is first displayed, we behold ten young women, adorned according to the fashion of the time, lingering in a group by the wayside at night in the warm climate of Palestine.

They may have been the young companions of the bride, a selected ten, specially invited to meet the bridegroom on the way, and enter with him into the festal hall,--a group in character and constituents closely corresponding to the bridesmaids at our marriage feasts,--or they may have been the daughters of neighbouring families, sent by their parents, or going of their own accord, in compliance with the custom of the place, to offer a tribute of respect and affection to the bride and bridegroom on their marriage-day.

This feature of the scene, although in itself subordinate and incidental, derives great importance from the subsequent development of the parable: it becomes the hinge on which the lesson turns. From the circumstance that a portion of the company neither came with the bridegroom nor waited in the house for his arrival, but went out to meet him, all the tender and solemn teaching of this parable has sprung.[50]

[50] The closest analogue that I know of the fact which plays so great a part in the structure of this scriptural lesson may be found in a custom which prevails at funerals in the rural districts of Scotland. When the distance between the house of the deceased and the cemetery is considerable, a common, perhaps I should say a uniform, practice is, that those friends of the mourning family who reside in the neighbourhood of the burying place assemble in a group at a convenient turning of the road, and wait till the funeral procession reaches the spot; they then silently fall into their places and follow the corpse to the grave. I like the analogy none the less that it is taken, not from a time of mirth, but from a time of weeping. The two cases coincide in all their features except one. In either example we have an occasion of absorbing interest to one family, and the sympathy of neighbours expressed by means of large assemblies and public processions. In a minor but characteristic feature there is an exact coincidence,--a portion of the sympathizing neighbours wait for the main body at a point on the path and fall into the line of march from that spot to the terminus. That the one is a joyful and the other a mournful group enhances rather than diminishes the value of the comparison.

Waiting long without employment, the group of maidens would stand, and sit, and recline by turns. Each holds a tiny torch in her hand, or has laid it on the ground by her side. As the night wears on, the conversation that had at first been animated, gradually dies away, and one by one the wearied damsels drop over into snatches of slumber. Before midnight they have all sunk into a continuous sleep. At midnight a cry arose, apparently from some more wakeful watcher in the neighbourhood, "Behold the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him." At this alarm the whole band awake simultaneously and spring to their feet. Each maiden hastily snatches up her torch; not one of them burns brightly now; some are flickering low, and some are altogether extinguished. In a moment, all those nimble young hands begin to ply the work of trimming the expired or expiring lamps. All alike are able to touch them skilfully, but the main want with every lamp is a new supply of oil. Some can supply that want at the moment on the spot, while others cannot. Those who had brought from home a supply of oil in separate vessels, found it easy to make the flame of their torches burn up as brightly as ever; but those who had neglected to provide such a supply could not with all their efforts revive the dead or dying light. "Give us," said the five improvident maidens, "give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out." The more thoughtful, and therefore more fortunate watchers, while they pitied their sisters, were afraid to part with any portion of their own stores, lest they should be left in the same hapless condition ere the procession should close: "Go to them that sell, and buy for yourselves." Alas, this was now the only alternative! Away went those foolish virgins at the dead of night on the hopeless errand of buying oil for immediate use in the shops of the neighbouring town. The folly, however, lay not in this latest act; this was now their only resource. The foolish deed was done in the day time, and before the cry arose, Behold the bridegroom cometh.

As soon as the foolish five had gone, the procession came up, and they that were ready fell into their places. The new accession, each bearing a flaming torch aloft, increased the grandeur of the scene. When the company reached the house, they all entered with the bridegroom, and the door was shut. Some time afterwards the five who had gone away in search of oil, returned and pleaded for admission; but they pleaded in vain. Within the house the glad festival went forward; but those who came too late were not admitted.

* * * * *

The story at its close is indebted for its deep pathos, not to anything inherent in itself, but to the sublime lesson which it conveys. The Lord's great parable, like the Lord's great apostle, is "weak and contemptible" in its bodily presence; but the letters in which it writes its meaning are like his, "weighty and powerful." A few country girls arriving too late for a marriage, and being therefore excluded from the festival, is not in itself a great event: but I know not any words in human language that teach a more piercing lesson than the conclusion of this similitude. The frame is constructed of common materials; the sublimity lies in the spiritual truth which that frame sustains. This conception, like that of the hen gathering her chickens under her wing, seems so common and so common-place, that we would not have ventured in dignified discourse to employ it; in the hands of Jesus the similitude becomes at once tender and terrible in the highest degree. At his word the world sprang from nothing; we need not be surprised to find that under his touch small things become great.

I think no symbolic character should be attributed to the virgins, as such, in the interpretation of the parable; it is when they take their lamps and go forth to meet the bridegroom that they first acquire a spiritual significance. The whole group represent that portion of any community who hear the Gospel, accept its terms, and profess to be the disciples of Christ. The sincerity and depth of their profession will be tested afterwards; but in the meantime, both in their own opinion and that of their neighbours, they are all alike Christians. The structure of the parable required virgins in this place, in order that the picture might be true to nature; in the customs apparently of all times and all countries, this position at a marriage feast is assigned to young unmarried women. The ancient practice of the East is, in its essential features, reproduced among ourselves from day to day in the troop of virgins, dressed in white, who attend the bride on her bridal day. I cannot acquiesce in the view of those who see in the special condition of these watchers a symbol of the purity which becomes the followers of Christ, for I find, as I read onward in the parable, that while the ten were in respect to condition all equal, in as far as they represent spiritual relations, five are symbols of sincerity, and five are symbols of deceit. The condition of virgins which was common to all, cannot, without complete confusion of ideas, be made, within the compass of the same allegory, to signify both the true and the false. From the procession of virgins, therefore, I obtain no more than I would have obtained from a procession of men or matrons, if the habits of society had permitted such a representation to have been made.[51]

[51] Lange's view on this point seems sound and consistent; while both Olshausen and Stier endeavour with much pain but little fruit, to prove that the foolish represent true but defective disciples. "One part of the Church is living, while the other lives only _in_ appearance, because it lives only _to_ appearance."--_Lange_.

They took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom; this represents an open, intelligent, and seemly profession of faith in Christ. As all the lamps burned at first with equal brightness, and no suspicion of a defect occurred either to the wise or the unwise, we learn that the profession which never had life may appear so well favoured for a time, that neither the false professor nor his converted neighbour may be aware of its shallowness.

"To meet the bridegroom;" the parable and the discourse which precedes it, bear upon Christ's second coming, and the attitude, which becomes his disciples in prospect of that decisive event. They who have been washed in his blood love his appearing.

No difference between class and class was as yet manifest; but already the causes which subsequently wrought the separation had begun to operate in secret, and here accordingly they are recorded by the Lord; "five of them were wise, and five of them were foolish." I stand in awe of this dividing word. While the whole band take part in the loyal exodus, and all seem equal in zeal and love, the Searcher of hearts already perceives and pronounces that some of them are wise unto salvation, and some are so foolish that they are throwing away their souls. That same Lord looks on the ten thousand times ten thousand who in our times go out to meet the bridegroom. There is not a more grand or a more beautiful spectacle on earth than a great assembly reverently worshipping God together. No line visible to human eye divides into two parts the goodly company; yet the goodly company is divided into two parts. The Lord reads our character, and marks our place. The Lord knoweth them that are his, and them also that are not his, in every assembly of worshippers.

The distinguishing feature is now specifically set down,--the wise carried each a separate vessel containing a supply of oil, that they might keep the flame of their lamps alive, however long the bridegroom might tarry: the foolish, satisfied that their lamps were burning at the moment, laid in no supply for future need. This is the turning-point of the parable, and in the light of subsequent events its spiritual import may be determined with precision and certainty. The oil in the lamp, and the flame which it sustained, indicate a seemly Christian profession; this the virgins all possessed, and all alike. The quality that tested and divided them, lay not in the burning lamps but in the supply vessels. The oil, whether employed to anoint a person or to feed a flame, represents, in Old Testament typology, the Holy Spirit. That which the wise virgins carried in their vessels, as distinguished from that which burned in their lamps, points to the Spirit as a spirit of grace and supplication dwelling in a believer's heart. All experienced convictions, and made profession, as is indicated by the lamps lighted and borne aloft; but some had nothing more than convictions and professions, while others had passed from death unto life and had gotten their life, through the Spirit's ministry, "hid with Christ in God." This will more fully appear as we proceed stage by stage with the interpretation.

"The bridegroom tarried." For a special purpose, the Lord represents that the bridegroom lingered till a much later hour than that at which the virgins expected him. The disciples, during their Master's ministry and long afterwards, cherished a belief that the coming of the Lord and the end of the world would take place in their own generation. This expectation was, in its literal sense, incorrect; but it could not be corrected by an explicit announcement that for more than a thousand years all things should continue as they were; for such an intimation would have destroyed the expectant watchfulness which in the circumstances was salutary and even necessary. By that watchfulness the Christians of the immediately succeeding generation escaped the disasters which befell the Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem, and by it believers in subsequent times were kept more loose to the world and more close to Christ. In this parable, however, and elsewhere in the Scriptures, prophecies are recorded, which events subsequently explained,--prophecies which showed the Christians of a later age that while their Lord desires to keep them in an expectant attitude through all generations, his intention from the beginning was to permit a long period to intervene between his ascension and his return. The preparation which Christ desires and true Christians attain, pertains more to the inner spirit than to the anticipation of the external advent.

While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. At this point many interpreters endeavour to grasp a lesson regarding the tendency of even true disciples to slumber sinfully at their post, like their worldly neighbours. The lesson is in itself good, and comes readily to hand, but it is not taught in this text. Calvin has correctly conceived and clearly expressed the meaning of the sleep that oppressed the waiting virgins; it intimates the necessity that lies on all of going down into the ordinary affairs of this life. Disciples in the body cannot be occupied always and only with the expectation of their Lord's appearing. Sleep and food, family and business, make demands on them as well as on others,--demands which they cannot and should not resist. If the coming of the bridegroom be delayed till midnight, the virgins must slumber; this is not a special weakness of individuals, it is the common necessity of nature. So, when life is lengthened in the body, we must attend to the affairs of this world.

The coming of the Son of man may surprise one at his farm and another at his merchandise, but it does not follow, on that account, that it will surprise them unprepared. Now and then in the history of the Church a Christian has been found dead in his closet and on his knees. A few years ago, in a rural district of Scotland, an elder who was leading the devotions of a district prayer-meeting suddenly ceased to speak,--ceased in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a prayer. The worshippers opened their eyes, and observed that his head and breast leant heavily on the desk; they approached and found him dead. At the moment when the bridegroom came this watcher was wide awake, standing on tiptoe, and straining forward to catch the first glimpse of the glory that should herald his approach. When the bridegroom came this watcher went out to meet him, and went in with him to the feast: safe and happy he, but not he only.

On the other side we hear sometimes of a merchant who died in his counting-house, his ledger, not the Bible, the last book he had read; of a miner killed in an instant by an explosion while he was picking coals in the bowels of the earth; of a soldier falling on a battle-field, while his right hand raised the sword to strike a foe; these were all slumbering and off guard when the bridegroom came. What of them? were they all shut out? Nay, verily. Some of them were shut out, and some were let in, according as they were carnal or spiritual when the decisive moment came. The new creature in Christ, who is surprised amid the toils of his daily calling, goes as safely into rest as his brother of the same family who is summoned over in the very act of prayer. The five wise virgins were stretched on the ground asleep, with their lamp fires dead or dying, when the cry arose, Behold the bridegroom cometh, and yet there was no surprise, and no damage. Although they were only awakened by his coming, they were ready to meet him when he came, and to enter with him into his rest.

When the cry was heard all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. When life is closing behind, and eternity opening before us, we are all aroused. Every one who has a lamp hastens then to examine its condition and stimulate its flame: all who have borne Christ's name search themselves to see whether they are ready for his presence. There is no visible distinction at this stage between those who have only a name that they live, and those who have attained also the new nature: all bestir themselves to examine the ground of their hope, and the state of their preparation.

At this point the decisive difference which existed in secret long before emerges into view. The foolish virgins, having no oil in separate vessels, could not keep the flame of their lamps any longer alive. Both classes had a profession; the formalists had a profession and nothing more. Finding in the hour of their extremity that they had neglected their souls while the day of grace was running, they make a piteous appeal to believing neighbours for help, "Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out." How true to nature is this picture! He who draws it knows "what is in man." How fondly the empty, in such a crisis, lean on the full. Alas, even the full is but a little vessel filled by Christ. That vessel is not a spring; this saved sinner is not a saviour of sinners. He has gotten from his Lord all that himself needs; but he cannot supply a neighbour's want. Brother, if the call come to you while you are not in Christ reconciled and renewed, though all the saints in heaven and earth stood weeping at your bedside they could not save you. If you neglect the Son of God while he stands at the door and knocks, in vain will you apply to a godly neighbour, after the day of grace is done.

Taking into view generally the intimate relations which subsisted among that group of maidens, and in particular the unselfish tenderness which must have characterized the wiser five, we should expect to learn that they had generously resolved, at all hazards, to share their oil to the last drop with their unfortunate companions. But this, though consonant with nature in the external body of the parable, would have been incongruous with the spiritual truth which the parable has been framed to convey. In the structure of the parable provision is made for defining sharply the spiritual lesson, even at the expense of some measure of harshness left on one feature of the story. True Christians cannot impart a share of the grace that dwells in their own hearts to deluded formalists in their departing hour. On the spiritual side such a distinction cannot be made, and therefore the Master represents the wise virgins as distinctly and peremptorily refusing to share their store of oil with their improvident companions.[52]

[52] They turn themselves to the wise, whom, perhaps, they had lately laughed at, with the prayer: "Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out." They betake themselves, if they are Catholics, to the dead saints, if they are Protestants, to the living, whom they have been accustomed to revere as their guides on account of their wisdom and grace, and plead, Help us, comfort us, pray for us, that we may be brought into a state of grace. In vain. They answer: Not so, lest there be not enough for us and you. What you desire is impossible. None of us has any surplus merit out of which he could give a portion to another.--_Arndt_, ii. 177.

"Go to them that sell, and buy for yourselves." The advice was the best that in the circumstances could be given. The mention of "them that sell" calls up all the scene of the preceding day. Oil was plentiful in the town; the five wise virgins having gone by daylight to the stores with their vessels, had experienced no difficulty in obtaining a supply. The same method was open to the rest: they failed to secure a store in the daytime, and then they tried in vain to make good the deficiency at midnight, after the merchants had retired to rest. This feature of the parable intimates that those who are found destitute at the coming of the Lord, enjoyed their day and their opportunity, but neglected them: they allowed the day of mercy to run out, and cried frantically for mercy after the merciful Saviour had wearied waiting and gone away.

While the foolish virgins are absent on this errand, the bridegroom comes up. They that are ready go in with him to the wedding, and the door is shut. Christ calls away his own at some midnight hour when they are off their guard; but though surprised, they are not hurt. The five wise virgins were asleep when the approach of the bridegroom was announced, and yet they were ready to meet him. Their safety resulted not from their fluttering activity at that moment in the trimming of the lamps, but from their wise foresight on the preceding day. The salvation of a soul depends not on frightened earnestness in the moment of departure, but on faith's calm closing with Christ, before the moment of departure comes. In the vessels of the wise there was store of oil, and it was easy for them at any time or place to refresh the fading fire of the torches which they bore. Deep in the hearts of those disciples dwelt the spirit of Christ, and the light of their profession which had shone brightly in a time of ease, burst into greater brightness in the hour of their extremity. An abundant entrance was administered to them,--an entrance into the joy of their Lord. The door was shut! Suffering, sorrowing believers, do you hear the clang of that closing gate! Be of good cheer, disciples; when your Lord and you go in, the door is shut behind you, and nothing shall enter that defileth. Heaven is for the holy, and for them alone; if it were open for all it would not be heaven.

The foolish virgins went away after midnight to seek a supply of oil; but we are not informed whether or not they obtained it. The omission is significant; this word of Jesus gives no encouragement to delay in the matter of the soul's salvation; not a ray of hope is permitted to burst through the gloom that shrouds these hapless wanderers. The sole lesson of the parable is a simple, sublime warning that sinners should close with Christ now, lest they should be left to invoke his name in vain at the hour of their departure. This parable is a voice from an open heaven promising all grace now, but refusing to promise any then.

They came afterwards to the door and cried bitterly for admission, but the Lord answered from within, I know you not. As the omniscient he knew them; he was acquainted with all their ways. He knew them, for they had crucified him afresh by their neglect. But he did not know them, as he knew the poor bashful woman who crept near in the crowd and by her touch drew saving grace from his overflowing heart; he did not know them by feeling their weight, like John's, leaning on his breast.[53]

[53] The concluding application is well expressed by Arndt:--"Perhaps the breaking heart grasps at the Bible; it has only spikes and nails, but no balm of consolation. Perhaps the dying man calls in those who have the care of souls; the words of comfort slide over the ears, while the Holy Spirit seals none of them upon the heart. Perhaps he partakes of the Holy Supper: ah, the feast is to him not a feast of blessings, but an eating of judgment. Perhaps he prays to the Lord himself: the Lord answers, I know you not.

"Oh, it is sad to be so near heaven, and yet to be lost--to be almost saved, and yet altogether lost. Were it not the Lord who speaks here, Jesus Christ, the Life Eternal, the Judge of the living and the dead, our feeling would be mightily to resist the terrible conclusion of this parable, which cuts all and every hope clean away, and leaves not an If or a But behind, nor any other possible interpretation. But he speaks; and before his words every mouth is silent in fear and adoration. He writes into our breast, with a glowing iron pen, the warning word--therefore watch, &c.

"Short is life; fleeting is time; quick is death; long is eternity. Therefore what thou desirest to do, do it quickly."--_Gleichnisse_.

After the parable is finished the marrow of its meaning is given in one short sentence by the Lord: "Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh." Let us take heed here, lest after all the pains we have bestowed on this scripture, we should miss the portion for ourselves with which it is charged. This parable was not spoken for the purpose of kindling an agony of repentance in the hour of death. It describes a sudden call, and an eager upstarting, and a fruitless effort, and a right prayer uttered too late, and final rejection, and a fearful doom,--but it reveals this dreadful close of a life, in order to show us what we should be and do before the close of life comes on. The end of the foolish five is unveiled in order that we may be wise unto salvation in the beginning of our days. The lighthouse reared on a sunken reef flings its lurid glare far through a stormy air and over a stormy sea, not to teach the mariner how to act with vigour when he is among the breakers, but to warn him back, so that he may never fall among the breakers at all. Even so, the end of the lost is revealed in the word of God, not to urge us to utter a very loud cry when the door is shut, but to compel us to enter now while the door is open.

"Behold I stand at the door and knock." His word to-day runs, Soul, soul, open for me: if that tender plea is echoed back from your closed heart in a beseeching Saviour's face to-day, your cry, "Lord, Lord, open to me" will come back to you in empty echoes from a closed heaven.

The foolish five came to the door only a little too late, but it was not a little damage that they suffered thereby. In the matter of fleeing to take refuge in Christ, to be late by a little is the loss of all.

XIV.

THE ENTRUSTED TALENTS.

"For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money. After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."--MATT. xxv. 14-30.

The owner of a large property has occasion to leave the country for a time and reside in a foreign land. His possessions, consisting of "his own servants" and "his goods," must necessarily be left in the country, and naturally he considers how he may so dispose of them during the interval that they may yield to him the largest profit at his return. Two distinct principles were open to his choice corresponding to the methods of day's-wages and piece-work in modern social economics; he might either confide to his servants generally the management of his estate, and give them wages according to time, or give each a certain amount of capital, to be exclusively at his own disposal, promising to reward him according to his diligence and success. The latter method is obviously the one which contains a spring within itself constantly urging to diligence. With a set of slaves who are ignorant, degraded, and suspicious, this plan would not be practicable, but if the men possess a certain amount of moral principle, self-reliance, and intelligence, it is safest and best.

The master accordingly, counting on the good-will and honesty of his dependants, frankly entrusts each with a certain amount of capital, graduated according to their capacity for business. Nothing is said in the record regarding the terms of the compact, but it is implied that these were clearly understood between the parties. The money was given in order that it might be laid out to the best advantage, primarily for the owner's interest, and secondarily for the due remuneration of the faithful servant. This practice was carried to a great extent among the Romans; the owner of a skilful slave could make a greater profit by giving scope to the man's energies than by confining him forcibly to menial occupation.

It is by no means necessary to determine the precise character of the bond which united the servant to his master in this case. The circumstances of the parable will suit equally the supposition of absolute right on the part of the master and a voluntary contract between him and his servant for a limited time. Whatever may have been the amount of service due to the master at the time of his departure,--whether the whole life and energy of a slave, or a limited quantity of work from a servant,--that service was his property, and he desired to turn it to the best account.

Two of the servants traded with the capital entrusted to their charge and doubled it ere the master returned; one from a morbid dread of his master's severity, coupled with indolence in his personal habits, hid the money in the ground, thereby deliberately sacrificing his master's profit in order that himself might incur no risk. The two who had successfully traded were commended and rewarded; the one who allowed his talent to lie idle was condemned and punished for his unfruitfulness, although no positive dishonesty was laid to his charge.[54]

[54] For the relation between the talents and the pounds, see the exposition of the latter parable,--the last of the series.

* * * * *

We are now ready to proceed with the exposition. The proprietor who went abroad represents Christ at the close of his ministry on earth leaving his disciples and ascending to heaven. His continued presence spiritually with his people is not inconsistent with this representation, for our parable deals with the bodily and the visible. His own servants, whom he called, like the ten virgins who went out to meet the bridegroom, represent the whole number of those who are called by his name and seem to be his disciples. The delivery of the master's goods to these servants intimates that the Lord gives to every member of the visible Church all his faculties and opportunities.

In this distribution different amounts are consigned to different persons. Here the representation obviously accords with the fact: of time, of intellect, of health, of learning, of wealth, scarcely any two persons possess a precisely equal portion. There is a clause here generally overlooked by expositors, but which must be intended to express some feature of importance,--"to every one according to his several ability." We can easily understand it as it occurs in the story: the master, at the moment of his departure, graduated his gifts according to the abilities and acquirements of the servants that he might not throw a great responsibility on a weak man, or leave a man of vigour only half employed. What doctrine does this feature represent? Probably that, while all the gifts that a man possesses are bestowed by God, some, such as bodily constitution and mental capacity are conferred by God as governor of the world; while others are subsequently conferred by the Lord Jesus as the king and head of the Church. I am inclined to understand these latter gifts by the goods which the master bestowed on the eve of his departure; these gifts are in some way proportioned to the faculties of the receiver, so that one may not be oppressed and another left with inadequate occupation.

The one who received most and the one who received a medium amount of gifts and opportunities proved both faithful, and both faithful alike. Although the first did absolutely more for Christ and the world than the second, both were equally diligent and faithful according to their means. Examples both of the likeness and the difference occur by hundreds day by day before our eyes. A disciple with greater and a disciple with smaller endowments labour in the Lord's work with equal love, but the amount of fruit is greater where greater gifts and graces have been received and employed. We shall learn soon how the two cases are treated at the master's return, but in the meantime we have observed what the two cases are.

The servant who had received one talent went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money. The meaning of his conduct and its result we shall discover more fully when we reach the record of the reckoning; at present, and in general, we may understand that this man made no effort to serve his lord, but devoted himself exclusively to one aim,--that he might be able to stand at last on the plea that he had at least done his lord no harm.

These three examples are obviously given in order to cover all cases: they represent an indefinite and all but infinite variety in the measure of the gifts.

Two are represented to have been diligent and only one indolent, but no information is thereby given regarding the proportions of mankind in general or within the Church who shall be found faithful in the great day. Two cases were required in order to show that, where the diligence of the workers is equal, the result may, in quantity, be unequal; and a third case was required to show that, besides some who lack the power to do much, there are some who lack the will to do anything at all; the numbers have no other meaning.

Another very important question is suggested here,--What is meant by the representation that the person who possessed only one talent became unfaithful, rather than the person who possessed two, or the person who possessed five? It is precisely analogous to the representation contained in another parable that one man, and not ten or twenty, came to the marriage-feast without a marriage garment. Most certainly it does not mean that those who have few talents are more liable to be unfaithful than those who have many; and yet something is gained by making the servant who had received one talent rather than the servant who had received five, the example of unfaithfulness. It does not mean, If you have only one talent you will be unfaithful; but it does mean, Although you have only one talent, you will be condemned for unfaithfulness if you do not employ it. The lesson is much more emphatically given than if the servant who received five talents had proved unfaithful. Much of the master's property was entrusted to him: if he had permitted it to lie waste, and been punished accordingly, it might have been supposed that the essence of the guilt lay in the largeness of the loss. As it is faithfulness, without regard to the amount of capital at stake, that determines the sentence of approval; so it is unfaithfulness, without regard to the amount involved, that determines the sentence of condemnation. He who has least is bound to serve the Lord with what he has; and if he serve the Lord faithfully with little, he will be honoured and rewarded, while those who had greater gifts, but less diligence, will be cast out.

Every one possesses some talents. He who has bestowed them expects that we shall diligently improve them. He has departed, but he desires that we should act as in his presence. In this respect he is never absent--"Lo, I am with you alway." Now is the time for laying out our gifts in the Lord's service; for it will be too late to begin, in terror, when he comes to judgment.

"After a long time the Lord of those servants cometh and reckoneth with them" (ver. 19). The time is not long in the account of the Lord himself: his latest warning to the Church is, "Behold I come quickly;" and with him a thousand years are as one day. Nor is the time long to ungodly men; for in such an hour as they think not, the Son of man cometh. At whatever time he comes, he comes too soon for them who would give all the world, if it were theirs, that he should not come at all. But to the true disciples of Christ, especially in times of persecution, the period of his absence has often appeared long: they have often borrowed the unbeliever's cry, "Where is the promise of his coming?" and used it with a new significance. But to saints and sinners, whether they long for his presence or loathe it, he certainly will come at length.

The two who had received from their Lord unequal gifts, and had laid them out with equal faithfulness, give in their account with joy. They are equally approved; and either is rewarded with the fruit of his own diligence.

The case of the unfaithful one, in accordance with the obvious design of the parable, is given with much greater fulness of detail than those of the faithful two. Permitting our comment on this point to mould itself after the proportions of the text, we shall look more narrowly into this man's character and conduct. All the more willingly shall we devote the most of our attention to the darker side of the picture, that the evangelical obedience of the faithful servants may be most distinctly seen in the dark mirror of the opposite unfruitfulness.

In the case of the unprofitable servant, as it emerges in the latter portion of the parable, three points demand our attention separately and successively,--the Reason, the Nature, and the Reward of his unfaithfulness.

1. The reason of his unfaithfulness, as explained by himself, is, "I knew thee that thou art an hard man," &c. The naive confession of this man is a very interesting feature of the story, and a very precious lesson to us regarding the deep things of God. Through this opening light is thrown at once upon the spring of continued disobedience in human hearts, and upon the nature of the remedy which the ailment needs.

Some persons take much pains to extol a good life at the expense of the mysteries of grace. They know not that they are endeavouring to break the upper links of a chain, while themselves are suspended on the lower. All the value of service rendered by intellectual and moral beings depends on the thoughts of God which they entertain; and the thoughts which they entertain of God depend on the attitude in which he presents himself to them--that is, upon the revelation of the Father in the person and work of the Son.

Obviously the conception which this man had formed of his master's character, was the direct efficient cause of his unprofitable idleness. The picture, at this point, represents a human heart secretly conscious of guilt, not reconciled through the Gospel, and dreading the wrath of the righteous Judge. When one is at peace with God in the Redeemer, perfect love casteth out fear; but here, in the absence of this reconciliation, perfect fear casteth out love. Love is the fulfilling of the law; and without love there can, in God's sight, be no obedience. Thus, by a few links which can neither be obscured nor broken, active obedience is bound to faith in Christ. Where faith in the Mediator is wanting, God, as shown in a guilty conscience, is dreaded as an enemy; and such fear produces no obedience. You might as well sow stones in your field, and expect them to produce bread.

It is not necessary to examine in detail the continuation of the unfaithful servant's answer. When he had taken his ground on a sullen plea of not guilty which threw the blame upon his Lord, it was natural that he should endeavour to justify himself and fortify his position by specific averments of hard treatment; but the essence of his answer lies all in his first words, "I knew thee hard." The meaning cannot be mistaken here. These words do not make known to us what the master's character really was: the only thing which they determine is the servant's conception of the master's character. The servant's conduct is, in point of fact, regulated not by what the master absolutely is, but by what he is in the belief and regard of the servant.

The parable represents at once, with rich pictorial effect and strict logical exactness, the legal relation of sinful men to a righteous God, apart from the peace that comes through the Gospel. While you think of the Judge, recording now your thoughts, words, and actions, in order to render unto you what you deserve in the great day, you cannot love him, and you do not like to retain the knowledge of him in your mind. The Bible calls him good, and perhaps your lips have pronounced him good in your prayers and hymns; but what you really know of him in your heart is his hardness. This hard measure expected, haunts you like a spectre, and casts a dark shadow over your path. Whatever your ears may hear or your lips may speak, you know God only as the disturber of your joy in life, and the inexorable exactor of impossible penalties at last.

The natural and necessary, as well as actual result of this knowledge or conception of the master, is the utter idleness of the servant. Tell a criminal in chains that by his own hands he must remove yonder mountain into the sea in the space of one year, on pain of death when the year is done, and the certain result will be that the wretched man will permit the appointed time to expire without removing a single atom of its mass; but on the other hand, let it be gently intimated to some emancipated slaves that their service in removing earth from that mountain to the sea will please their deliverer, and forthwith they will carry with all their might, their burden meanwhile being their delight, because they have thereby an opportunity of serving the Lord that bought them. Thus the idleness of one servant is explained, and the activity of others.

2. As to its nature, the disobedience was not active but passive; he did not positively injure his master's property; he simply failed to turn it to profitable account. The terror of this servant was too lively to admit of his enjoying a debauch purchased by the treasure which had been placed under his charge. Fear is a powerful motive in certain directions and for certain effects; it makes itself felt in the heart, and leaves its mark on the life of a man. Like frost it has power to arrest the stream of energy, and fix it cold, stiff, motionless; only love can, like the sun of summer, break the chains and set the prisoner free to run his race rejoicing.

The passive character of the servant's fault greatly extends the sphere of the lesson, and increases the weight of its rebuke. If only positive activity in evil had been condemned, a multitude of the unfaithful would have escaped, or at least would have thought themselves exempted from the indictment. The bearers of poisonous fruit constitute a comparatively small class in the vegetable creation; the plants that bear no good fruit are much more numerous. Unfruitfulness includes both those that bear bad fruit and those that bear no fruit. The idleness of the servant who knew his master only as a hard man, reproves all except those who obey the Lord whom they love, and love the Lord whom they obey.

3. The reward of unfaithfulness is, "Take the talent from him and cast him out." In both parts the sentence of condemnation corresponds to its opposite in the reception of those who had been faithful to their trust. These retain their employed gifts; from him the unused talent is taken away. These are received into their master's favour; he is cast out of his master's sight.

It is worthy of remark that the execution of the sentence begins in time, and in its first stages lies within the reach of our observation. The portion of the sentence, moreover, which is inflicted in our sight, comes through the regular operation of law. The disuse of any personal faculty, surely, though gradually, takes the faculty away. Those who explain away the positive doctrines and facts of the Gospel, delight in representing that God does everything by the instrumentality of law. It is superstition, they say, to suppose that he will put forth his hand to arrest the mighty machinery of nature, with a view either to punish your guilt or reward your obedience. Here at least we can meet them on their own ground, and accept their rule. Let any member of the body, or any faculty of the mind lie dormant for a time, and by the very fact, its power is diminished or destroyed. It is a law of life that a talent becomes feeble in proportion as it has been left in idleness. It is not only true in point of fact that when we do not diligently lay out our gifts, the Giver recalls them; it is further true, that he recalls them in our sight by the silent operation of an inexorable law.

To waste life in the hope of getting all made right by an energetic repentance at the close, is a very foolish and mischievous species of superstition; it is the exercise of a very strong faith, without any promise from God on which it may lean. You seem to expect that God will arrest the operation of his own laws in order to afford you every facility for living in sin. In the Scriptures we read of an interference with the natural laws--the sun standing still--in order that the enemies of the Lord and his people might be destroyed; but you expect a greater miracle;--you expect the Omnipotent to arrest the operation of his own laws, in order that his enemies may prosper now and escape at last. You expect that Jesus will work a miracle not to cast out the unclean spirit, but to maintain him in possession of a human heart. The disuse of the talent takes the talent away; this is the law of the kingdom; and it will not be changed in order to encourage the sinner in his sin.

"For unto every one that hath shall be given," &c. Obviously from the whole circumstances of the case, "to have" in this connection, means to possess and use aright. He who received only one talent was distinguished from him who received five, not by not having, but by not using. The law announced here is that they who employ well what they have, shall retain it all and receive more in addition; whereas they who do not rightly employ what they have, will be deprived of that which they possess but do not use.

Fearing lest I should darken counsel by words without knowledge, I leave the positive penal infliction, which takes effect beyond the precincts of this life, without one word of comment, in the short and solemn words of the Scripture, "Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

The sentence "Take it from him," goes before the sentence, "Cast him out." A sinner is given over to himself, before he is given up to judgment. The first prepares the way for the second death; the process is now going on by which the destiny is decided. Now is the accepted time; now either salvation or condemnation is wrought out.

See the process and the path of death; the steps are few and well marked. I knew thee hard, and I hid thy talent; take it from him, and cast him out. The corresponding steps on the other side are, I tasted thy tender mercy, and lovingly laid thy talent out; give the faithful servant more, and lead him into the joy of his Lord.

The stumbling-block at the outset that turned the unfaithful servant aside was his conception of the Lord as a hard master: it is the experience of the master's love that impels the servant forward in the path of duty. When we know God in Christ, we know him reconciled to ourselves. Christ, therefore, is the way; by him we go _in_ to the Father for acceptance, and by him we go _out_ for needful work upon the world. Without me ye can get nothing from God; "Without me ye can do nothing" for God.

XV.

THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY.

"And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come."--MARK iv. 26-29.

This is the only parable that is peculiar to Mark. The subjects contained in the fourth chapter of Mark are obviously the same, in the main, as those which occupy the thirteenth chapter of Matthew. The parable of the sower occurs in both at the beginning; and at several other parts they coincide. The parable of the seed growing secretly holds in Mark the place that the parable of the leaven holds in Matthew. We might, therefore, expect a close analogy between these two parables: and accordingly we find in point of fact that they exhibit the same characteristics of the kingdom, and convey the same lessons to its subjects.

When a man has cast the seed into prepared ground at the proper season, he thenceforth leaves it to itself. He sleeps by night, and attends to other affairs by day, often looking to it indeed, and oftener thinking of it, but never touching it till harvest. By its own vitality it grows secretly, gradually until it arrives at maturity. Man interferes only at the beginning and at the end; in spring he sows, and in autumn he reaps, but throughout the interval between these extremes he lets it alone. The point on which the parable concentrates our regard is, that the growth of the plant, from the time of sowing to the time of reaping, proceeds according to its own laws, and in virtue of its own inherent power, neither visible to the owner's eye nor dependent on his hand.

In the interpretation of the parable certain great leading points must first be determined, and then all the rest will be safe and easy.

There are two such points, one at the beginning and one at the end, which are in themselves uncertain; and one in the middle which, being itself determined by circumstances, serves to determine the other two. The question at the beginning is, Who is the sower? And the question at the end, What is the reaping? The point in the centre already fixed, on which the two extremities depend, is the growth of the seed without the aid, and even beyond the cognisance, of the sower.

Look first to the question which meets an inquirer at the outset, Who is the sower? Obviously it has two sides and two only; the sower represents either the Lord himself, or the human ministry that he employs from age to age. Both representations are in themselves true and scriptural; it is by means of other features less ambiguous that we shall be able to determine whether of the two is adopted in this parable. Try first the supposition that the sower is the Lord himself; of him, in that case, it is immediately said that he sleeps, and rises night and day, and that the seed meanwhile springs up, he knows not how. This representation is palpably incongruous with the attributes and character of the Lord. The things that are hidden from us, both in the natural and spiritual growth, are open in his sight. Expressly it is said of Jesus, "he knew what was in man;" and we learn, from many circumstances in the evangelic history, that he knew the thoughts alike of plotting enemies and of fainting friends. The suggestion made by some that this part of the parable may be understood to represent the Lord's ascension into heaven, after having sown the word in his own ministry, does not satisfy the demands of the case. We cannot, without doing extreme violence to the analogy, find a sense in which the divine Redeemer does not help and does not know the growth of his own grace in believing hearts. The germination and increase of vegetation without the intervention of the sower and beyond his ken, represent a helplessness and an ignorance so definite and complete, that we cannot, on any rule of sober interpretation, apply it to the omniscient and omnipotent Redeemer.

The impossibility of accepting the first suggestion throws us necessarily back on the only other supposition that remains;--the sower in the parable must represent the earthen vessel to which the ministry of the Gospel has been entrusted,--the human agent employed in the work of the Lord. This will, of course, accord perfectly with the representation in the heart of the parable that he who sows the seed neither helps the growth nor understands its secrets; but does it accord also with the representation, in the end of the parable, that he who in spring sowed the seed, thrusts in his sickle and reaps the ripened harvest? Some, assuming that the reaping means the closing of all accounts in the great day,[55] conclude that to represent the sowing as the ministry of men is incongruous with the reaping, which must, as they suppose, be the work of the Lord at his second coming. In this way they become involved between two impossibilities. If the Lord himself is represented as the sower the representation is inconsistent with the middle of the parable, in which it is declared that he neither aids nor understands the growth of the grain; if, on the other hand, men are represented as the sowers, the representation is inconsistent with the end of the parable, in which it is declared that they thrust in the sickle at the close of the dispensation and reap the harvest of the world.

[55] Dr. Trench takes for granted, without a word of proof, or any evidence that he has even considered the question, that the reaping is the consummation of all things, the exclusive prerogative of the Lord.

Now in order to escape from this double difficulty it is not necessary to put to the rack either the words or the thoughts of the parable. The path out of the difficulty is broad and straight; it is the path into it that is crooked and narrow.

The question which demands solution here, and which, when solved, will solve all the rest, is, What is meant by thrusting in the sickle and reaping the ripened grain when the harvest has come? Apart from this parable two distinct significations may be attributed to the analogy, both alike true in fact, and both alike adopted in the Scriptures. In some cases the harvest and the reaping point to the end of the world and the awards of the judgment; expressly in the Lord's own interpretation of the parable of the tares, it is said, "The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels" (Matt. xiii. 39). But in other cases the reaping of the ripened grain is employed to represent that success in the winning of souls which human ministers of the word may obtain and enjoy. Such is its meaning in Ps. cxxvi. 6, "He that goeth forth and reapeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." In the same sense it is employed by the Lord (John iv. 35, 36), "Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already unto harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together." The same idea is expressed in terms, if possible, still more articulate, in Matt. ix. 37, 38. "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers unto his harvest."[56]

[56] Bengel's suggestion is ingenious and interesting, but contributes nothing towards the solution. "Sermo concisus. Mittet falce preditos, nam [Greek: apostellesthai] est viventis cujuspiam." He would understand the phrase "he putteth in the sickle" as a curt form of expression, intended to intimate that he sends out reapers with sickles to reap the grain; fortifying his opinion by the remark that the term "putteth in," ([Greek: apostellei], "sends out,") refers to a living person, and not an inanimate instrument. Countenance for this view might be found in Matt. ix. 37 where [Greek: ekbalein] equivalent to [Greek: apostellesthai] is employed to indicate the sending forth of reapers. On the other hand, however, the passage, Rev. xiv. 15, 16, goes decidedly against it; for there both [Greek: pemmtein] and [Greek: ballein], "thrust in" (the sickle) are certainly applied to the instrument itself, and not to the men who wield it.

But while the symbol taken from the reaping of ripened grain represents alternately in Scripture, these two distinct though analogous conceptions, it is the latter and not the former which this parable adopts and employs. The reapers are the human ministers of the word, and the reaping is their successful ingathering in conversion here, not the admission of the redeemed into glory at the end of the world.

No other conclusion is compatible, either with the scope of the lesson or the facts of the case. The sower in this story neither helps the seed to grow nor understands how the growth proceeds. The parable is spoken in order to show that, while men are employed at first to preach the word and at last to gather the fruits in the conversion of their brethren, they can neither perform the converting work nor trace the footsteps of the quickening Spirit in the secrets of a human heart. By this similitude the Lord represents the extent and the limits of human agency in the progress of his kingdom.

Having made our way through the difficulties of the parable, and found the key-note of its interpretation, we turn again to its terms for the sake of observing and applying the practical lessons which it contains.

The sower sows the seed; the seed is the word; the hearts of those who hear it are the field. Parents make known the Gospel in their families, ministers in the congregations, teachers in the schools. These sowers lose sight of the seed from the moment that it drops into the ground. It sinks and disappears; they must go away and leave it. They sleep by night,[57] and attend to other matters by day; they cannot see how it fares with the Gospel in a neighbour's soul. They cannot put their hand to the work at this stage to help it: the seed must be left to itself in the soil.

[57] Here, as in the case of the tares, the sleep of the husbandman implies no culpable negligence either in the natural or spiritual sphere. "Sind wir am Tage recht wach; dann, mögen wir Nachts ruhig schlafen."--_Dräseke, vom Reich G._

At this point the likeness between the natural and the spiritual is exact and obvious. When you have made the Gospel of Christ known to some in whom you are interested, you are precisely in the position of the agriculturist who has committed his seed to the ground. If you think of the matter when you lie down, or when you awake, you discover, perhaps with pain, that you do not know whether the seed is swelling and springing or not: and that though you knew its condition you could not reach it, to stimulate the process. It is out of your hands, and out of your sight. It is not, however, out of mind, when it is out of sight; and your own helplessness may draw forth a more eager prayer to the Almighty Helper. In this way it is when we are weak that we become strong; it is when we are made most keenly sensible of our own weakness that we cast our care most fully on the Lord. The law that shuts the sown seed out from us, shuts it in with God. One door closes; but the closing that hides the seed in its seed-bed from our eyes and separates it from our hands, leaves it open to His sight, and pliant to his power. The moment that the seed is sown, he takes it out of our sight, but then and thereby he brings it into his own. It is away from us, and with God.[58]

[58] Like the seed, is the Word himself. He became flesh and dwelt among us; but he has ascended out of our sight. At the beginning he came into the world; and at the close he will return;--a spring and a harvest, but all the space between, he is out of sight.

The parable shows, with great perspicuity and certainty, both the extent and the limits of this withdrawal from human cognizance and help. In the main concern the exclusion is complete; but in some subordinate and incidental matters, it is only partial. As to the power of germination, and the knowledge of it, the sower is entirely shut out from the seed, both in the natural and spiritual departments. But as he may continue his care in nature, with much profit to the seed; so he may, in a subordinate capacity and in an indirect manner, do much to promote the growth of grace in the heart, after the Word has been addressed to the understanding. The exclusion of a minister, a teacher, a parent, from knowing and helping the growth of grace after the Gospel has been published, is like the exclusion of the farmer from his seed after it has been committed to the ground. He can help it, and does help it much by his care. He keeps the fences up, that the field may not be trampled by stray cattle: he keeps the drains open and the furrows clear, that water may not stand on the field, but run off as soon as it falls: he gathers off the stones, that they may not crush the seed, and pulls out the weeds that they may not choke it.

In a similar way and with similar profit, ministers and teachers of the word may remove obstructions which would prevent its growth. Not only have we permission to do this: we are bound positively to do it. The parable excludes us indeed from further knowledge or power, after the word is made known, but it excludes as the farmer is excluded from his sown seed. We know the nature and extent of that exclusion. While the lesson relieves us from the responsibility of that which is beyond our power, it lays upon us the responsibility of that which is within our power.

You may have seen a sown field in spring immediately after a great rain-fall; and you may have observed that a large portion of it, on its lower side, was smooth, and run together and caked, bearing all the marks of having been for some days under water. On the higher portions the wheat was springing, but on this portion, sown at the same time, the ground was bare. You examine the matter more minutely and discover that the drains that had been made for carrying off the surplus moisture, had been choked in the operations of the seed-time, and not cleared out again; and that consequently when rain fell heavily, it accumulated on the lower ground; and having soaked and soured it for several days, had killed the germinating seed beneath the ground. You go to the farmer and ask why he had allowed a large portion of his crop to be lost. Suppose he should say, My work was done, as soon as the seed fell from my hand into the soil; I can neither make it grow, nor understand how it grows; it was not in my province that the failure took place, and therefore the failure could not be my fault. No such specimen of hypocrisy is found in the kingdom of nature: no man could hold up his face before his fellow and cover his indolence by such an impudent plea.

We must see to it, that we be not guilty of the same inconsistency in matters of greater moment. A parent or minister or teacher has committed the good seed of the word to the hearts of his young people, with all due solemnity and care; and thereafter permits them to be steeped in a flood of folly, which he could easily have drained away. The good seed is drowned in that deluge; but it is the sower's fault. It is true he cannot make it grow by his care; but he can make it not grow by his carelessness. We cannot do the saving; but we can do the destroying. Many pains and many prayers are competent to the sower, although he cannot directly control the growth of the seed. When it grows, it grows independently of him; but when it fails, the failure may in part be due to his unfaithfulness.

Further, when it is said that the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself, the influences of heaven are not excluded, any more than the collateral care of the husbandman. We know how and in what sense the earth brings forth spontaneously, after it has received the seed into its bosom: if the sun were kept from shining, or the rain from falling on it, the earth would produce nothing. It is thus also with grace in the heart: the Spirit ministering the things of Christ is as necessary in the kingdom of grace, as rain and sunshine are in the kingdom of nature.

Surrounding circumstances, moreover, tend powerfully to help or to hinder the growth of the new life. The seed grows indeed by its own vitality: the most favourable circumstances that are possible on earth could not produce a harvest of grace without the seed of the Word; but these circumstances go far instrumentally to help or to hinder the growth and ripening of the seed. The family of which you are a member, either as child or servant,--the Church with which you worship,--the companions with whom you associate,--the tone of the society in which your social life moves on,--the business that occupies your day,--and the amusements that refresh you when you are wearied;--these and many others affect for good or evil the growth of grace in Christians, as wet or dry, cold or warm seasons, affect the growth of the seed after it has been committed to the ground. Watch and pray; one of these small points may be the turning-point of your destiny.

The seed grows gradually from stage to stage. Three stages are specified; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. This does not determine the time occupied in the spiritual process. In this respect there is not uniformity: the spiritual growth from spring to maturity sometimes requires more than one natural season, and sometimes is accomplished in less.

In the first stage of growth, it is not easy to distinguish with certainty between the wheat and common grass; it is when the ear is formed and filled, that you know at a glance, which is the fruitful and which the fruitless plant There is a similar ambiguity, in as far as appearance is concerned, in the earliest outgrowth of convictions from the hearing of the word. Not that there is any uncertainty in the nature of the things: the wheat is wheat, and the grass is grass from the first: but an observer cannot so surely at first determine which is wheat, and which is merely grass.

Thus, many hopeful impressions that appear for a while in the young, die away, and bring forth no fruit; but at later stages, a judgment may be formed with greater confidence. The plant assumes by degrees a more definite form, and a more substantial fulness: the fruits of the Spirit, green at first, but growing gradually more and more mellow, crown the profession of a Christian.

Let us not deceive ourselves, in connection with the acknowledged secrecy of the Spirit's work. The growing is an unseen thing; but the grown ripened grain is visible. It is the inner power that is hid; the fruit may be seen by all. There is indeed an invisible Christ, who is already within his people the resurrection and the life; but there is no invisible Christianity. How grace in the heart grows is an inscrutable mystery; when it is grown, it is known and read of all men. Your life, as to its source and supply, is hid with Christ in God: but your life, as to its practical effects, is a city set on a hill. There is a great difference between the light that you get and the light that you give. The Lord in heaven is the light of Christians; but Christians are the light of the world.

The source of the mighty Ganges is secret; and that secret the superstition of the Hindus has converted into a religious mystery. But the Ganges is not a secret unseen thing, as it flows through the plains of India, fertilizing a continent.

"The harvest is come." It is not the end of the world; it is not even the close of a Christian life in the world. There is a ripening and a fruit-bearing while life in the body lasts: there is also a reaping and an enjoying of the harvest by those who sow the seed, or their successors. The announcement, "one soweth and another reapeth," clearly implies that the same one who sows may also to some extent reap. There is part of both: a sower gathers some of the fruit of his labour in his own lifetime; and some of it is gathered by others after he has departed.

Here is a lesson for ministers and teachers. The Lord, who sends them out to sow, expects that they will look and long for fruit, and be disappointed if it does not appear. When the case occurs, as occur it may, in which the sower is not permitted to reap, the delay, although not a ground of despair, should be a source of disappointment: the stroke will be felt painful, if there is life where the stroke falls. The giver of the seed expects that the sower, if he lives to see it ripening, will reap it joyfully. It is like the joy of harvest to see the Lord's work prospering under our own hand. The Master seems to chide the inertness of his servants when he says, "the fields are white already to harvest." If it were their meat, as it was his, to do the Father's will, they would bound more quickly into the field, whenever they saw it whitening.

Some lessons, partly encouraging, partly reproving, which lie in the parable, but have hitherto been either omitted or only incidentally touched in the course of exposition, may be now conveniently enumerated in the close.

1. The work of sowing and the joy of reaping advance simultaneously on the spiritual field. The labour of the husbandman in the natural sphere is all and only sowing at one season, all and only reaping at another: the seed of the word affords a different experience; in the kingdom of God there is no period of the year when you must not sow, or may not reap. These two processes are in experience very closely linked together. They become alternately and reciprocally cause and effect: if we were not permitted at an early period to reap a little, the work of sowing would proceed languidly or altogether cease; on the other hand if we cease to sow, we shall not long continue to reap. When the workmen are introduced into this circle, it carries them continuously round.

2. In any given spot of the field there may be sowing in spring, and yet no reaping in harvest. If there is no sowing, there will be no reaping; but the converse does not hold good; you cannot say, wherever there has been sowing, it will be followed by a reaping. The seed may be carried away by wild birds, or wither on stony ground, or be choked by thorns. "Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation."

3. The growth of the sown seed is secret; secret also is its failure. It is quite true, there may be grace in the heart of a neighbour unseen, unsuspected by me; but the heart of my neighbour may be graceless while I am in its earlier stages ignorant of the fact. The gnawing of a worm at the root of one plant is for a time as secret as the healthful growth of another. "Lord, is it I?" I must not too lightly assume either in the natural or the spiritual husbandry, that everything is prospering that is out of sight.

4. Though the sower is helpless after he has cast the seed into the ground, he should not be hopeless; we know that the seed is a living thing, and will grow except where it is impeded by extraneous obstacles. "The word of God is quick (living) and powerful."

5. In every case the harvest, in one sense, will come; on every spot of all the field there will be a reaping. If one set of ministers do not reap there, another will. Where there is not conversion, there will be condemnation. The regeneration is one harvest; the judgment is another. The angels are not sowers, but they are reapers. Where the men who sowed the seed find nothing to reap during the day of grace, those ministering spirits to whom no seed has been intrusted will be sent with a sickle to cut down and cast away. The first harvest is like the first resurrection; blessed are they who have part in it. In the ministry of the Baptist, the appointed preparer of his way, Christ comes from heaven to earth on the blessed errand of gathering his wheat into the garner: rejoice therefore, Christians; he has prepared for you a place, and he will bring you safely to it; but take heed and beware of hypocrisy; for see, while he comes to bring home the wheat, he carries a "fan in his hand" (Matt. iii. 12).

XVI.

THE TWO DEBTORS.

"And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat. And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him; for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on. There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace."--LUKE vii. 36-50.

An interesting and difficult question regarding the harmony of the Gospels generally attaches itself to the exposition of this parable. Each of the four Evangelists narrates that a woman anointed Jesus while he sat at table; and it becomes difficult to determine with certainty whether they refer all to the same event, or some to one event, and some to another. In the narratives features of similarity occur; leading to the one conclusion, and features of dissimilarity leading to the other. The prevailing opinion now is that Matthew, Mark, and John, speak all of the same fact, and that Luke speaks of another. I have thought it right to mention, that this question has been often discussed in connection with our parable; but I shall do no more. The decision of it here and now is by no means necessary: the interpretation of the parable does not in any measure depend upon it. It is an inquiry belonging to a different branch of Scripture exposition, and to discuss it here would tend to distract attention from the subject in hand.

Assuming then without argument that Luke here records an event which is not mentioned by any of the other Evangelists, I shall proceed at once to examine its substance as the ground from which the parable directly springs. The husbandman at one time operates directly on the tree, and at another time directly on the ground in the neighbourhood; in both cases however, and in both alike, his aim is to increase the fruitfulness of the tree; it is thus that an expositor must in some instances turn his attention in the first place to the surrounding context which suggests and sustains the parable, as the best means of ascertaining the import of the parable itself.

A Pharisee invited Jesus to a feast: he accepted the invitation and joined the company at the appointed place and time. A woman who had been of bad character in the town, as soon as she learned that he was there, entered the apartment where the guests reclined at meat, and stood at his feet behind him weeping. Her tears rained down on his feet; she wiped them off with her hair, and then anointed them with precious ointment.

Let us endeavour to determine precisely the character of the several actors and the meaning of their acts.

The Pharisee, having formed, on the whole, a favourable opinion of Jesus as a prophet in Israel, and being, as he supposed, in a position to act the patron, with benevolent intent, but with a high estimate of his own character and position, invited to his house and table the remarkable Nazarene, whose miracles and doctrines were in every one's mouth. Doubtless he expected, also, that by closer contact, and by means of his own shrewd observation, he should be able definitely to make up his mind on the character of the new prophet, and so to favour or frown on him according to the result.

While her actions only are recorded in the narrative, we may, by the light of the Lord's subsequent declarations, also read without danger of mistake the emotions that were working in this woman's heart. She had fallen into a course of vice, and consequently lost caste in the community. Knowing that she had lost the respect of her neighbours, she had lost respect for herself. From a sinful act she had glided into sinful habits. Perhaps remorse from time to time made her inwardly sorrowful; but she put on a bold countenance, and tried to laugh down rebuke.

This woman, while in this state, crept one day to the outer edge of a crowd in the neighbourhood of the city, to satisfy her curiosity as to the cause of the concourse. In the centre stood Jesus of Nazareth preaching; and all the people in solemn silence hung upon his lips. She listened too, and heard some wonderful words; God loved the world; God pardons sin--pardons freely, pardons it all; pardons chief sinners; loves to pardon; has given his Son to seek and save; this is the Son, revealing the Father, and inviting the prodigal to return to the Father's bosom. Hark; he says, "Come unto me all that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Peeping through openings in the crowd, she might see the love that beamed in the preacher's countenance, as well as hear the gracious words that came from his mouth.

The woman's heart is touched and taken; the woman is won. By that still small voice the devil's chains are broken, the rocky heart is rent. When the congregation dissolves, she steals away to her house alone. There her eye falls on some gaudy ornaments, the instruments of her sin, and the badges of her shame. Whence this sudden strong loathing? Perhaps she grasps them convulsively and flings them on the fire, shutting her eyes that she may not see her tormentors. She sits down, and searches her own heart,--her own life. She discovers that it is altogether vile. Her own heart is the darkest, deepest pit out of hell; she is the chief of sinners. She never knew this before. She had often experienced twitches of conscience for particular acts of evil; but now her whole life and her whole being seem one dark, deep, crimson sin. What has done this? It was that word of Jesus; it was the pardon that he offered; it was the divine compassion that beamed on his countenance and glowed on his lips. She was melted. The old stony heart flowed down like water, and went away; and a new, tender, trustful, loving heart came up in its place. She is not the same woman that she was yesterday. She is a new creature in Christ Jesus; but she could not yet tell the name and describe the nature of the change that had taken place in her being, as a new-born child could not announce the fact and explain the nature of its birth. The infant will manifest its birth and life, by seeking sustenance from its mother's breast; and when the child has grown, the grown man will reflect on his birth, and perhaps understand in some measure its nature and importance. Such was the passing from death into life in the experience of that woman. Conversion in our own day often takes place as secretly, and as soon. The word of the Lord that proved itself quick and powerful then, liveth and abideth the same for ever; and this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto us still.

The natural history of conversion does not change with the lapse of centuries, any more than natural history in other departments; there were doubtless examples of secret regeneration in the time of our Lord and his apostles, as well as in our own time. He knew this woman's case as well as he knew the case of the woman who pressed through the crowd to touch the hem of his garment. That woman, when she was healed, would have kept her case secret at the time if she could; she was put about and ashamed when she was called in public, and her experience proclaimed in the crowd. It suited the purpose of the Lord to make known her experience on the spot; that method he saw would do most for his kingdom. But in the case of this woman who was a sinner, he did not act in the same way. There are diversities in his operation. He foresaw an occasion when her repentance and faith could be turned to greater account; accordingly he postponed the public announcement of her forgiveness till then. True to the new instinct that had been planted in her heart, this saved sinner, as soon as she heard that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, grasped the richest offering she possessed and hastened to the spot. Her plans, I think, were not fully laid. The impulses of a bursting heart drew her to the place where her Redeemer was; but she had not foreseen all the difficulties, and consequently had not prepared the means of overcoming them.

Arrived at the house, she entered the open door; and passing through the attendants, penetrated into the apartment where the company reclined at meat. The table stood in the middle of the hall, and sofas in a continuous line were placed near it on either side. On these sofas were the guests, not sitting as we do with their feet on the floor beneath the table, but reclining with their feet projecting a little behind, the sandals having previously been drawn off by servants, for coolness and comfort. Thus it was easy for one who entered the room, to walk up to any individual of the company and converse with him during the meal; and, so far from being out of the way and unnatural, it was the easiest and most natural of all things, that the woman, when she came to Jesus, should touch his feet. This was precisely the part of his body which she could most easily reach, and which she might bathe and anoint, while the meal proceeded, without difficulty to herself or inconvenience to him.

We shall fall into a mistake if we think either that the act as here narrated was altogether accordant with the habits of the time and place, or altogether contrary to them; it was partly the one and partly the other.

In the first place it was an act radically diverse from the intrusion of a stranger to anoint the feet of a guest sitting at dinner with his friend in our country and our day. Such an act among us would be so unprecedented, so difficult, so awkward, that it would shock every observer, if it were attempted, and bring the whole business to a stand. There and then, in as far as the entrance of a person unbidden is concerned, there was nothing to attract attention. There is abundant evidence that even at this day, it is common in the East for persons not of the party to enter the feast chamber during the progress of the meal, and sitting on seats by the wall, converse on business or politics with the guests that recline beside the table; and, further, from the position of the guests, it was not difficult, but easy to reach his feet. Thus far, all was accordant with use and wont. But as to the person who entered on that occasion, and the act which she performed, there was something strange and out of the way. It was fitted to attract attention, and to excite suspicion; and so indeed it did. A woman, coming in while the company sat at meat, and such a woman, habit and repute disreputable; and besides all this, the ardency of her emotions, and the familiarity of her acts, surprised the onlookers.

I think it important to notice these two sides of the case; so much of it was according to use and wont, that the entrance of the woman by itself did not surprise and shock the company; and yet so much of it was strange, that the curiosity of the company was aroused, and their attention arrested. The circumstances of the incident on both sides, were thus calculated to promote the design of Jesus, to instruct and reprove. There was as much of the ordinary in the act as prevented it from shocking the feelings; and as much of the extraordinary as awakened the interest of the spectators.

When she reached the feet of the Redeemer with the intention of anointing them in token of her adoring gratitude, her plan seems to have been deranged for the moment, by a sudden and uncontrollable flood of tears, as if the fountains of the great deep within her being had been opened, and grief and gladness, both at their height, had met and caused an overflow. From the position she had assumed those tears wet the feet of Jesus; and having no other towel, she, with a woman's sudden instinct, dried them again with her long flowing hair.[59]

[59] "She was forgiven much; therefore she loved much. As soon as she had learned that Jesus was at table in Simon the Pharisee's house, her heart drew her thither to him, that she might offer him the expression of her gratitude and love,--of her adoration and her joy. She took with her a phial of ointment, the costliest that she possessed, found an entrance into the Pharisee's house, and walked behind backs to the feet of Jesus, as he reclined at table on an elevated cushion. Arrived there, she is incapable of accomplishing her purpose. The thought of the greatness of her sin, and the greatness of the compassion of Jesus, broke her heart. She wept, and so unwittingly wet the feet of Jesus with her tears. Oh, salt, salutary tears! They are tears at once of repentance and gratitude. Now, she must first dry the Lord's feet again. But for this she had not prepared herself; for this she had nothing but her hair. So she wiped them with her hair; and kissed the feet of Jesus, and then anointed them with ointment. All this was the manifestation of her inward burning love to the Lord."--_Arndt_, ii, 85, 86.

"Now, when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him." It was an acknowledged sign of a true prophet to be a discerner of hearts. Simon had this test before his mind, and was secretly applying it to determine the claims of Jesus. But another principle lay deep in the heart of the Pharisee, which he considered applicable to the case in hand: he counted, as a matter of course, that a prophet, while he might sit at table on terms of equality with himself, a good man, would not accept any mark of homage from a bad one. He believed that, by his knowledge of the town, he had gained advantage over the prophet of Nazareth, who was a stranger, and had found a ground on which he might reject his claims. Simon knew the character of this woman. Believing that Jesus, as a righteous man, would have spurned her away if he had known what she was, he thought he saw in the fact of his bearing with her an evidence that he was ignorant of her character.

The reasoning was this. Either he knows what sort of a woman this is, or he does not. If he does not know, he is not a prophet, because he cannot discern spirits; if he knows, he is not a prophet, for he does not cast the disreputable person away. On either alternative, therefore, he is not a prophet.[60]

[60] The dilemma is well put by Dr. Trench.

* * * * *

I proceed now, under the direction of the Lord's own words, to consider the spiritual meaning and the practical use of the narrative. The creditor is God, in whom we live, and move, and have our being--from whom we derive all, and to whom we must account for all; the debtors sinful men; and the debts the sins which they have severally done.

Of the two, while both are in debt, one owes ten times as much as the other. A comparison of this proportion, with that which appears in the parable of the unmerciful servant, is interesting. Between the debt which the servant owed to his master, and the debt which a fellow-servant owed to him, there is no assignable proportion: so vast is the difference that we cannot form a definite conception of the relation. This is precisely what we should expect in order to show the disproportion, or want of all proportion, between sins against God and sins against a neighbour. In this parable, on the other hand, the debt in both cases is due to the master, and not in either due by one servant to another. We accordingly do not expect, and do not find a disproportion so vast; and yet, there is a great difference between the two sums. In the one case the debt is five hundred pence, and in the other fifty: the less is only one-tenth of the larger sum. Although there are aggravations in one case, and alleviations in another, I think the disproportion would not have been so great as in the parable it actually is, if it had been the design of the Lord here to teach us how much the guilt of one man may exceed that of another in the sight of God. From the circumstances of this case we may safely gather that these sums represent not the absolute quantity of sin-debt that stood against these men severally in the book of divine justice, but the estimate which they severally made of their own shortcomings. The fifty and the five hundred pence indicate the amounts which the debtors severally acknowledged, rather than those which the creditor might have claimed.

The plan of providence in the present life permits every man to keep his own accounts of debt to God: no neighbour is empowered to record the items, and sum them up, and keep a record of their amount against you. The Romish priesthood attempt to usurp this prerogative, but in its purpose it is boldly unjust, and in its results miserably ineffectual. They ought not, in point of principle, to make the attempt; and they are not able, in point of fact, to accomplish their object. Every man keeps his own account book; and no other man dare or can look into it, except in as far as the owner opens it of his own accord for the inspection of his neighbour.

Some teachers adopt this principle, with good effect, in the discipline of children at school. Each child has a book in which he marks, from day to day and from hour to hour, his own successes and his own failures; and according to this record the prizes are awarded or withheld. When the child is put upon his honour, it is expected that he will be honourable. Probably a large balance of advantage results from this contrivance where it is judiciously managed; but it is capable of telling two ways, and does tell in opposite ways with different persons. If the child deal fairly, the principle of truth within him will be strengthened by habit; but if he cheat, all of the sense of honesty that remained within him will soon be worn away. "To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken, even that which he hath."

But while each man is permitted to keep the account of his own sins against God, and no human being can rightfully possess a duplicate, there is a duplicate: another record is kept in the Book of God. That record is true; and woe to the self-deceiver who made false entries in his own favour all his life, when it is found that the two accounts will not tally in the great day.

Simon the entertainer kept account of his own debt to God--his sins of omission and commission--and balanced them from time to time against a column of merits which he possessed. The balance, he confesses, was against himself, and the difference he set down as the amount due: it is expressed by fifty. The woman, on the other hand, had during a course of wickedness lost all reckoning, both of her own sins and of God's mercies. Lately she had obtained a copy of the missing documents. A reflection of the charge had been suddenly thrown down from the archives of the Judge, upon the tablet of her own conscience. Without attempting to tax the account in her own favour, she accepted it in full, and expressed it by five hundred--ten times as much as the Pharisee had laid to his own charge. He, taking his own reckoning for authority, counted his liability light: she, taking her data from God's law, counted her liability heavy.

In the story, as it is constructed by the Lord for the instruction and reproof of Simon, the love of both servants to their master is caused, and consequently measured by, the forgiveness which they had received: one having obtained the remission of a small debt, loved the forgiver a little; the other, having obtained the remission of a great debt, loved the forgiver much. In any such case, however, love springs up strong in proportion, not to the absolute amount of the debt remitted, but to the estimate of its amount which the debtor himself has formed. This principle must be kept in view when we apply the lesson of the parable to Simon. The Scripture does not concede that the amount of forgiveness that he needed and obtained was in respect to that of the poor woman as fifty to five hundred: the Scripture does not even determine that Simon was, in point of fact, forgiven at all. In its application to the case in hand, the Lord's instruction is equivalent to the conditional formula, If you have been forgiven fifty pence, and she five hundred, whether will she or you experience the more fervent gratitude to your common benefactor? This, I think, is the only true and consistent method of applying the parable to the experience of the woman and the Pharisee. The point on which all the weight should lean is not the absolute amount of guilt incurred by the sinner and forgiven by God, but the estimate made by the sinner of his own sin, and his consequent appreciation of the boon he receives when it is unconditionally blotted out. This view, besides being in itself right, possesses this practical advantage, that it steers entirely clear of the entangling question, If the greatest sinner, when forgiven, loves his Forgiver most, will not he be happiest at last who is the guiltiest now? There is no place here or elsewhere in the Scriptures for such a speculation: it is not admissible in any form. The conception which the parable produces when legitimately applied is at once beautiful and beneficent: love to the Saviour rises in the heart of a saved man in proportion to the sense which he entertains of his own sinfulness on the one hand, and the mercy of God on the other. Thus the height of a saint's love to the Lord is as the depth of his own humility: as this root strikes down unseen in the ground, that blossoming branch rises higher in the sky.

The woman did not speak of her own acts, either within herself or to her neighbours; but her acts are, notwithstanding, proclaimed and recorded. They are minutely catalogued (ver. 44-46), by the Lord himself. Nothing is lost on him; his ear is open, and his eye. As in providence not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father's permission and regard, so in the new covenant not a tear falls for sin indulged, not a sigh rises for deliverance from its pollution, without attracting the notice and obtaining the approval of the Sinner's Friend. Love, burning as a night lamp silently in a penitent's breast, or bursting forth in impetuous praise, or calmly supplying the motive power of a useful life--love in the heart of the forgiven sinner, serves and pleases the forgiving Redeemer.

One point still remains unnoticed, needing indeed some notes of explanation, but capable of being easily and fully explained; it lies in these words of Jesus: "Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins which are many are forgiven; for she loved much." A question has been raised here, Did the woman's love to the Lord cause him to forgive her, or did his pardon freely bestowed cause the forgiven woman to love him? To state the question is in effect to answer it. This announcement which Jesus makes in the close of his exposition is obviously meant to run in the line of the parable; but if you understand it to represent the woman's love as the procuring cause of pardon from the Lord, it runs right in the face of the parable from first to last. The love of the servants, the lesser as well as the larger love, is not the cause but the effect of the Master's kindness; and it would not only be out of harmony with the parable, but in sheer opposition to it in letter and in spirit, to understand it as countenancing the doctrine that the sinner's spontaneous love to God merits and obtains forgiveness.

Although, in sentences of this form, it is more common to express the effect in the first clause, and the cause, introduced by a For in the latter; yet the converse method is frequently employed and perfectly correct. You may say, Tan-waste is strewn on the street opposite this mansion, for a member of the family lies within it sick; or, A member of the family lies sick within this mansion, for tan-waste is strewn on the contiguous street. In the first instance you place the cause last, and in the second instance the effect, using precisely the same formula in both. Nor is it difficult to perceive why Jesus places the effect of forgiveness in the prominent position here, for it is the only thing that is visible to the Pharisee whom he desires to instruct. The pardon which this woman had obtained Simon did not and could not see; but her love being embodied in action was palpable to his senses. The energetic act of adoration was evidence of the heart-love from which it sprang. To this love accordingly Jesus points, and thence infers the existence of the great forgiveness which prompted it. In the end, He confirms and seals, by his own lips, the pardon which the repenting sinner had already secretly received. The Redeemer's forgiving love to sinners is the only cause of all their love to him. "We love him because he first loved us." Have you seen a broad, straight path of silver brightness lying by night upon a smooth sea, and stretching from your feet away until it was lost in the distance--a path that seemed to have been trodden by the feet of all the saints who have ever passed through a shifting world to their eternal home. Oh that silver path by night across the sea,--it glittered much: but it was not its brightness that lighted up the moon in the sky. Neither was it the love to Jesus trembling in a believer's heart, that kindled forgiving love in him. We love him because he first loved us; the love that makes bright a forgiven sinner's path across the world was kindled by the light of life in the face of Jesus; from him and to him are all things.

There is a peculiarly wise and tender adaptation to our need in that feature of our Lord's character, which consists in his desiring and appreciating our love. He is not a distant, cold, omnipotence. He lavishes love on the world, but he is disappointed when the world does not throw back a reflection of his own love, as the rippling sea throws up to heaven again, the light it got from heaven. When the ten lepers were cleansed, and one returned to lavish love on his healer, that healer, while he enjoyed the single penitent's devotion, permitted a sigh to escape his lips, articulated in the sad pensive question, "Where are the nine?" I love the Lord for uttering that complaint. It proves to me that he counts it no intrusion when we burst in upon him with our glad thanksgiving. In the bold in-bursting of this woman; in her premeditated anointing, and unpremeditated tears, the Lord Jesus sees--tastes of the travail of his soul and is satisfied.

XVII.

THE GOOD SAMARITAN.

"And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise."--LUKE x. 30-37.

Logically this parable may be conveniently associated with that of the unmerciful servant. They constitute a pair; that teaches us to forgive the injurer; and this to help the injured.

On the almost pictured page of the evangelic history you may often observe two persons, sometimes in presence of a multitude, and sometimes far apart, engaged in close and earnest conversation. In most cases you discover, when you approach, that one of them is the Lord Jesus, and the other one of the lost whom he came to save. At one time it is a rich Jewish ruler, and at another a poor woman of Samaria; now, it is Nicodemus in a private house, and then Pilate in the judgment hall; here the Saviour, suffering, converses with the thief on the cross, and there the Saviour, reigning, calls to Saul as he is entering Damascus. Many of the precious words of Jesus which now constitute the heritage of the Church, were at first spoken in answer to friends or foes, during the period of his ministry on earth, or after he ascended into heaven.

Thus the Lord's word frequently took its form from the the character and conduct of those with whom he conversed. On their ignorance, or simplicity, or malice, his wisdom and goodness were cast for keeping till the end of time. The temper, and conceptions, and tricks of those Jews, like sand in a foundry, constituted the mould in which the pure gold of our Redeemer's instructions was poured; and like the sand, when they had served that purpose, they were allowed to fall asunder, as being of no further use.

Here is a case in which the question of a self-righteous Jew elicits and gives shape to the subsequent discourse of the Lord; here, accordingly, the meaning of the discourse depends, in a great measure, on the history in which it grows. At some pause in the Lord's discourse, while the multitude still remained on the spot expecting further instruction, a certain lawyer who was watching his opportunity, interposed with the demand, "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"[61] The question was not put in simplicity, with a view to obtain information, it was employed knowingly as an experiment and a test.

[61] "How eagerly would the critics seize on this passage, and pronounce the question of a certain lawyer to be identical with the narrative contained in Matt. xix. 16, only differently reported--if St. Luke had not himself subsequently narrated that second incident (xviii. 18)! This once more shows that many things could naturally, and would necessarily, occur more than once in the life of Jesus."--_Stier_.

Very many such questions were addressed to the Lord Jesus during the period of his public ministry by different persons, and with different motives. We may safely gather from the whole spirit of the narrative that this example, as to the character and motive of the questioner, was neither one of the best nor one of the worst. This scribe was not, on the one hand, like Nicodemus, a meek receptive disciple, prepared to drink the sincere milk of the word that he might grow thereby, nor was he like some, both of the Pharisaic and Sadducean parties, who came with cunning questions to ensnare and destroy. This man seems to have been from his own view point sincere and fair: his tempting aimed not to catch and betray, but simply to put the skill of the new Nazarene prophet to the test. The man was full, not of conscious malice against Jesus, but of ignorant confidence in himself.

The scribe's question is cast in the mould of the most unmitigated self-righteousness: "What shall _I do_ that _I may inherit_?" &c. No glimpse had he ever gotten of his own sinfulness, no conception did he ever entertain of the publican's prayer, "God be merciful to me a sinner."

Taking the man on his own terms, and meeting him on his own path, the Lord replies by the question, "What is written? and refers him to the law." The lawyer, a professed theologian, answers well. He gave a correct epitome of all moral duty, showing that love is the fulfilling of the law,--"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself."

The Lord approved the answer, seemed to require as to profession, not another word, and closed for the time the colloquy with the simple announcement, "This do and thou shalt live." A very great question crosses our path here, but we must not discuss it fully lest we should be diverted too far from our immediate object. This answer of the Lord we accept in all simplicity as the great universal cardinal truth in the case. Life was offered at first, and life is offered still as the reward of obedience. It is not safe, it is not needful to apologize for this statement or to explain it away; it is not in any sense contrary to evangelical doctrine. It is really true that the fulfilling of God's law will secure his favour. Nor is this a thing merely to be admitted in its own place when it comes up; it is the truth that lies at the foundation, and on which all other truth leans. The basis of all is,--Obedience deserves life, and disobedience deserves death. Mankind have disobeyed; we have all sinned, and are therefore all under condemnation. Nothing but a perfect obedience can gain God's favour. Hence the covenant, and hence the incarnation and sacrifice of Christ; hence the substitution of the just for the unjust. The Gospel is not an exception to the Law, "This do and thou shalt live;" the Gospel is founded on that Law. This Law Christ came not to destroy but to fulfil.

"This _do_ and thou shalt live:" whether by an emphasis on the word, or by an expressive glance at the moment in the speaker's eye, or by the simple majesty of the truth declared, the scribe's conscience was aroused and arrested. The questioner was not altogether comforted by the result of the conversation; he could not allow the matter to drop there. The reason why he continued the dialogue is expressly given; he was "willing to justify himself." Justify himself! But who accused him? Not the Lord: he had only said, "This do and thou shalt live." The man's own conscience was awakened and at work: well he knew at that moment that he had not done what his lips confessed he should do; he had not loved God with all his heart, and his neighbour as himself.

It is interesting to notice the principle on which he proceeds to defend himself: conscious that love to neighbours is in his heart a very narrow thing, he conducts his argument so as to justify its narrowness. If he can show that his neighbours are limited to a small circle of relatives, with the addition perhaps of some chosen individuals beyond the line of blood, he may yet be able to live on good terms with himself as a keeper of the law; accordingly, in order to form a basis for his own defence, he inquires, "Who is my neighbour?"

The parable constitutes the answer. But before we proceed to examine its contents, it is of great importance to observe that it is not a direct answer to the scribe's question. It is the answer which the Lord saw meet to give, but it is not a decision on the case which had been submitted for adjudication. In his question the scribe contemplated other people, and speculated upon who had the right to receive kindness: the answer of Jesus, on the contrary, contemplates the scribe himself, and inquires whether he is prepared to bestow kindness. As to those who should receive our love there is no limit: the real subject of inquiry concerns the man who bestows it. The question is not, Who is my neighbour? but, Am I neighbourly? This is the line in which the parable proceeds. It does not supply the scribe with an answer to the question which he had put; but it supplies him with another question which he desired to evade. He is not permitted to ride off upon a speculative inquiry about the abstract rights of other men; he is pinned down to a personal practical duty. "A certain man went down from Jerusalem," &c. It is a narrow, dreary mountain pass. By nature it is fitted to be a haunt of robbers; if there are any robbers in the country, they will certainly gravitate to this spot. In point of fact it was notoriously unsafe for travellers in that day, and it is equally dangerous still. A particular portion of the road acquired the name of the _path of blood_, and under the feeble government of the Turks, as well as in more ancient times, it has well deserved its appellation. The scene of the event therefore is laid in a place which is eminently suitable to its character: the audience who heard the story first would at once and fully recognise its appropriateness.

Robbers assailed the solitary traveller, and after plundering him of his money, left him so severely wounded that he could do nothing to help himself, and must soon have died if he had not obtained help. Although it is not expressly stated, it appears from the whole complexion of the narrative that this man was a Jew. Indeed this is so obvious and so necessary that the point of the parable would be lost if it were otherwise: I think the nationality of the unfortunate sufferer is not stated, precisely because it could not be mistaken.

"And by chance there came down a certain priest that way," &c. By chance is an unfortunate translation here. It was not by chance that the priest came down by that road at that time, but by a specific arrangement, and in exact fulfilment of a plan; not the plan of the priest, not the plan of the wounded traveller, but the plan of God. By "coincidence" ([Greek: kata synkyrian]) the priest came down: that is, by the conjunction of two things, in fact, which were previously constituted a pair in the providence of God. In the result they fell together according to the omniscient designer's plan. This is the true theory of the divine government, and this is the account of the matter which the parable contains.[62]

[62] The analogy between the meetings exhibited in this parable and the meeting of Philip with the Ethiopian (Acts viii.) is interesting and instructive. In both cases the place is a desert, in both a man in great need and a man who has the means of supplying that need meet each other there. Here the want and its supply are material and temporal, there they are moral and spiritual. The man who fell among thieves on the way to Jericho suffered from bodily wounds, and the Samaritan who came to his relief appropriately applied material remedies: the Ethiopian treasurer, in that way towards Gaza which is desert, suffered in his soul, and the name of Christ was the ointment which Philip the evangelist poured into his wound. These two cases are indeed diverse, but as we learn from the Scriptures throughout, they proceed, both as to disease and cure, upon analogous principles, so that the knowledge of the one throws light upon the meaning of the other. The meeting in the desert near Gaza did not happen by chance, it was a tryst duly made and exactly kept, for "the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise and go toward the south," &c. (Acts viii. 26). The appointment for the meetings in the valley between Jerusalem and Jericho was as certainly made, although it has not been as expressly recorded.

By previous appointment and actual exact coincidence that meeting took place between the hale comfortable priest and the wounded half-dead traveller in the bloody path between Jerusalem and Jericho. It is thus that all meetings take place between man and man. "The poor ye have always with you," said Jesus to his disciples. It is not only that once for all the poor and the rich are placed in the same world: but day by day, as life's current flows, by divine unerring purpose those who need are placed in the way of those who have plenty, and the strong are led to the spot where the feeble lie. We are accustomed to admire the wisdom and foresight that spread layers of iron ore and layers of coal near each other in the crust of the earth that the one might give the melting heat which the other needed; but the divine government is a much more minute and pervading thing. The same omniscient provider has appointed each meeting between those who are in want and those who have abundance; and for the same reason, that the one may give what the other needs, and that both may be blessed in the deed. But he who lays the plan watches its progress, and is displeased when men do not take the opportunity that has been given. When he has brought the strong to the spot where the weak are lying he is displeased to see them pass by on the other side. "Lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of the world." Is that a pleasant promise? No; if after the Lord has led you to the spot where the needy are perishing, you pass by on the other side; it is a dreadful thing to have him beside us, looking on in such a case as this.

We are led to suppose that the wounded man was not only unable to walk, but that he could not even move his head, so as to observe at a distance the approach of a traveller. Possibly the sound of footsteps was the first warning he received that a human being was near. Perhaps he started in terror lest it should be the robbers returning to take what remained of his life away. But as the priest came and looked upon him, he might well begin to hope. This is a man who is consecrated to the service of God; he is even now on his way from his turn of office in the temple. He who gets so near to God will surely show mercy to man. No: the priest passed by on the other side. We are not informed what his excuses were; but we may be quite sure he had plenty, and that they were very good. Those who seek a good excuse for neglecting the labour of love always find one. He was alone; he could neither cure the unfortunate man there nor carry him away. To make the attempt might bring the robbers down from their fastnesses upon himself, and thus he should only throw away a good life after a damaged one. Right well would he justify himself that evening as he told his adventure in the pass to his friends or his family in Jericho. Love saw no excuses for leaving the man lying in his blood, for it was not looking for them; but selfishness saw them at a glance, and would have created them in plenty if there had been none at hand.

In like manner also a Levite came to the spot, looked for a moment on the sufferer, and passed on.

At last a Samaritan came up; and when he saw the wounded man "he had compassion on him." The root of the matter lies here: "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks," and the hand labours; the fountain is opened, and you may expect to see a flowing stream. Love in presence of human suffering takes the form of compassion; and love in all its forms tends to express itself in action: compassion issues in help.

In this case evidently compassion was the secret force that produced all the subsequent beneficence: yet we must not too readily count that all is safe for practical efficiency, when in presence of a brother's suffering this tender emotion begins to flutter about the heart. As the heart itself is deceitful, so also in turn are each of its affections; even those that in name and nature are good may swerve aside after they have sprung, and degenerate into selfishness. Probably both the priest and the Levite experienced some compassion as they looked on the pale and bleeding victim of lawless violence; perhaps they went away pleased with themselves on account of their tenderness, and somewhat angry with the wounded man for being wounded, and so hurting their sensibilities. The best things corrupted become the worst; and sometimes the sight of distress among poorer neighbours stirs into fermentation some of the worst elements of character in the comfortable classes. A little water may spring in the bottom of the well; but if it do not increase so as to fill the cavity, and freely overflow, it will become fetid where it lies, and more noisome than utter dryness. It is quite possible, as to emotion, to be very languishing over the misfortunes of others, and yet do the unfortunate as little good as the misanthrope who laughs at human sorrows.

But while the spurious compassion is thus vile and worthless, the true is beyond expression beautiful and good. It breaks forth in power, and sweeps down whatever obstacles may be thrown in its way. In this parable the Lord expressly points to the fountain of compassion opened before he invites us to follow the stream of beneficence in its course.

The nationality of the compassionate traveller is an important feature of the parable; he was a Samaritan. The Jews and Samaritans were locally nearest neighbours, but morally most unneighbourly. An enmity of peculiar strength and persistency kept the communities asunder from age to age. The alienation, originating in a difference of race, was kept alive by rivalry in religion. The Samaritans endeavoured to cover the defects of their pedigree by a zealous profession of orthodox forms in divine worship. The temple which they presumed to erect on Gerizzim as a rival to that of Jerusalem was naturally more odious to the Jews than others that were more distant in space, and more widely diverse in profession. Distinct traces of the keen reciprocal enmity that raged between the Jews and the Samaritans crop out here and there incidentally in the evangelical history, as in chapter ix. 54.

Most certainly the Lord does not here intend to intimate that all the priests and Levites were cruel, and all Samaritans tender-hearted: to apply them so would be to wrest his words. This teacher grasps his instrument by the extremity, first one extremity and then the other, that his lesson may reach further than if he had grasped it by the middle. The honourable office, and even the generally high character, of priest and Levite will not cover the sin of selfishly neglecting the sufferings of a fellow-creature: self-sacrificing love is approved by God and useful to men as well in a Samaritan as in a Jew. There is no respect of persons with God. It is quite certain that there were benevolent priests and unkind Samaritans; and it is also certain that the Lord would not overlook kindness in the one, nor sanction cruelty in the other. The lesson was addressed to a Jew; and therefore the lesson is so constructed as to smite at one blow the two poles on which a vain Jewish life in that day turned--"they trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others." That high thing, the scribe's self-righteous trust in his birth-right, the Lord will by the parable bring low; and this low thing, the mean position of a Samaritan in the estimate of the scribe, he will at the same moment exalt. He hath done all things well.[63]

[63] In the case of the ten lepers (Luke xvii. 16), which is not a parable, but a history, we learn that the one who experienced and expressed gratitude to God for his recovery was a Samaritan. Whether their low and despised condition had been to some extent blessed in making them more humble and receptive than their Jewish neighbours, we do not know; but, in point of fact, in the historical incident a Samaritan was more ready than the Jew to give praise to God; and in the construction of the parable a Samaritan is represented as also more beneficent to men.

In connection with this case a striking example may be seen of the divine impartiality of the Scriptures. Some persons, with a view to objects of their own, take pleasure in representing ministers of religion as more self-seeking and less generous than those who make no religious profession. The contrast between the Levite and the Samaritan, if this case stood alone, might seem to support their theory. But there is no respect of persons or classes with God; you may learn from the Scriptures--and that, too, from the writings of the same apostle--that the Samaritans were not all kind, and the Levites not all hard-hearted. They were Samaritans (Luke ix. 53) who would not permit Jesus and his disciples, when they were weary, to pass the night in their village; and he was a Levite (Acts iv. 36) who was named Son of Consolation, and sold his property that he might distribute the proceeds among the poor.

The Samaritan had compassion on the wounded man; and the emotion is known to be genuine by the fruits which it immediately bears: he bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine. These methods doubtless represent the opinions and practice of the time and place as to the treatment of wounds. They constituted the expression of the Samaritan's painstaking compassion; and for our present purpose no further notice of them is needful.[64]

[64] The Samaritan was riding; for he set the wounded man "on his own beast." What of the priest and the Levite?--were they riding, or performing the journey on foot? If they were both pedestrians, while the Samaritan had a mule or an ass, it is obvious that the two parties were not on equal terms, and that consequently no fair test of their benevolence could in that transaction be obtained. On that very ground I think it is certain that they were riding as well as he. The parable is not a history, containing the simple facts of any given case, without respect to the lessons which the facts may contain; it is a picture, constructed according to its Author's mind, and constructed for the purpose of expressing a particular lesson which the Author already had in his mind, and desired to teach. The doctrine which the Teacher intended to declare obviously requires that the two parties whose compassion is compared and contrasted should be on equal terms. The lesson which he meant to convey would slip through and be lost, like water through a leaky vessel, if the priest and Levite were walking when they found the wounded man: we must, therefore, if we would not do violence to the parable, assume that both were mounted. With this conclusion, resulting from the nature of the case, the expressions in their minutest details correspond. The journey of the priest is narrated in the same terms as that of the Samaritan: "A certain priest came down that way," and "A certain Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was:" we never learn that the Samaritan had a beast of burden until he sets the half-dead traveller upon its back. There was no occasion for mentioning the priest's mule, for he made no special or remarkable use of it.

The inn to which the patient was conducted must have been more than a khan built on the way-side, and left empty, a free shelter to each party of travellers who chose to occupy it for a night. It must have been something more nearly allied to our modern system; for there was a resident manager, who kept in store such provisions as travellers needed, and supplied them to customers for money.

The Samaritan remained all night with his patient, and then intrusted the case to the care of the inn-keeper, paying a sum to account, and pledging his credit for the balance, if the expense should ultimately exceed the amount of his deposit. Two denaria (pence) were at the time and in the circumstances of value sufficient to meet the probable outlay.

Now comes the searching question, "Which of these three thinkest thou was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?" The scribe, shut up to one answer, gives it rightly, beginning perhaps to be dimly conscious of its bearing upon himself,--"He that showed mercy on him." Here, as has been already noted, the tables are turned upon the questioner. The point on which attention is fixed is not, Who of all mankind have a right to receive kindness? but, Are you willing to show kindness, as far as you have opportunity, to every human being who is in need? The scribe desired to select a few who might rank as his neighbours, hoping that by limiting their number he might show kindness to each, without any substantial sacrifice of his own ease. The Lord shows him that love is like light: wherever it truly burns it shines forth in all directions, and falls on every object that lies in its way. Love that desires to limit its own exercise is not love. Love that is happier if it meet only one who needs help than if it met ten, and happiest if it meet none at all, is not love. One of love's essential laws is expressed in those words of the Lord, that the apostles fondly remembered after he had ascended, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

"Then said Jesus, Go and do thou likewise." Through the self-sufficient Jewish theologian the command is addressed to us. The direct form of the injunction intimates, what might be gathered from the nature of the case, that this parable is more strictly an example than a symbol. It does not convey spiritual lessons under the veil of material imagery: it rather describes a case of practical beneficence, and then plainly demands that we should imitate it. However various the required reduplications may be in their form, they are the same in kind with the sample which is here exhibited.

Besides this more obvious and literal application, almost all the expositors find in the parable an allegorical representation of the world's lost state and Christ's redeeming work. In this scheme the wounded man represents our race ruined by sin; the robbers, the various classes of our spiritual enemies; the priest and Levite, the various legal and ineffectual methods by which human wisdom endeavours to cure sin; and the Samaritan shadows forth the Redeemer in his advent and his office. I mention this scheme in order to intimate that I cannot adopt it. From the nature of the things, there must be some likeness to our Redeemer's mission, wherever a loving heart pities a fallen brother, and a strong hand is stretched out to help him; but beyond this general analogy I see nothing. I can derive no benefit from even the most cautious and sober prosecution of the details. I find in it a reproving and guiding example of a true and effective compassion; but I find nothing more. Nor should we think the lesson unworthy of its place, although it does not directly reveal the redemption of Christ; He who loved us, and whose love to us is the fountain and pattern of all our benevolent love to each other, counted it a suitable exercise of his prophetic office to teach his disciples their relative duties in life. The lesson of this parable is parallel with that other lesson, "Love one another, as I have loved you."[65]

[65] Dräseke has happily expressed the conception that to love is truly to live: "Wir finden hier demnach die Lehre: Willst du leben, liebe."--_Vom Reich G._, ii. 130.

Some who experience a genuine love are so poor that when they meet a sufferer they cannot supply his wants. In such a case the Lord acknowledges the will, and knows why the deed does not follow. In the example of the widow's mite he has left it on record that he does not despise the gift because of its smallness. Nay, further, he approves and rewards the emotion when it is true, although the means of material help be altogether wanting: "I was sick and in prison, and ye came unto me."[66]

[66] "If the robbers had seized the Samaritan before he was able to accomplish his design, his work would have been accomplished in the sight of God;--and if the priest and Levite had given help on account of approaching spectators, it would have been of no value."--_Stier_.

In the vast mass and complicated relations of modern society, it is extremely difficult to apply right principles in the department of material benevolence. On two opposite sides we are liable to err; and we ought on either side to watch and pray that we enter not into temptation. (1.) It would be a mischievous mistake to give money, food, and clothes to every importunate beggar who contrives to cross our path and present an appearance of distress. There are men, women, and children in our day, who trade upon their sores, and even make sores to trade upon. To give alms indiscriminately, in these circumstances, is both to waste means and propagate improvidence. But (2.) it is not enough to resist importunities which may proceed from feigned distress. Shut your hand resolutely against the whine of trained, unreal pauperism; but, at the same time, diligently search out the true sufferers, and liberally supply their wants. If from defective knowledge errors must sometimes be committed, better far that now and then a shilling should be lost, by falling into unworthy hands, than that our hearts should be drained of their compassion and dried hard by the habit of seeing human suffering and leaving it unrelieved. "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth;" it is better that his abundance should be diminished, by an occasional excess of disbursement, than that love, in which his life really lies, should wither in his breast for want of exercise. "The milk of human kindness" this compassion has been called; but let us remember that if no needy child is permitted to draw it, this milk will soon cease to flow.

XVIII.

THE FRIEND AT MIDNIGHT.

"And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened."--LUKE xi. 5-10.

In prayer, as in every other department of his ministry, the Lord Jesus gave his disciples both example and precept: he prayed in their presence, and taught them to pray. The order of events at the beginning of this chapter is worthy of notice: it was the Lord's praying that led to the Lord's Prayer. The disciples heard their Master praying, and requested him to teach them also to pray: in reply he imparted to them the brief germinal directory which the Church has been living on ever since, and which the Church will live on till her Redeemer come again.

"As he was praying in a certain place;"--the scene here presented is sublime and mysterious. The Son of man--the Son of God in our nature, is praying to the Father, and his followers are standing near. Silently, reverently they look and listen. They bate their breath till the prayer is done, and then eagerly press the request, "Lord, teach us to pray." They observed in their Master while he prayed a strange separation from the world, a conscious nearness to God, a delight in the Father's presence, and a familiarity in communion with the Father, which seemed to them like heaven upon earth. Fondly desiring to partake of these blessed privileges, they besought their Master to show them the way. He complied with their request. He taught them as one teaches children--he put words in their mouths. Behold, the natural history of the Lord's Prayer! Thus sprang that wonderful specimen-prayer, which serves at once as the first lesson for babes beginning, and the fullest exercise of strong men's powers.[67]

[67] This seems, however, not to have been the first occasion on which he gave "The Lord's Prayer" to the disciples; it is embodied in the Sermon on the Mount, which belongs to an earlier date. The learners were defective both in understanding and memory; and the Master gave them "line upon line."

Having taught his followers first by praying in their presence, and then by dictating an example of prayer, he next gives them a specific lesson on importunity and perseverance in praying. This lesson he has been pleased to impart in the form of a parable--"And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend," &c.

The picture refers to a simple, primitive condition of society, and reveals corresponding social habits. We must abandon our own modern, artificial view-point, ere we can comprehend and appreciate the facts on which the parable is based. Some cottages, built near each other for common safety, are owned and possessed by the cultivators of the surrounding soil. Daylight has disappeared, and the inhabitants of the hamlet, wearied with their toil, have all retired to rest. Meantime a benighted traveller is threading his way to the spot expecting food and shelter in the house of his friend. It is midnight ere he arrives; for, footsore and weary, he has consumed many hours in accomplishing the distance between his resting-place at noon and his destination for the night. The inmates, hearing his knocking and recognising his voice, forthwith open the door and hospitably receive the traveller.

But here a new difficulty occurs: the bread prepared for the household had satisfied their wants for the day, but none remained over. The last remnant had been consumed at the evening meal, and the family had retired to rest with the intention of providing early in the morning for the wants of the following day. They had not a morsel to set before the weary stranger. The head of the house, willing to undergo any amount of trouble rather than seem lacking in hospitality, determined to borrow even at that late hour the necessary supply of bread. To the door of his nearest neighbour, accordingly, he went, and knocked as the traveller had already knocked at his own. Between the two villagers a conversation now takes place, the one lying in bed within, and the other standing on the street without. The request is met at first by a polite but peremptory refusal. The hour is untimely; the children are asleep; unwonted movements in the house will awaken and alarm them: better that one stranger should fast till morning than that a whole family should be disturbed in the night.

But the suppliant at the door has taken the matter much to heart. The customs of society elevate the exercise of hospitality into the highest rank of virtues: he was ashamed to be caught off his guard, and unable to comply with the cardinal social duty of the East. He knew not how to meet his friend and confess that he had no bread in his house; bread he must have, and will not want; he plies his request accordingly. He will listen to no refusal; he continues to knock and plead. To every answer from within, "I will not give," he sends a reply from without, "I shall have." It was for the sake of shielding his own sleeping family from disturbance at midnight that this neighbour had, in the first instance, refused; but now he discovers that the method which he had adopted to preserve the seemly stillness of night is the surest way of disturbing it. At first, that he might protect his sleeping family from disturbance, he refused; but at last, for the same reason, he complied. Although he would not give from friendship, he gave to importunity.

This parable is remarkable in that the temporal and spiritual, instead of lying parallel throughout their length, touch each other only at one point. They are like two straight rigid rods laid one upon another at right angles; all the weight of the upper rod lies on the under at one spot, and therefore presses there with tenfold intensity. The comparison has been chosen, I think, precisely because of this quality. Because the analogy does not hold good in every feature, it better serves the purpose in hand: the point of comparison delivers its lesson all the more emphatically when it stands alone.

When you have been convinced that God cares for his creatures, and have therefore begun, in the Mediator's name, to pray;--when you have not only said a prayer in fulfilment of a commanded duty, but felt a want, and like a little child requested your Father in heaven to supply it, another lesson concerning prayer remains still to be learned--to persevere. When you have asked once--asked many times, and failed to obtain relief, you are tempted gradually to lose hope and abandon prayer. Here the lesson of the parable comes in: it teaches you to continue asking until you receive. Ask as a hungry child asks his mother for bread. It is not a certain duty prescribed, so that when you have performed it you are at liberty to go away. Nor is it, Ask so many times--whether seven or seventy times seven: it is, Ask until you obtain your desire. When the Lord desired specially to recommend importunity in prayer, he selected a case which teaches importunity and nothing more. He gives us an example in which unceasing pertinacity alone triumphed over all obstacles, and counsels us to go and do likewise when we ask good things from our Father in heaven.

In this parable, as in that of the unjust judge, a human motive that is mean is employed to illustrate a divine motive that is high and holy. In both cases the reason of the choice is the same; and in both the reason of the choice becomes the explanation of the difficulty. An example of persevering importunity in asking was needed in order to become the vehicle of the spiritual lesson; but in human affairs such an example cannot be found among the loving and generous: you must descend into some of the lower and harder strata of human character ere you reach a specimen of the pertinacious refusal which generates the pertinacious demand. That feature of the Father's government which the Son here undertakes to explain cannot otherwise be represented by analogies drawn from human experience. If the villager had been more generously benevolent, he would have complied at once with the request of his neighbour; but in that case no suitable example for the Lord's present purpose could have emerged from his act. In order to find an example of persevering importunity, it was necessary to select a case in which nothing but persevering importunity could prevail.

The terms are distinct and emphatic: "Though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth." The term [Greek: anaideian], translated "importunity," signifies freedom from the bashfulness which cannot ask a second time. The shamefacedness which prevents a modest man from importuning a fellow-creature for a gift, after the first request has been refused, is out of place in the intercourse between an empty but believing suppliant and the God of all grace. If this Jewish countryman in his perplexity had been ashamed to ask a second time, he would have failed to accomplish his object; but because he was not so ashamed, or at least did not permit the shame to drive him from his purpose, he obtained at length all his desire. Now, his conduct in this respect is specially commended to us for imitation in our prayer: "And I say unto you, Ask and it shall be given you." As that man asked a gift from a brother, we should ask from God. This is the kind of prayer that Christ teaches us to address to God; and the Son who is in the bosom of the Father will rightly declare the Father's mind.

The lesson is in some of its aspects difficult. We have not experience--we have not faculties sufficient to make us capable of understanding it fully. Our Teacher might have maintained silence regarding it; or he might have said, as we often in substance say to little children, "What thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter;" and this not from our unwillingness to teach, but from their incapacity to comprehend. But the Lord does not leave us wholly ignorant, because we are incapable of understanding all. He makes one point abundantly clear--that persevering importunity in prayer is pleasing to God and profitable to men.

But the lesson is not easy: analogies drawn from sensible objects or human experience cannot express it fully. The two parables which bear upon it--the one now under consideration, and that of the unjust judge--touch only the edges of the theme. The human motive is in the one picture mean, and in the other wicked; yet these are the best analogies that can be found on earth for expressing this feature of our Father's love.

Knowing the defect of the analogy employed in the parable, the Lord has supported and supplemented it by a fact in his own history. The case of the Syro-phoenician woman (Matt. xv. 21-28), although a historic event, serves also as an allegory. The two parables, one enacted and the other spoken, together make the lesson plain, as far as we are capable of comprehending it. In the mouth of these two witnesses the Lord has established his doctrine regarding importunate pressure in prayer.

When I was a little child I often stood near a forge, and watched a blacksmith at work, admiring the strength and skill of the wonder-working man. He was wont to treat me kindly and bear with me patiently, although I sometimes stood in his way. At one time he would benevolently answer my childish questions; and at another, instead of answering, would continue to handle his tools with his strong, bare arms, throwing glances of tenderness towards me from time to time out of his deep intelligent eyes, but all in silence. When two pieces of iron, placed in the fire in order to be welded together, became red, I thought and said he should take them out and join them; but he left them lying still in the fire without speaking a word. They grew redder, hotter; they threw out angry sparks: now, thought I, he should certainly lay them together and strike; but the skilful man left them still lying in the fire, and meantime fanned it into a fiercer glow. Not till they were white, and bending with their own weight when lifted, like lilies on their stalks--not till they were at the point of becoming liquid, did he lay the two pieces alongside of each other, and by a few gentle strokes weld them into one. Had he laid them together sooner, however vigorously he had beaten, they would have fallen asunder in his hands.

The Lord knows, as we know not, what preparation we need in order that we may be brought into union with himself. He refuses, delays, disappoints,--all in wise love, that he may bring the seeker's heart up to such a glow of desire as will suffice to unite it permanently with his own.

A father, when his son asks bread, does not give him a stone: when he asks a fish, does not give him a serpent. Thus, our Father in heaven gives good things to them that ask him. "The giving God" ([Greek: tou didontos Theou] James i. 5), is one of his attributes. Why, then, do not all his children get whatever they ask, and when they ask it? One reason, doubtless, is, that the child, ignorant and short-sighted, often asks a stone or a serpent because they seem beautiful,--not knowing that the one is destitute of nourishment, and that the other will sting--and then frets when things are given to him wholly different from those which he desired and expected. Hannah asked a son; in that case God saw that the request was wise: the child asked bread, and the Father, after the needful trial of faith, bestowed it freely. Some have asked a son, not knowing that in their case the gift would have been a serpent. All their days they have wondered why the boon was denied, and have learned, perhaps, in the light of the great white throne when their days on earth were done, that He who cared for them shielded their bosoms more tenderly and effectually than themselves could have done, from one of the sharpest stings that pierce the flesh of living men. Abraham believed God, and every step of his life-journey was thereby made plain: some great mountains that stood in the path of the patriarch were obliged to get quickly out of the way as he approached. To him that believeth, all things are possible.

At midnight, in the parable, the cry for help came, and prevailed. It is never out of season to pray, until you be out of life. He that keeps Israel slumbers not nor sleeps. Come we early, he is awake; come we late, he has not retired to rest. In prayer, the shamefacedness ([Greek: anaideia]) that shrinks from giving trouble should have absolutely no place. We trouble God by our sins, but not by our prayers. Is the sun burdened by the weight of the planets that hang on him as they run their course? Is he exhausted by the necessity of supplying them with the light in which they shine? Would you relieve him by covering some of them up, or blotting them out of being? The infinite God is not wearied by the weight of all the worlds he has made: the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not exhausted by giving a portion to each of his regenerated children of human kind. Ten lepers were healed by the word of Jesus, and of them one came back to give him praise. That man in his eagerness pushed aside every obstruction, and pressed through the crowd that encircled the great Teacher, demanding and engaging his attention. Did the interruption trouble the Lord? No. Who troubled him? Not the one who came, but the nine who remained at a distance. With a sigh the Lord said, "Where are the nine?" He grieved because they did not come back with praise: therefore he would have rejoiced if they had come. But if they who come to Christ to give thanks please him much, they who come to him asking gifts please him more; for in his own experience, and according to his own testimony, it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Some additional light is thrown backward on the parable by the discourse that immediately follows. It was with the view of bringing out and pressing home the lesson from his own picture, that the Lord, in continuation of his teaching, said, "And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you," &c. Two things here are most wonderful;--one is, that needy men should require so many reasonings to induce them to ask good things from God; and the other is, that God should condescend to employ so many reasonings for that end.

One who knew only the pertinacity with which the prodigal held to his hunger, and cold, and nakedness in a foreign land, would be apt to suppose that this son had been harshly treated in his father's house, and that nothing but punishment awaited him on his return. But if such an observer had been able to witness the actual meeting of father and son when the exile returned at last, he would have learned from the fond reception which the yearning father gave to his erring child, that the son had all along grievously misjudged and misrepresented his father.

Suppose, now, the angels, who desire to look into the provisions of the covenant of grace, should have discovered only these two things, the need of men, and the mercy of God, they would expect that all the fallen would flock back to his presence, like doves to their windows when the tempest comes on: but herein they would find themselves mistaken. That complaint which our Redeemer uttered describes in one stroke the essential characteristic of the lost,--"Ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life" (John v. 40).

The Lord, who loves to bestow the blessing, reasons with us from our own experience. Children trust a father, and are not disappointed; why will you not confide in the Father of your spirits, and live?

In the close of his lesson, he indicates that the best gift of God is the Holy Spirit, and that this gift he is most willing to bestow. More ready than a father is to give bread to a hungry child when it cries, is our Father to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.

Let us put him to the proof. Let us come at Christ's bidding, and in Christ's name: let us come boldly to the throne of grace. He who reigneth over all has sent for us, and bidden us come--bidden us ask. He will not dishonour his own promise: treat him as a father, and see whether he will not make you his dear child.

In some respects these two,--this and the unjust judge,--are the most wonderful and most precious of all the parables. The rest present such views of divine grace as may be shadowed forth by the ordinary manifestations of human character and action,--such as a shepherd bringing back his sheep, or a sower casting his seed into the ground: but these two go sheer down through all that lies on the surface of human history--down through all the upper and more ordinary grades of human experience, and penetrate into the lower, darker, meaner things at the bottom, in order to find a longer line wherewith to measure out greater lengths and breadths of God's compassion; as the shadow in the lake must needs be deepest where the heavens which it represents are highest.

I know nothing more amazing, in all these lessons which Christ gave about the kingdom of grace, than the lesson which these two pictures teach about prayer. It is the same lesson that is embodied in one of the most memorable and mysterious of all the Old Testament facts--Jacob's wrestling with the Angel. Sweet to the Angel of the Covenant was the persistent struggle of the believing man; and sweet to that same Lord to-day is the pressure which an eager suppliant applies to his heart and his hand. In all the Bible you will not find a word that expresses greater loathing than that which tells us how God regards the Laodiceans who asked as if they cared not whether they obtained or not: "Because thou art lukewarm, and art neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." The Lord loves to be pressed; let us therefore press, assured by his own word that the Hearer of prayer never takes urgency ill.

XIX.

THE RICH FOOL.

"And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."--LUKE xii. 16-21.

While Jesus was, in his wonted way, preaching the kingdom to a great multitude, one of the audience, taking advantage probably of some momentary pause in the discourse, broke in upon the solemn exercises with the inappropriate and incongruous demand, "Master, speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me."

In regard to the matter in dispute between himself and his brother, this man probably had both an honest purpose and a righteous cause. For aught that we know to the contrary, he may have been violently or fraudulently deprived of his share in the inheritance of the family. In the answer of the Lord there is not a word that calls in question the justice of his claim. The question of right and wrong as between the brothers does not constitute an element of the case as it is presented to us; it is intentionally and completely omitted. Dishonesty is a simpler affair, and can be settled in very few words. Elsewhere it is disposed of in a very brief sentence,--"Thou shalt not steal." But here a far more subtle sin is analyzed and exposed. The lesson is not, Take heed and beware of Injustice; but, "Take heed and beware of Covetousness." The warning is directed not against the sin of obtaining wealth by unjust means, but against the sin of setting the heart upon wealth, by what means soever it may have been obtained: this reproof was doubtless a word more in season for the assembly of well-conducted Jews who listened that day to the preaching of Jesus, as it is a word more in season for the members of Christian Churches in this land, than an exhortation to beware of theft.

The appeal so inopportunely made, shows incidentally that the people had begun to look on Jesus as a prophet, and to pay great deference to his word. Had he not been already in some sense recognised as an authority, this man would not have applied to him for relief. He was well aware that Jesus of Nazareth could bring no civil constraint to bear upon his brother; it was the moral influence of the prophet's word that he counted on as the means of accomplishing his purpose: "Master, _speak_ to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me." He had, perhaps, observed an amazing effect produced by a word from those meek lips; he had, perhaps, himself seen wicked men subdued by it, and heard from others that it had silenced a stormy sea. He may have marked its power in healing the sick and raising the dead. Forthwith he conceived the plan of enlisting this mysterious and mighty word on his own side of a family quarrel. If that word, he thought within himself, were exerted in my behalf, it would induce my brother to give to me the half or the third of the paternal estate, which I claim as my right.

We cannot cast the first stone at this poor simpleton, who had no other use for the Redeemer's word than to gain by means of it a few more acres of the earth for himself: in every age, some men may be found who hang on the skirts of the Church for the sake of some immediate temporal benefit. Nor is it difficult to understand the phenomenon: "No man can serve two masters;" practically each chooses one, and in the main serves him faithfully. If Christ is chosen as Lord and Master, Mammon and all other things are compelled to serve: if Mammon is chosen and seated on the throne, he will not scruple to lay heaven and earth under contribution for the advancement of his designs;--Mammon, when master, will take even the word of Christ and employ it as an instrument wherewith he may rake his rags together.

How simple and helpless is the man who has allowed wealth to become his chief good! Here is an example of ungodly simplicity. Without any apprehension of a reproof from the Lord or his disciples, the poor man betrays all: in the public assembly he unwittingly turns his own heart inside out. Instead of addressing to the preacher the question, What must I do to be saved? showing that the truth had taken effect on his conscience, he preferred a request regarding a disputed property, showing that while the words of Jesus fell on his ears, his heart was going after its covetousness. He attended to the sermon for the purpose of watching when it should be done, that he might then do a stroke of business.

We must not too complacently congratulate ourselves on our superior privileges and more reverent habits. If those who wait upon the ministry of the word in our day were as simple as this man was, some requests savouring as much of the earth as his would be preferred at the close of the solemnity. If human breasts were transparent, and the thoughts that throng them patent to the public gaze, many heads would hang down.

From this untimely and intensely earthly interruption the parable springs: thus the Lord makes the covetousness as well as the wrath of man to praise him, and restrains the remainder thereof. A fissure has been made in the mountain by some pent-up internal fire that forced its way out, and rent the rock in its outgoing; in that rent a tree may now be seen blooming and bearing fruit, while all the rest of the mountain-side is bare. "Out of the eater came forth meat; out of the strong came forth sweetness." This word of Jesus that liveth and abideth for ever is a green and fruitful tree to-day; but it was the outbursting of a scathing, scorching covetousness that formed the cavity, and supplied the soil in which the tree might grow.

"The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully," &c.

The ground was his own: no law, human or divine, challenged his right. The ground was eminently fruitful; the unconscious earth gave forth its riches, making no distinction between one who used it well and one who abused it. On the fields of the covetous man the rain fell and the sun shone: God makes his sun to shine on the evil and on the good. It is not here--it is not now that he judges the world in righteousness. He giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.

Mark now what effect the profusion of nature and the beneficence of God produced on the mind of this prosperous man. It set him a thinking: so far, so good. The expression in the original indicates a dialogue, and a dialogue is a discourse maintained between two. Dialogue is, indeed, the original word transferred bodily into the English language: [Greek: dielogizeto en heautô]--he dialogued in himself: his soul and he held a conversation on the subject. This was a proper course. When riches increase it is right and necessary to hold a consultation with one's own soul regarding them: in like manner, also, when riches take themselves wings and fly away, a conversation between the same parties should take place regarding their escape.

He said, "What shall I do, I have no room where to bestow my fruits?" The process advances most hopefully: hitherto, no fault can be found with this man's conduct. So great had been his prosperity that he was at a loss for storage. His cup was not only full, but running over, and so running waste; his solicitude now turned upon the question how he might profitably dispose of the surplus. Taking it for granted, as any sensible man in the circumstances would, that something should be done, he puts the question, "What shall I do?" A right question, addressed to the proper person, himself. No other person was so well qualified to answer it,--no other person understood the case, or possessed authority to determine it.

Listen now to the answer: "He said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater," &c. This is the turning-point, and on it the poor man turns aside into error. When God's goodness was showered upon him in such abundance, he should have opened his treasures and permitted them to flow: for this end his riches had been bestowed upon him. When rain from heaven has filled a basin on the mountain-top, the reservoir overflows, and so sends down a stream to refresh the valley below: it is for similar purposes that God in his providential government fills the cup of those who stand on the high places of the earth--that they may distribute the blessing among those who occupy a lower place in the scale of prosperity.

But self was this man's pole star: he cared for himself, and for none besides. Self was his god; for to please himself was practically the chief end of his existence. He proposed to pull down his barns, and build a larger storehouse on the site, in order that he might be able to hoard his increasing treasures. The method that this ancient Jewish self-seeker adopted is rude and unskilful. We understand better the principles of finance, and enjoy more facilities for profitably investing our savings: but the two antagonist principles retain their respective characters under all changes of external circumstances--the principle of selfishness and the principle of benevolence; the one gathers in, the other spreads out.

The method of reserving all for self, is as unsuccessful as it is unamiable: it cannot succeed. The man who should hoard in his own granary all the corn of Egypt, could not eat more of it than a poor labourer--probably not so much. It is only a very small portion of their wealth that the rich can spend directly on their own personal comfort and pleasure: the remainder becomes, according to the character of the possessor, either a burden which he is compelled to bear, or a store whence he daily draws the luxury of doing good.

The dialogue proceeds: the man has something more to say to his soul: "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years," &c. He counts on riches and time as if both were his own, and at his disposal. The big barn is not yet built; the golden grain that shall fill it has not yet been sown: and even although no accident should mar the material portion of the plan, how shall he secure the "many years" that constitute its essence on the other side? Does he keep Time under lock and key in his storehouse, that he may at pleasure draw as much as he requires? Many years! These years lie in the future,--that is, in the unseen eternity. They are at God's right hand--they are not within your reach. Why do you permit an uncertain element to go into the foundation of your hope?

There is, indeed, nothing strange here. It is according to law: those who are taught of the Spirit understand it well. The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not. "Thou hast goods laid up for many years! take thine ease, soul; eat, drink, and be merry!" What simplicity is here! The case is in degree extreme; the letters are written large that even indifferent scholars may be able to read the lesson; but the same spiritual malady, in some of its forms and degrees, is still epidemic in the world: those are least exposed to infection who have their treasures laid up at God's right hand.

It is a useful though a trite remark, that there is great stupidity in the proposal to lay up in a barn the portion of a soul. The soul, when it is hungry, cannot feed on musty grain. Material treasures cannot save a soul from death. The representation in the parable, however, is true to nature and fact: it would be a mistake to attribute to a miser a high appreciation of the dignity of man. Covetousness, in its more advanced stages, eats the pith out of the understanding, and leaves its victim almost fatuous.

This man, in a dialogue with his own soul, had settled matters according to his own mind. The two had agreed together that they would have a royal time on earth, and a long one. The whole business was comfortably arranged. But at this stage another interlocutor, whom they had not invited, breaks in upon the colloquy: "God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; then, whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?" This is the writing on the wall that puts an end to Belshazzar's feast, and turns his mirth into terror.

The terms run literally, "Unwise, this night they demand from thee thy soul." Those ministering angels and providential laws, represented by the drawers of the net in another parable, to whom the Supreme Governor has committed the task of gathering gradually the generations of men from this sea of time, and casting them for judgment on the borders of eternity--those ministering spirits, and principles pervading nature, arrive in their course this night at your door, and send the message into the midst of the merry festival, The master of this house is wanted immediately; he must arise and go, in obedience to the summons; he can neither resist nor delay. He may weep, tremble, rage; but he must go, and go on the instant. It is not the whole man, but only his soul that is wanted: his body will be left behind. But the body, though left behind, cannot claim, cannot use the goods. When the soul is summoned over into eternity, it cannot carry the hoarded treasures with itself, and the body left behind has no further use for them. A grave to rest in while it returns to dust is all that the body needs or gets; and the deserted wealth must advertise for an owner--whose shall it be?

Our Lord Jesus has spoken these piercing words, not for the sake of the pain which they are fitted to inflict. He is the Healer[68] of diseased humanity, and when he makes an incision he means to cure. This sharp instrument, at whose glance we wince and shrink precisely in proportion to the measure of our malady, he wields for the purpose of piercing the deadly tumour, and so saving the threatened life. "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth" (ver. 15); and the man who places his life therein, loses his life. That is not his life; and if he take that for his life, he is cheated: when a merchant has given all for what seemed a goodly pearl, he has not another fortune in reserve wherewith to begin anew, if that for which he paid all his possessions turns out to be a worthless toy of glass. Our time, our life--this is our fortune, on which we trade for the better world: if these be spent,--be thrown away for what is not life, then life is lost.

[68] Der Heiland--the Healer--is the ordinary epithet applied to the Lord Jesus in the religious phraseology of the Germans. The term is suggestive and comforting.

Riches are truly enjoyed when they are wisely employed in doing good; but hoarded as the portion of their possessor, they burden him while they remain his, and rend him at the parting.

By way of contrast, the Lord mentions another kind of treasure, which satisfies now, and lasts for ever. Those who are "rich toward God," are rich indeed, and all besides are poor: and this wealth is, in Christ, offered free,--offered to all.

Seeing that an evil spirit possessed this man, the Lord in mercy applied his word to cast the evil spirit out, and make room for his own indwelling. When the spirit of the world refuses to go out at his word, he sometimes interferes as Ruler in providence, and tears out the intruder by his mighty hand: the kingdom of heaven that is "within you" also suffereth violence; and He who is most mighty comes sometimes with merciful strokes to take it by force. "Even so: come, Lord Jesus."

XX.

THE BARREN FIG-TREE.

"There were present at that season some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down."--LUKE xiii. 1-9.

It is obvious that the massacre of the Galileans by Pilate was mentioned on this occasion, not for its own sake, but for the purpose of supporting a doctrine which the narrators held and desired to establish. Their meaning is echoed distinctly in the answer of the Lord. These Pharisees seem to have found grist for their own mill in all events and all persons; everything was turned to the account of their own self-righteousness. Peculiar sufferings seemed to prove peculiar guilt. The logical consequence they did not express, and perhaps did not distinctly frame even in thought; but they solaced themselves with it, notwithstanding: they were not visited by such calamities, and therefore it might be presumed they were not chargeable with such sins.

The Lord expressly denied the truth of their silent, hidden inference, and fortified his teaching by reference to another analogous case,--the sudden death of some men through the fall of a tower. Leaving untouched the general doctrine that mankind suffer for sin, he clearly and emphatically teaches, that particular calamities do not measure or prove the particular guilt of those who suffer in them. Otherwise, it is obvious that God's government begins and ends in this life; there is neither the necessity nor the evidence of a judgment to come. He indicated to the Jews that the sudden and unexpected destruction of those sacrificing Galileans, was but an emblem of the sudden and unexpected destruction that would overtake themselves if they were not converted in time, and shielded in mercy from the judgment that sin entailed. To repeat, expand, and enforce this lesson the parable is spoken: "He spake _also_ this parable,"--the similitude is given in addition to the more direct instruction which had gone before, and for the same purpose.

"A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard." This was not a seedling that had sprung accidentally within the fences of the vineyard, and through carelessness been permitted to grow: the language is precise, and indicates that the fig tree had been planted within the vineyard by a deliberate act of the owner. The husbandman planted the fig-tree that he might enjoy its fruit; and in order more effectually to secure his object, he selected for the tree the most favourable position. It is obvious both from the structure and design of the parable that the position of the fig-tree was the best that it could possibly have obtained.

In countries where the vine is cultivated, not by a few wealthy proprietors with a view to an export trade, but by each family on a small scale with a view to the food of the household, to plant some fruit trees of other kinds within the same enclosure is the rule rather than the exception. The vineyard is not the luxury of the few, but a common necessity of life with the many. It becomes the most cherished possession of the permanent rural population. Its aspect is sunward, its soil is good, its fences are in order. Within this favoured spot the owner is willing to make room for one or more fig-trees, for the sake of the fruit which in such favourable circumstances he expects them to bear.[69]

[69] In the valley of the Rhine where the vine is cultivated as the material of a great manufacture, and the staple of a foreign trade, fruit trees of other species are not admitted within the vineyard; but at Botzen in the Tyrol, where the habits of society are more simple and primitive, I have repeatedly seen fig-trees growing within the lofty wall of the carefully cultured vineyard, rewarding the possessor for his care with abundant fruit.

When the tree had reached maturity the owner expected that it should bear fruit; but that year, the next, and a third it continued barren. Having waited a reasonable time, he gave orders that it should be destroyed; since it produced nothing, he desired to utilize in another way the portion of ground which it occupied.

The dresser of the vineyard is a person who has the entire charge, subject to the general instructions of the proprietor. He has long occupied this position, and is acquainted with the fig-tree from its infancy; he knows it, as a shepherd in a similarly primitive state of society knows his sheep. He has formed for it a species of attachment; and a sentiment akin to compassion springs up in his heart, when he hears its sentence pronounced. "Woodman, spare that tree," is a species of intercession thoroughly natural and human.

The intercession of the dresser, however, is not sentiment merely; it is sentiment completely directed and controlled by just reason. He does not plead for the indefinite prolongation of a useless existence. He asks only another year of trial: he intends and promises to take in the interval the most energetic measures for stimulating the barren tree into fruitfulness. If under these appliances it bear fruit, he knows the owner will gladly permit it to retain its place; if not, he will abandon it to the fate which it deserves and invites.

No peculiar difficulty attends the exposition of this parable: the main features of its meaning are so distinctly marked, that it is hardly possible to miss them. The lesson is easily read; and when read, it is unspeakably solemn and tender.

God is the owner of the vineyard and the fig-tree within its walls. Abraham's seed, natural and mystical, are the fig-tree; and the Mediator between God and man is the Dresser of the vineyard, the intercessor for the barren tree. These points are all so obvious that there can hardly be any difference of opinion regarding them. One point remains, demanding some explanation indeed, but presenting very little difficulty,--the vineyard. The fig-tree was planted within the vineyard, and what is the doctrine indicated by this circumstance in the material frame of the parable? The suggestion that the vineyard means the world, in the midst of which Israel were planted, although supported by some honoured names, does not merit much consideration. In no sense is there any likeness between the vineyard and the world. The essential circumstances involved in the fact that the fig-tree grew within the vineyard are, that in soil, south exposure, care and defence, it was placed in the best possible position for bearing fruit. The one fact that it was planted in the vineyard indicates, and was obviously intended to indicate, that the owner had done the best for his fig-tree. The meaning is precisely the same as that which is more fully expressed in the analogous parable: "Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard," &c. (Isa. v. 1-7). In the prophet's allegory, while in general the vineyard represents the house of Israel, the vine trees more specifically represent the people, and south exposure, soil, care, and defence, represent the peculiar providence and grace of God displayed in their history and institutions. "The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant" (ver. 7); the plants represent the men, and all that the proprietor did in their behalf represents the goodness of God to Israel in redeeming them from bondage and giving them his covenant. On the same principle in our parable the fig-tree represents the people who were favoured, and the advantages of the vineyard represent the privileges which the people enjoyed. The intimation that this barren fig-tree grew within a vineyard, is a short method of informing us that it enjoyed a position on a very fruitful hill, and was there fenced, watched, and watered with the most patient care. Now, obviously, none of these things, in their spiritual signification, were enjoyed by Israel simply in virtue of their existence in this world. The Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the Persians were placed in the world too, and yet they enjoyed no peculiar privileges,--could not be compared to a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. This feature of the parable, so far from merely intimating that Israel were placed in the world, teaches us that they were separated from it; they were protected by special providences in their history, and cherished by the ordinances of grace. The place of the fig-tree within the vineyard indicates that the people to whom God looked in vain for the fruits of righteousness, were distinguished from the nations by the peculiar religious privileges which they enjoyed: the favourable circumstances of the tree aggravated the guilt of its barrenness.

Three successive years the owner came seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and found none. In regard to the specified period of three years, I do not think we gain much by a particular reference to the well-known natural process by which the fig develops simultaneously the fruit of this season and the germs of the next; for we do not know in this case whether the germs were never formed, or fell off before they reached maturity. I am not able to perceive that the number three has any necessary reference to the peculiarities of the fig; I think the same number would have been employed for the purposes of the spiritual lesson, although a fruit tree of another species had been taken as an example. Three years was a reasonable period for the owner to wait, that he might neither on the one hand rashly cut down a tree that might soon have become profitable, nor on the other permit a hopelessly barren tree indefinitely to occupy a position which might otherwise be turned to good account.

While the lesson of the parable bears upon the Church at large, both in ancient and modern times, it is to individuals that it can be most safely and most profitably applied. Most certainly we enjoy at this day the advantages set forth under the figure of the favoured fig-tree. Besides the life and faculties which we possess in common with others, we have spiritual privileges which are peculiar to ourselves. Civil and religious liberty, the Scriptures, the Sabbath, the Church, place us in the position of the fig-tree within the vineyard, while other nations are more or less like a tree rooted in the sand, or exposed on the wayside. The God in whom we live has conferred these advantages upon us, that we might bear fruit unto holiness; and if we remain barren, notwithstanding all his kindness, he will give forth the decree to cut us down. In some he finds bad fruit, and in some no fruit, and even in the best, little fruit. He has not cast out the unfruitful, but has tenderly spared them.

As the fig-tree greedily drank in the riches of earth and air, and wasted all in leaves, so the unconverted in a land of Christian light enjoy God's goodness and employ it in ministering only to their own pleasures. The line of justice, stretched to the utmost,--to the utmost and more, snaps asunder at last: the sentence goes forth, Cut the barren tree down, and cast it out. This is the doom which guilt deserves and justice proclaims: if the sinful were under a government of mere righteousness, it would be inexorably executed upon all.

Here is the turning point: here an intercessor appears,--an Intercessor who cares for man and prevails with God. The first part of his plea is, Spare: he appeals for a respite of definite and limited duration,--one year: less would not afford an opportunity for amendment, and more would in the circumstances confer a bounty on idleness. All who have under the Gospel reached the age of understanding, and are still living without God in the world, enjoy the present respite in virtue of Christ's compassionate intercession. If that Mediator had never taken up the case, or should now abandon it, the sentence already pronounced would descend like the laws of nature and inexorably execute itself. It is Christ's intercession alone, that stands between the unpardoned on earth, and the punishment which is their due.[70]

[70] I cannot see any force in the argument by which Stier endeavours to show that the interceding vine-dresser represents primarily the human ministry in the Church.

But the Intercessor does more than secure for the sinful a space for repentance: He who obtains the respite takes means to render it effectual. The two chief applications employed in husbandry to stimulate growth and fruitfulness are digging and manuring: these accordingly the dresser of the vineyard undertakes to apply in the interval to the barren fig-tree. I think something may be gained here by descending into the particulars. One of these agricultural operations imparts to the tree the elements of fruitfulness, and the other enables the tree to make these elements its own. Digging gives nothing to the tree; but it makes openings whereby gifts from another quarter may become practically available. The manure contains the food which the plant must receive, and assimilate, and convert into fruit; but if the hardened earth were not made loose by digging, the needed aliment would never reach its destination.

Similar processes are applied in the spiritual culture: certain diggings take place around and among the roots of barren souls, as well as of barren fig-trees. Bereavements and trials of various kinds strike and rend; but these cannot by themselves renew and sanctify. They may give pain, but cannot impart fertility: the spirit much distressed may be as unfruitful as the spirits that are at ease in Zion. These rendings, however, are most precious as the means of opening a way whereby the elements of spiritual life conveyed by the word and the Spirit may reach their destination. The Lord who pours in the food for the sustenance of a soul, stirs that soul by his providence, so that grace may reach the root and be taken in. As the constituents of fruit, held in solution by air and water, cannot freely reach the plant whose roots lie under a long unbroken and indurated soil, so the grace of God contained in the preached Gospel is kept at bay by a carnal mind and a seared conscience. It is when afflictions rend the heart, as a ploughshare tears up the ground, that the elements of life long offered are at length received. It is thus that providence and grace conspire to achieve the purpose of God in the salvation of men. In this work mercy and judgment meet; and saved sinners, on earth and in heaven, put both together in their song of praise (Ps. ci. 1.)

But a feature appears in the close, well fitted to arouse those who have hitherto presumed upon impunity and neglected Christ. Even this kind Intercessor does not propose that the unfruitful tree should be allowed indefinitely to maintain its place without changing its character: He spontaneously concedes that if this trial prove ineffectual, justice must take its course; "After that thou shalt cut it down." When Jesus lets a sinner go, who shall take him up? But there is love even in this last stern word. Love intercedes for a time of trial,--an opportunity of turning; and love, too, after securing sufficient opportunity, lets go its hold and leaves all hopeless beyond. It is the terrible concession, "thou shalt cut it down," issuing from the Intercessor's lips, that gives power to the invitation, "Now is the accepted time." To warn me now that if I let the day of grace run waste, even Jesus on the morrow of the judgment will not plead for me any more, is surely the most effectual means of urging me to close with his offer to-day.

XXI.

THE EXCUSES.

"Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: and sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came, and showed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper."--LUKE xiv. 16-24.

A chain of connected lessons, consisting of several links, immediately precedes the parable in the evangelic history; but we may appreciate all the meaning of the parable without reference to the circumstances in which it sprung. In some cases the connection with the context is such that light from the history preceding is necessary to elucidate the meaning of the lesson that follows; but it is not so here. Although one thing suggests another in the conversation which the Evangelist records, the lesson ultimately given is independent of the things that suggested it.

Touched by the solemn teaching of the Lord Jesus, one of the company, well-meaning, but dim and confused in his conceptions, made the remark, "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God." Observing that this man and the Pharisees around him were clinging to the notion that to be invited to enter the kingdom is the same thing as to be in it, he spoke the parable to point out the difference, and to show that the invitation will only aggravate the doom of those who refuse to comply with it. He intends to teach the Jews, and through them to teach us, that those who are near the kingdom may in the end come short of it--that those who stand high in spiritual privileges may be excluded--may exclude themselves from the kingdom of God.

Both in the natural objects employed, and the spiritual lessons which they convey, there is, at some points, a marked resemblance between this parable and that of the royal marriage; but the two, though similar, are manifestly distinct.

"A certain man made a great supper and bade many." In this case it is not a king but a person in a private station who provides the feast; and the occasion of the rejoicing is not the marriage of the entertainer's son. It is an ordinary example of hospitality exercised by an affluent citizen.

Both here and in the analogous parable of the royal marriage it is assumed, as at least not altogether incongruous with custom, that invitations should be issued some days before, and that the invited guests should a second time be warned by a messenger to repair to the banqueting house when the time drew near. This summons to attend immediately was sent out at supper time. We know that the term [Greek: deipnon] was in ancient times employed generally to signify the principal meal, without reference to a particular period of the day; and, from the circumstances of this case, it plainly appears that the feast was a dinner at an early hour, and not a supper in our sense of the word. At the moment when the warning reached him, the man who had bought a field intended to go and see it, and the man who had bought five yoke of oxen intended on that same afternoon to try whether they would go well in harness; these excuses, although not sincere, must in the nature of the case have appeared plausible, and consequently the feast must have been ready at an early hour of the day.

It is implied that these men had tacitly, or in some other well-understood way, accepted the first invitation. They gave no intimation that they intended to decline--they gave the provider of the feast reason to expect their presence. Probably they were well pleased to be invited; if they met any of their poorer neighbours in the interval, it is probable they would take occasion to show their own importance. These common people in the town, and these labourers in the country, are not admitted as we are into good society. When the moment arrived they were unwilling; or rather they were so intently occupied with their own affairs, that the attractions of the feast were not powerful enough to tear them away.

"With one consent" they all made excuses. The servant saw them separately and received their answers. There is no reason to believe that they met together and framed a plan to insult their entertainer. They acted all on the same method, although they did not act in concert. The creatures were of one kind, and though they answered separately they answered similarly. Off one carnal instinct--[Greek: apo mias (gnômês)]--the excuses were taken, and accordingly, although spoken by different persons, and moulded by different circumstances, they were all of the same type.

The first had bought a field and must go to examine his bargain; the second had bought live stock for his farm and must see them tried immediately; the third had married a wife, and held himself absolved for the time from the ordinary rules of society. They are fair samples of the things that occupy and engross men's hearts and lives.

The servant, having no authority to act, simply reported the facts to his master. The master was angry, and immediately invited all the poor of the neighbourhood to the feast. When many of the most destitute had assembled, the householder, not satisfied as long as there was room at the table, and a poor man within reach to occupy it, sent out another message still more pressing, to sweep into the feast all the homeless wanderers that could be found, the very dregs and outcasts of society. Satisfied when his house at length was filled, the owner announced that none of those who had made light of his invitation should now be permitted to partake of the feast.

We are now ready to examine more directly the spiritual meaning of the parable, and as the lesson is in the main coincident with that of the royal marriage in its earlier portion, a brief exposition will suffice.

In the Gospel, God has provided a great feast. Israel, or his Church at any period, are a privileged class, and enjoy, through his sovereign goodness, a perpetual invitation,--a standing right. The charge which the parable brings against this privileged people is, that they were satisfied with the honour of being invited, and refused actually to comply with the invitation. They were content with their name and their outward privileges, and would not in their own hearts and lives obey the Gospel; clinging to the form of godliness, they peremptorily denied its power. Not they who are invited, but they who partake of the feast, are blessed. To get the first invitation will be not a blessing but an aggravation of guilt, if you despise the Giver and refuse his gifts. The last invited shall be first in ultimate position if they accept the invitation, and the first invited will be last and lowest if they refuse to comply: the condition of men, ultimately, turns not on pardon to them offered, but on pardon by them received.

The servant obviously represents the ministry of the Gospel in every form and in all times. The message is addressed in the first instance to them "that were bidden." The Gospel was not first proclaimed to the heathen: begin at Jerusalem was the Master's command, and that command was fulfilled in spirit and letter by his servants. To the lost sheep of the House of Israel the Lord came in person, and to them the apostles addressed their Lord's words at the beginning of their ministry. The history of the event in the Acts of the Apostles corresponds exactly with the prophetic delineation in this parable: it was when the Jews rejected the Gospel, that the messengers turned to the Gentiles.

The invitation addressed to the favoured circle first is, "Come, for all things are now ready;" all preceding dispensations were a preparation for Christ. When the fulness of time had come, those who had been all along brought up within the lines of the privileged people, were invited to behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. This is repeated in the experience of every generation, and every individual, that grows up within the circle of Christian ordinances, as soon as the mind comprehends the message of mercy. As each attains maturity, he is informed that all things are now ready; he is invited and pressed to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that he may be saved.

To "make excuse," does not here mean to invent an excuse, and falsely state, as a reason, that which is, in point of fact, not the motive of the act. To make excuse, both in the original Greek ([Greek: paraiteisthai]) and in the English translation, signifies simply to plead to be excused. The grounds on which the plea is urged, may in any case be true or false; but in this case, it is highly probable that the grounds stated were in themselves facts, and that they were, in part at least, the true grounds of refusal. Whether the first would have gone to the feast, if he had not at that time bought a property, we do not certainly know. A man who is intensely unwilling to go, when one reason fails, will find or make another; but in this case, the probability is, that anxiety to see his purchase was the real, or at least, a real obstacle. The same observation is applicable to the other two examples.

But although we concede that the obstacles are real, we do not thereby help the case of those who neglect the Gospel; we must go one step deeper into the strata of deceit that are piled over each other in a human heart. A secret unwillingness to partake of the feast may induce the invited to time his purchases, so that he may have a good excuse at hand, or at least to abstain from effort to regulate the incidence of other cares, so as to leave a time of leisure for the great concern. Here in the highest matters, as elsewhere in lower, "Where there's a will there's a way." If the desire were pure and true,--the desire to attend the Giver, and receive his unspeakable gift, the field may be inspected and the oxen proved early in the morning, or postponed till the following day. Without supposing a conscious falsehood representing that transactions which had no existence stood in the way, you have the evil in all its bulk and all its virulence, when the deceitful heart tries to persuade neighbours, and to persuade itself, that the emerging necessities of earthly business interfered with the waiting on Christ for the salvation of the soul.

We might be put on our guard against this species of deceit in the highest matters, by observing how readily we glide into it, in things of smaller moment. Deceits of every shade, from the lie direct to the most attenuated equivocation, spring in the complicated intercourse of modern society, like weeds in a moist summer on a fallow field. Assuredly, unless our hand be diligent in digging out these bitter roots, we shall not grow rich in the graces of the Spirit. You are invited to a neighbour's house: you don't like to go, and you determine that you will not go. Forthwith your wits go to work to discover an excuse, and you soon find that which you seek for: you must travel on business that day; or some other excuse equally convenient and plausible occurs. You are invited to the house of another neighbour; difficulties unforeseen spring up; but being bent on accepting this invitation, you brush them all aside, and contrive to reserve the evening for the company that you love. There is much danger of staining the conscience in affairs like these. The Lord requires truth in the inward parts: watch and pray. But the difficulty of the path should not make any disciple sad: the effort to walk circumspectly, when honestly, prayerfully, lovingly made, is pleasant and healthful exercise to the spirit.

Neither on the natural nor on the spiritual side does the expression, "with one consent," intimate that the parties met and consulted together regarding the terms of their answers. As birds of the same species build their nests of the same material and the same form, without deliberation or concert; so the carnal mind, being in its own nature enmity against God, produces, wherever it operates, substantially the same fruits. In an alienated heart there is an intense unwillingness to be or to abide near to God; and there is, consequently, great fecundity in the conception and production of partition walls to shield the conscience from the glances of his holiness.

The three species[71] of thorns that grew up and choked the word in this instance, are fair specimens of their class--fair samples from the heap. These and such as these slay their thousands still in the Christian Church. At this point, however, it is of very great importance to observe that all the transactions which are represented in the parable as having come between a sinner and the Saviour, are in themselves lawful; to overlook this would be to miss half the value of the lesson. In point of fact acts and habits of positive vice keep many back from the Gospel; but it is not with these cases that the parable deals--it is not to these persons that the Lord is here addressing his reproof. Everything in its own place and time; the lesson here is not, "A drunkard shall not inherit the kingdom," but "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" When the material of the temptation is lawful and honourable the temptation is less suspected, and the tempted is more easily thrown off his guard. The field and the oxen must be bought and used; the affections of the family must be cherished; but woe to us if we permit these seemly plants to grow so rank that the soul's life shall be overlaid beneath their weight!

[71] I do not set much value on the elaborate and minute discussions which some expositors have raised regarding the distinct and specific significance of the several excuses. It is enough for me that they point to the possessions and the pleasures of life,--the possessions being distinguished into two kinds, the field and oxen, corresponding to the farm and the merchandise of the cognate parable.

The mission of the servants successively to the streets and lanes of the city, and to the highways and hedges, with the urgent invitation to poor labourers and homeless beggars, the maimed, the halt, and the blind, is a vivid picture, given in prophecy, of what the Gospel of Christ does and will do in the world till the end of time. When many, and these the most wretched, are brought in redeemed and sanctified, the Lord is not satisfied; yet there is room, and the servants must go forth again to new, and if possible, more needy objects, with new, and if possible, more urgent appeals. "Whosoever will, let him come." It is thus that the numbers are filled up in the kingdom of God; but let it be well observed that to be in a spiritually wretched state does not confer a favour or imply safety. These men were saved, not because they were spiritually very low, but although they were spiritually very low: they were saved, although the chief of sinners, because Christ invited them, and they came at his call. The more moral, and more privileged, who were first invited, would have been as welcome and as safe if they had come.

THE LOST SHEEP, THE LOST COIN, AND THE PRODIGAL SON.

LUKE xv.

The three parables of this chapter, like the seven in Matt. xiii., constitute a connected series. As soon as we begin to look into their contents and relations, it becomes obvious that they have been arranged according to a logical scheme, and that the group so framed is not fragmentary but complete. We cannot indeed fully comprehend the reciprocal relations of all until we shall have examined in detail the actual contents of each; and yet, on the other hand, a preliminary survey of the scheme as a whole may facilitate the subsequent examination of its parts. A glance towards the group from a point sufficiently distant to command the whole in one view may aid us afterwards in making a minuter inspection of details; and, reciprocally, the nearer inspection of individual features may throw back light on what shall have been left obscure in the general outline.

The three parables, then, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son, refer all to the same subject and describe the same fact; they contemplate that fact, however, from opposite sides, and produce, accordingly, different pictures. It is important to notice at this stage that the three parables of this group do not constitute a consecutive series of three members. In the logical scheme the stem parts into two branches, and the first of these is afterwards subdivided also into two: the lost sheep and the lost coin contemplate the subject from the same side, and in the main present the same representation.[72]

[72] While the evidence that the main division is twofold, not threefold, lies chiefly in the nature of the several representations, the minute formulae by which the transitions of the narrative are effected, point in the same direction. The parable of the lost sheep is introduced by the phrase, "And he spake this parable," ([Greek: eipe de tên parabolên]), and that of the prodigal by the corresponding, "And he said," ([Greek: eipe de]). These two are thus balanced over against each other; but the only link between the lost sheep and the lost silver is, Either ([Greek: ê]), indicating that the second does not introduce a new subject, but gives another illustration of that which was already expressed in the first.

The repetition is profitable, for besides the intensity which reiteration imparts, the two parables, although generically the same, are specifically different. Together they represent one side of the fall and the redemption of man, while the other and opposite side is represented by the parable of the prodigal. But while the first two represent the same aspect of the great event, they represent it with specific varieties of feature. This will be more distinctly understood when we shall have examined the parables in detail.

In further indicating the relations which subsist between the two portions of the group, I shall, for the sake of shortness, speak only of the lost sheep and the prodigal, including under the first term also its twin parable of the lost money.

The sin and the salvation of man,--the fall and the rising again, considered as one whole, is here contemplated successively from two different, and in some respects opposite points of view. As the result, we obtain two very dissimilar pictures; yet the pictures are both true, and both represent the same object.

In as far as the departure is concerned, the two representations are coincident: it is only in regard to the return that they are essentially diverse. The sheep and the prodigal alike depart of their own accord, the one in ignorance and the other in wilful wickedness. Man destroys himself; but the hand of God must intervene for his salvation.[73]

[73] Bengel, in his usual pointed way, expresses the specific varieties which characterize the three successive views of men's sin, as stupidity, want of self-consciousness, and the positive choice of evil by an intelligent but depraved being. "Ovis, drachma, filius perditus: peccator stupidus, sui plane nescius, sciens et voluntarius."

The conversion of a sinner is, on the contrary, represented by two different pictures. You cannot convey a correct conception of a solid body by one picture on a flat surface. The globe itself, for example, cannot be exhibited on a map except as two distinct hemispheres. To the right you have a representation of one side, and to the left a representation of the other; the two pictures are different, and yet each, as far as it goes, is a true picture of the same globe. In like manner, the way of a sinner's return to God is too great and deep for being fully set forth in one similitude. In particular its aspect towards God and its aspect towards men are so diverse that both cannot be represented by one figure. On one side the Redeemer goes spontaneously forth to seek and bear back again the lost; on the other side the wanderer repents, arises, and returns. Here, accordingly, you see the shepherd following the strayed sheep, and bringing it back on his shoulders to the fold; and there you see the weary prodigal first coming to himself, and then coming to his Father. The first picture shows the sovereign self-moving love of God our Saviour; and the second shows the beginning, the progress, and the result of repentance in a sinner's heart.

These two similitudes represent one transaction: first, you are permitted to look upon it from above, and you behold the working of divine compassion; next, you are permitted to look upon it from below, and you behold the struggle of conviction in a sinner's conscience,--the spontaneous return of a repenting man. Here is revealed the sovereign outgoing of divine power; and there in consequence appears a willing people (Ps. cx. 3). It is not that one sinner is brought back by Christ, and another returns of his own accord: both features are present in every example. Of every one who, from this fallen world, shall have entered the eternal rest, it may be said, and will be said in the songs of heaven, both that the Lord his Redeemer, of His own mere mercy, saved him, and that he spontaneously came back to his Father's bosom and his Father's house.[74]

[74] It is interesting to notice that the same twin doctrines which the Master here exhibited in parables were afterwards taught in the same relation by his servants. Take two examples, one a brief bold allegory, and the other an autobiographic fragment, both from the fervent heart and through the fruitful pen of the apostle Paul. (1.) "Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his; and, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity" (2 Tim. ii. 19). The engraving on the upper side of this seal represents God's part in a sinner's salvation, and corresponds to the shepherd's generous act; the engraving on its under side represents man's part, and corresponds to the repenting and returning of the prodigal. (2.) "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus" (Phil. iii. 12). The obscurity which adheres to the sentence as it stands in the English Bible is removed when, instead of "that for which," you substitute the more direct and literal rendering, "for that," meaning "because" or "inasmuch as." The sentence should be read, "I follow after, if that I may (if so be that I may) apprehend, inasmuch as I also have been apprehended by, Christ Jesus," ([Greek: diôkô de ei kai katalabô, eph hô kai katelêphthên hypo tou Christoi Iêsou]). The apostle intends to state two connected facts; and to intimate that the one is the cause of the other. He is striving to grasp the Saviour; and what impels or encourages him to make the effort? His own experience that his Saviour has already in sovereign love laid hold of him. Christ has already come to this sinful man, in loving saving power, as the good shepherd came to the lost sheep; therefore the sinful man will arise and go to the Father like the repenting prodigal. The consciousness that like the lost sheep he has been grasped in the Redeemer's arms does not induce him to abstain from effort as unnecessary; on the contrary, by inspiring hope, it nerves his arm and spurs him on. Because he feels that the Shepherd is bearing him, therefore he will arise and go.

It is proper to notice here also the immediate occasion in our Lord's history whence these instructions sprung, as it belongs not particularly to the first parable, but generally to the whole group. This spark of heavenly light, like many others of similar beauty, has been struck off for us by a rude blow which the Jewish leaders aimed against the character and authority of Jesus. The publicans and sinners of the place,--the home-heathen of the day,--the people whether rich or poor, who had neither the power of religion in their hearts nor the profession of it on their lips,--came out in great numbers to hear this new prophet, Jesus of Nazareth. The word was new: "never man spake like this man" to these poor outcasts before. If at any time they sauntered into the synagogue, and hovered for a few moments on the outskirts of the congregation, the stray words that reached their ears from the desk of the presiding scribe, were harsh supercilious denunciations of themselves and their class. Hitherto their hearts had been like clay, and the Pharisaic teaching, as far as it had reached them, had been like fire: the clay in this furnace grew aye the harder. But now a new sound from the lips of a public teacher saluted their ears. They could not throw these words back in the speaker's face, if they would; and they would not if they could. They permitted themselves to be taken, and led. To them Jesus speaks "with authority, and not as the scribes." This word had power; and its power lay in its tenderness: it went sheer through their stony hearts, and made them flow down like water.

Nor did he gain favour among unholy men by making their sins seem lighter than the scribes represented them to be: he made them heavier. He did not convey to the profane and worldly the conception that their sins were easily forgiven; but he fixed in their hearts the impression that God is a great forgiver. Touched and won by this unwonted tenderness, they came in clouds to sit at Jesus' feet.

The Pharisees counted their presence a blemish in the reputation of the teacher. As for them, they had always so spoken as to keep people of that sort effectually at a distance: the doctrine, they think, that brings them round the preacher cannot be sound. "This man," they said, "receiveth sinners and eateth with them;" and they said no more, for they imagined that Jesus was convicted and condemned by the fact.

The occasion of the parables becomes in a great measure the key to their meaning. These men, the publicans and sinners, are Abraham's seed, and consequently, even according to the showing of the Pharisees themselves, lost sheep,--prodigal sons; and the Redeemer's errand from heaven to earth is to seek and find and bring back such as these to the Father's fold. If they had not strayed, it would not have been necessary that the shepherd should follow them in their wandering, and bear them home: if they had not in a far country spent their substance in riotous living, it would not have been necessary that they should return repenting to their Father.

XXII.

THE LOST SHEEP.

"Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance."--LUKE xv. 1-7.

Although by another saying of the Lord, it is rendered certain that hired, and even in a sinister sense "hireling," shepherds were known at the time in the country, the presumption that the flock which this shepherd tended was his own property is favoured both by the specific phraseology employed in the narrative, and the special circumstances of this particular case. The size of this flock, consisting of only a hundred sheep, points rather to the entire wealth of a comparatively poor man, than to the stock of a territorial magnate. The conduct of the shepherd, moreover, is precisely the reverse of that which is elsewhere ascribed to the "hireling whose own the sheep are not." The salient feature of the man's character, as it is represented in the parable, constitutes a specific proof of his ownership,--"he careth for the sheep," and that too with a peculiar and self-sacrificing tenderness.[75]

[75] In the nature of the case a great and incurable defect adheres to the method of employing a hired servant to keep a flock of sheep, without giving him a material interest in the prosperity of his charge. Such is the nature of the occupation, and such its sphere, that the servant is necessarily far and long removed from the master's inspection, and if suspicion should arise, proof of unfaithfulness could hardly be brought home to the accused. It is the interest of the owner to contrive some method of linking the profit of the shepherd to the prosperity of the flock. It was by attempting to accomplish this object by a defective plan, that Laban afforded to Jacob the opportunity of prosecuting his subtle policy. While conversing lately with some shepherds on the Scottish Cheviots, I learned that masters and servants in that district arrange the matter easily to their mutual profit and satisfaction. The wages of the shepherd are not paid in money; a certain number of the sheep, between forty and fifty according to circumstances, are his own property, and their produce constitutes his hire. Thus his own interest is an ever present motive pressing the man to do his best for the flock, and so to do his best for the master.

We assume, therefore, according to the terms of the narrative in their literal acceptation, that this is a man "having an hundred sheep,"--that the sheep are his own. He is feeding them on pasture land far from cultivated fields and human dwellings. Hills impervious to the plough, and patches of vegetation interspersed through rugged stony tracts, have in all countries and ages constituted the appropriate pasture for flocks of sheep. These are indicated here by one word, "the wilderness." The term is obviously used not in a strict but in a free popular sense; it means simply the region of pasturage, consisting generally of hills and moors, not suitable for being ploughed and sown.

A flock of a hundred sheep, although small, is yet sufficiently considerable to render it impossible for the shepherd to detect the absence of one by merely looking to them in the lump and from a distance; he must have minutely inspected them ere he discovered that one was amissing. Knowing them all individually, he knows the one that has strayed; he loves them all as his children, and grieves when one goes out of sight.

It was no mark of carelessness in the shepherd, as some have erroneously imagined, to leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness while he went to seek the one that was lost. The main body of the flock was left in its own proper place, where it is often left from morning till night by the most careful shepherd, even when he is not employed on the urgent duty of recovering wanderers.

The shepherd knows the nature of the country in which the sheep is straying; and also the nature of the sheep that is straying there. He knows the roughness of the mountain passes, and the silliness of the solitary truant sheep; he divines accordingly what track it will take. He conjectures beforehand, with a considerable measure of accuracy, the pit in which it will be found lying, or the thicket in which it will be seen struggling. He follows and finds the fugitive. Wearied by its journey, and perhaps wounded by its falls, the sheep, when discovered, cannot return to the fold even under the shepherd's guidance; he takes it on his shoulders and bears the burden home. He does not upbraid it for its straying; he does not complain of its weight. He is glad that he has gotten his own again, after it was "ready to perish." Happy while he bears it homeward, and happy when he has gotten it home, he invites all his neighbours to share in his joy.

Such is the simple and transparent outline of this ancient eastern pastoral scene; let us now endeavour to see in the symbol those lessons which it at once veils and reveals.

The parable is spoken expressly for the purpose of determining and manifesting the character and work of the Son in the salvation of sinful men; it declares the design, the method, and the terms of the incarnate Redeemer in his intercourse with the creatures whom he came to save. But in the fact of accomplishing this its immediate object, it strikes also a chord which runs through the centre--constitutes, as it were, the medulla of the divine government in all places and all times. The parable spoken in order to afford a glance into the heart of Jesus, incidentally at the same time sketches the outline of God's universal rule; as in drawing the figure of a branch you necessarily exhibit, in its main features and proportions, an image of the tree. This wider subject, certainly and accurately outlined, although incidentally introduced, demands some notice at our hand.

* * * * *

Ever since scientific observation discovered the true system of the material universe, and so, as it were, changed those twinkling sparks of light into central suns, the rulers of tributary worlds, philosophy apart from faith has been, more or less articulately, scattering the question, at once a fruit and a seed of unbelief, How could the Creator of so vast a universe bestow so much of his care on one small spot? Some have been disposed to say, and perhaps more have been disposed to think, with fear or joy according to their predilection, that modern discovery is gradually putting the Bible out of date. A feeling, if not a judgment, has in some quarters arisen, that in view of the vastness of creation, the Scriptures ascribe to this globe and its concerns a share of its Maker's interest disproportionately great.

This phase of unbelief is refuted both by the necessary attributes of God and by the written revelation of his will. What relation, capable of being appreciated or calculated, subsists between material bulk and moral character? The question between great and small is totally distinct from the question between good and evil. Number and extension cannot exercise or illustrate the moral character either of God or of man. We should ourselves despise the mischievous caprice which should give to the biggest man in the city the honours that are due to the best. Right and wrong are matters that move on other lines and at higher levels than great and small, before both human tribunals and divine.

There is, perhaps, as much reason for saying that this earth is too large, as for saying that it is too small, for being the scene of God's greatest work. The telescope has opened a long receding vista of wonders, where the observer is lost in the abyss of distance and magnitude; the microscope has opened another long receding vista of wonders, where the observer is lost in the abyss of nearness and minuteness equally beyond his reach. Between the great and the small, who shall determine and prescribe the centre-point equidistant from both extremes, which the Infinite ought to have chosen as a theatre for the display of His greatest glory?

In the divine government generally, as well as in revealed religion particularly, the aim is not to choose the widest stage, but on any stage that may be chosen to execute the Creator's purpose, and achieve the creature's good. A battle is fought, an enemy crushed, and a kingdom won on some remote and barren moor: no man suggests, by way of challenging the authenticity of the record, that a conflict waged between hosts so powerful, and involving interests so momentous, could not have taken place on an insignificant spot, while the continent contained many larger and more fertile plains: neither can the loss incurred by the sin of men, and the gain gotten through the redemption of Christ, be measured by the size of the world in which the events emerged. It is enough that here the first Adam fell and the second Adam triumphed;--that here evil overcame good, and good in turn overcame evil. There was room on this earth for Eden and for Calvary; this globe supplies the fulcrum whereon all God's government leans. The Redeemer came not to the largest world, but to the lost world: "even so, Father."

"He took not on him the nature of angels." In aggregate numbers they may, for aught we know, be the ninety and nine, while we represent the one that strayed; but though all these shining stars were peopled worlds, and all their inhabitants angels who kept their first estate, he will leave them in their places in the blue heaven afar, like sheep in the wide moorland, and go forth in search of this one shooting star, to arrest and bring it back. It is his joy to restore it to law and light again. Rejoice with great joy, O inhabitants of the earth! the Saviour Almighty has passed other worlds and other beings, some of whom do not need, and some of whom do not get, salvation,--has passed them and come to us. He has taken hold of the seed of Abraham, that we who partake of Abraham's sinful flesh may partake also of Abraham's saving faith. There is much in this mystery which we do not know, and in our present state could not comprehend; but we know the one thing needful regarding it,--that "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."[76]

[76] "Should not that great and glorious Shepherd, whose millions of bright sheep fill the universe, leave these millions in order to seek the slightest, poorest, most infirm of those who need his care, and without that care would utterly perish; does not his boundless love require him to go after it?" Stier, after quoting this sentence in reference to the parable from Kurz, _Bibel und Astronomie_, remarks, "This is a thought quite permissible in itself, but as an exposition of what Eternal Wisdom has spoken, it is not valid." Here, however, the learned critic has incorrectly apprehended the state of the question. A secondary relation is as real in its own place as a primary. It is quite true that the parable, under the picture of the one sheep that strayed and the ninety-nine that remained on the pasture, points directly and immediately to two distinct classes of human kind; but it brings up as legitimately, although more remotely, the distinction, governed by the same principle, which has in God's universal sovereignty been made between the human race on the one hand, and angelic spirits on the other. One expositor may legitimately confine his view to the more immediate and narrower sphere; but another may as legitimately take a wider range, provided he make and mark the necessary distinctions as he proceeds; as one inquirer in physics may limit his speculation to the solid body of this globe, while another, under the same general designation, may, with perfect logical exactness, include also the atmosphere that surrounds it.

Having noticed cursorily that grand characteristic feature of God's universal government to which the principle of the parable is applicable, we proceed now to examine more particularly the recovery of lost men by the Lord our Redeemer, to which the lesson of the parable is, in point of fact, specifically applied.

1. The shepherd misses one when it has strayed from the flock. The Redeemer's knowledge is infinite; He looks not only over the multitude generally, but into each individual. When I stand on a hillock at the edge of a broad meadow, and look across the sward, it may be said in a general way that I look on all the grass of that field; but the sun in the sky looks on it after another fashion,--shines on every down-spike that protrudes from every blade. It is thus that the Good Shepherd knows the flock. Knowing all, he misses any one that wanders. He missed a world when it fell, although his worlds lie scattered like grains of golden dust on the blue field of heaven,--the open infinite. When the light of moral life went out in one of his worlds, he missed its wonted shining in the aggregate of glory that surrounds his throne. With equal perfectness of knowledge he misses one human being who has been formed by his hand, but fails to hang by faith upon his love. The Bible speaks of falling "_into_ the hands of the living God," and calls it "a fearful thing" (Heb. x. 31); but an equally fearful thing happened before it,--we fell _out of_ the bosom of the living God. He felt, so to speak, the want of our weight when we fell, and said, "Save from going down to the pit." But the omniscience of the Saviour does not stop when it passes through the multitude, and reaches the individual man; it penetrates the veils that effectually screen us from each other, and so knows the thoughts which congregate like clouds within a human heart, that he misses every one that is not subject to his will. When the mighty volume is coursing along its channel towards the ocean, he marks every drop that leaps aside in spray. It is a solemn thought, and to the reconciled a gladsome one, that, as the shepherd observed when one sheep left the fold, the Shepherd of Israel, who slumbers not nor sleeps, detects every wandering soul, and in that soul every wandering thought. The Physician's thorough knowledge of the ailment lies at the very foundation of the patient's hope.

2. The shepherd cared for the lost sheep; although he possessed ninety and nine, he was not content to let a unit go. A species of personal affection and the ordinary interest of property, combine to cause grief when the sheep is lost, and to contribute the motive for setting off in search of the wanderer.

In attempting to apply the lesson at this point, we very soon go beyond our depth. Our own weakness warns us not to attempt too much; but the condescending kindness of the Lord, in speaking these parables, encourages us to enter into the mystery of redeeming love on this side as far as our line can reach. In that inscrutable love which induced the Owner of man to become his saviour when he fell, there must be something corresponding to both of the ingredients which constituted the shepherd's grief. There was something corresponding--with such correspondence as may exist between the divine and the human--to the personal affection, and something to the loss of property. When we think of the Redeemer's plan and work as wholly apart from self-interest, and undertaken simply for the benefit of the fallen race, we form a conception of redemption true as far as it goes, but the conception is not complete. The object which we, from our view-point, strive to measure, has another and opposite side. For his own sake as well as for ours, the Redeemer undertook and accomplished his work.[77] "For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame." When he wept over Jerusalem, mere pity for the lost was not the sole fountain of his tears. Those tears, like some great rivers of the globe, were supplied from two sources lying in opposite directions. As the possession of the ransomed when they are brought back affords the Redeemer joy, the want of the lost, while they are distant, must cause in his heart a corresponding and equivalent grief. It is true, that if we too strictly apply to the divine procedure the analogy of human affairs at this point we shall fatally dilute our conception of the generosity displayed in the Gospel; but on the other hand, if do not apply this analogy at all, we shall inevitably permit some of our sweetest consolation to slip from our grasp. To be merely pitied does not go so kindly or so powerfully about our hearts as to be loved; Christ's regard for fallen men is not merely the compassion of one who is loftily independent. When an infant is lost in a forest, and all the neighbours have, at the mother's call, gone out in search of the wanderer, it would be a miserably inadequate conception of that mother's emotion to think of it as pity for the sufferings of the child: her own suffering for want of her child is greater than the child's for want of his mother; and by the express testimony of Scripture, we learn that the Saviour's remembrance of his people is analogous to the mother's remembrance of her child. If you press the likeness too far, you destroy the essential character of redemption, by representing it as a self-pleasing on the part of the Redeemer; but if you take away the likeness altogether, you leave me sheltered, indeed, under an Almighty arm, but not permitted to lie on a loving breast. My joy in Christ's salvation is tenfold increased, when, after being permitted to think that he is mine, I am also permitted to think that I am his. If it did not please him to get me back, my pleasure would be small in being coldly allowed to return. No: the longing of Christ to get the wanderer into his bosom again, for the satisfaction of his own soul, is the sweetest ingredient in the cup of a returning penitent's joy.[78]

[77] You may measure a square surface and find it to contain so many feet of superficial area: suppose you discover afterwards that it has depth as well as length and breadth; to take in also this new measurement does not diminish the old. If we discover that, for his own sake, the Redeemer accomplished his saving work, it was not on that account less for our sakes.

[78] "In the centre of all lies the profound thought, that in God and Christ love is one with self-interest, and self-interest one with love; no such contrariety existing between them as is found in the case of man."--_Stier, Words of the Lord_.

3. The shepherd left the ninety and nine for the sake of the one that had wandered. I find no difficulty in the interpretation of the parable here. The doctrinal difficulty which some have met at this point, has been imported into the field by a mistake in regard to the material scene. The leaving of the ninety and nine in the wilderness, while the shepherd went out to seek the strayed sheep, implied no dereliction of the shepherd's duty,--no injury to the body of the flock. In this transaction neither kindness nor unkindness was manifested towards those that remained on the pasture;--it had no bearing upon them at all. Nor is it necessary, at this stage, to determine who are represented by the ninety and nine. Be they the unfallen spirits, or the righteous in the abstract, or those who, in ignorance of God's law, count themselves righteous, the parable is constructed for the purpose of teaching us that the mission of Christ has for its special object, not the good, but the evil. As the specific effort of the shepherd, which is recorded in this story, had respect not to the flock that remained on the pasture, but to the one sheep that had gone away, the specific effort of the Son of God, in his incarnation, ministry, death, and resurrection, has respect, not to the worthy, but the unworthy.

Thus the Pharisees were entirely at fault in regard to the first principle of the Gospel. They assumed that, because the publicans and sinners had gone astray, Jesus, if he were the true Messiah, would not have any dealings with them; without either conceding or expressly denying their assumption of superior righteousness--that being precisely the point on which he determined that then and there he would give no judgment--he intimates that the strayed sheep is the peculiar object of his care, and that because it is the strayed sheep, and he is the Good Shepherd;--he intimates, taking the Pharisees at their own word, that the sinners are the objects whom a Saviour should follow, and seek, and find, precisely because they are sinners. It concerns us more to know who are represented by the strayed sheep, than to know who are represented by the sheep that did not stray, for to the former class, and not to the latter, we most certainly belong.

4. How does the shepherd act when he overtakes the wanderer? He does not punish it--he does not even upbraid it for straying; his anxiety and effort are concentrated on one point--to get it home again. Would that guilty suspicious hearts could see through this glass the loving heart of Jesus, as he has himself presented it to their view! He takes no pleasure in the death of them that die. His ministry in general, and this lesson in particular, proclaim that Christ's errand into the world is to win the rebellious back by love. You may suppose the truant sheep to have dreaded punishment when it was overtaken by the injured shepherd; but his look and his act when he came must have immediately dispelled the helpless creature's fears. The Lord has held up this picture before us that in it we may behold his love, and that the sight of his love may at length discharge from our hearts their inborn obdurate suspiciousness.

5. The shepherd lays the sheep upon his shoulders. This feature of the picture affords no ground for the doctrine which has sometimes been founded on it, that the Saviour is burdened with the sinners whom he saves. His suffering lies in another direction, and is not in any form represented here. He weeps when the sinful remain distant and refuse to throw their weight on him; he never complains of having too much of this work in hand. The parable here points to his power and victory, not to his pain and weariness.

The representation that the shepherd bore the strayed sheep home upon his shoulder, instead of going before and calling on it to follow, is significant in respect both to this parable and its counterpart and complement, the Prodigal Son. In as far as the saving of the lost is portrayed in this similitude, the work is done by the Saviour alone. First and last the sinner does nothing but destroy himself: all the saving work is done for him, none of it by him. This is one side of salvation, and it is the only side that is represented here. It seems hard to conceive how any converted man can be troubled by doubt or difficulty concerning this doctrine. Every one whom Christ has sought and found, and borne to the fold, feels and confesses that, if the Shepherd had not come to the sheep, the sheep would not have come to the Shepherd. If any wanderer still hesitates on the question, Who brought him home? it is time that he should begin to entertain another question, Whether he has yet been brought home at all? The acknowledgment of this fundamental truth, that salvation is begun, carried on, and completed by the Saviour alone, does not, of course, come into collision with another fundamental truth, which expatiates on another sphere, and is represented in another parable, that except the sinful do themselves repent, and come to the Father, they shall perish in their sins.

6. Far from being oppressed by the burden of his strayed sheep, the shepherd rejoices when he feels its weight upon his shoulder. His joy begins not when the work is over, but when the work begins. While the lost one is on his shoulder, and because it is on his shoulder, the shepherd is glad. The doctrinal equivalent of this feature is one of the clearest of revealed truths, and yet it is one of the last that a human heart is willing to receive. The work of saving, far from being done with a grudge in order to keep a covenant, is a present delight to the Saviour. This lesson falls on human minds like a legend written by the finger on dewy glass, which disappears when the sun grows hot; but when it is graven on the heart as by the Spirit of the living God, it is unspeakably precious. When I habitually realize not only that Christ will keep his word in receiving sinners, but that he has greater delight in bearing my weight than I can ever have in casting it on him, I shall trust fully and trust always. There is great power in this truth, and great weakness in the want of it. Let even an experienced Christian analyze carefully the working of his own heart, not in the act of backsliding towards the world, but in its best efforts to follow the Lord, and he will discover among the lower folds of his experience a persistent suspicion that the great draft which a sinner makes on the Saviour's mercy will, though honoured, be honoured with a grudge because of its greatness. Look on the simple picture of his love which Jesus has in this parable presented--look on the words, "He layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing,"--look till you grieve for your own distrust, and the distrust melt in that grief away.

7. The shepherd on reaching home not only himself rejoiced, but invited his neighbours to rejoice with him over his success. To this last intimation of the parable the Lord immediately adds an express exposition of its meaning,--Ver. 7, "I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance." In the parallel explanation appended to the next parable (ver. 10), an additional feature is expressed, "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth;" both obviously refer to the same fact, and should be taken together as one announcement.

The kingdom of God recognises two successive homecomings in the history of every citizen. The exile discovered and borne back by the discriminating mercy of the Redeemer, comes home when through the regeneration he enters a state of grace; and he comes home under the leading of the same chief, when in the resurrection he enters a state of perfect glory. It is instructive and comforting to observe that, while both homecomings are joyful, it is of the first that the Lord expressly speaks when he intimates that over it himself and the hosts of heaven will rejoice. It is over the repentance of a sinner that a jubilee is held in heaven; they do not wait till the ransomed one shall appear in bodily presence near the great white throne. There is no need: the entrance into grace ensures the entrance into glory. The children will all get home. No slip can come between the cup of the Redeemer's glad anticipation when a sinner is renewed, and the lip of his complete satisfaction when he welcomes the ransomed at length into the mansions of the Father's house.

In this brief but lucid exposition of his own similitude which the Lord gave at the moment, and the evangelist has preserved for us, something is taught first regarding the companions, and second regarding the measure of his joy. Both present points of interest which require and will repay more particular attention.

(1.) In regard to the participation of the angels, in the Redeemer's joy over the salvation of the lost, the intimations bear that there is joy "in heaven," and "in the presence of the angels of God." It seems unaccountably to those who look carefully into the terms of the record, to be universally assumed from these expressions that the angels, in the exercise of their inherent faculties, are in some way cognisant of conversion as it proceeds in human souls upon the earth, and that they rejoice accordingly when another heart melts, and another rebel submits to God. Capital has even been made out of this passage by Romanists in support of prayers addressed to unseen created spirits. All this proceeds upon an exegesis, which is, I believe, demonstrably erroneous. In order to settle all questions that can arise here, nothing more is necessary than a simple straight-forward examination of the terms. The rejoicing takes place "in heaven," and "in presence of the angels" ([Greek: enôpion tôn angelôn]). This is not the form of expression that would naturally be employed to intimate that the angels rejoiced. Expressly it is written, not that they rejoice, but that there is joy in their presence,--before their faces. The question then comes up, Who rejoices there? In as far as the terms of the exposition go, the question is not expressly decided; but its decision can be easily and certainly gathered from the context. Both in the case of the lost sheep and in that of the lost money the comparison is introduced by the term "likewise" ([Greek: houtô].) In this manner there is joy before the angels; in what manner? Obviously in the manner of the rejoicing which took place after the strayed sheep was brought home, and the piece of money found. He who sought and found the lost, rejoiced over his gain; but, not contented therewith, he told his neighbours about his happiness and its cause; he manifested his joy in their presence, and invited them to rejoice in sympathy with himself. It is after this manner that joy in heaven over a repenting sinner begins and spreads. We are not obliged,--we are not permitted to guess who the rejoicers are, or how they came by the news that gladdens them. The shepherd himself, and himself alone, knows that the strayed sheep is safe in the fold again, for he has borne it back on his shoulder: his neighbours did not know the fact until he told them, and invited them to participate in his joy. It is expressly in this manner, and none other, that there shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. The angels do not become aware of the fact by a species of subordinate omniscience. He who saved the sinner knows that the sinner is saved; rejoicing in the fact, he makes it known to his attendants, and invites them to share in his joy.

The gladness that thrills in the angels is a secondary thing, caught by sympathy from that which glows in the heart and beams in the countenance of Jesus. The Son of God the Saviour having won a sinner by the power of his love, and brought the wanderer back forgiven and renewed, rejoices on his throne over this fruit of his soul's travail. Ere the ransomed sinner has risen from his knees or wiped his tears away;--ere he has had time to sing a hymn or sit down at the communion table on earth, the Lord in heaven, feeling life flowing from himself into that living soul, rejoices already in the fact, and calls upon his friends, whether the spirits of just men or angels unfallen, or both in concert, to participate in his joy. The Apocalyptic witness saw no sun in the new heaven; "the Lamb is the light thereof:" from that sun the light streams down on the sea of upturned faces that surround the throne, and the sympathetic gladness that sparkles in the members is a reflection from the gladness that first glows in the Head, as a separate sun glances on the crest of every wavelet, when the breeze is gentle and the sky is bright.

(2.) The intimation that there is greater joy in heaven over the return of a single wanderer than over ninety and nine who never strayed, presents indeed a difficulty; but here, as in many other similar cases, the difficulty lies more in the way of the scientific expositor, whose task is to express the meaning in the form of logical definitions than in the way of the simple reader of the Bible, who desires to sit at the feet of Jesus, and learn the one thing needful from his lips. In this, as in many other portions of Scripture, a hungry labourer may live upon the bread, while it may baffle a philosopher to analyze its constituents, and expound its nutritive qualities. A devout reader may get the meaning of the parable in power upon his heart, while the logical interpreter expends much profitless labour in the dissection of a dead letter.

Who are the just persons who need no repentance? The suggestion[79] that they are the members of the Old Testament Church, who really possessed the righteousness of the Law, although they had not attained the righteousness of the Gospel, creates a greater difficulty than that which it proposes to remove. There is not any such essential difference between the righteousness of Abraham, who looked unto Jesus coming, and the righteousness of Paul, who looked unto Jesus come.

[79] Made or adopted by Dr. Trench.

The true solution I apprehend to be that in the mind of the Lord this declaration had a double reference. It expressed an absolute and universal truth, known to himself and to his enlightened disciples; and also, at the same time, took the Pharisees on their own terms, condemning them out of their own mouth. The parable was spoken expressly to the Pharisees, and spoken specifically in answer to their objection, "This man receiveth sinners." They meant to intimate that it became the Messiah to shun the evil and associate only with the good. From their own view-point he exposes their mistake; even granting their assumption that themselves were the righteous, their sentence was erroneous. According to the principles of human nature, and the ordinary practice of men, they might have perceived that the chief care of the shepherd must be bestowed on the sheep that has gone astray, and his greatest joy be experienced when it has been discovered and restored. The Saviour's delight over a publican's return to piety should be more vivid than his joy over a Pharisee, who, by the supposition, has been pious all his days.

Had the Lord then and there intimated to the Pharisees that they were deceiving themselves in regard to justifying righteousness,--that they needed repentance as much as the publicans, his word would have been true, but that truth, he perceived, was not suitable in the circumstances. It pleased him at this time not to fling a sharp reproof in their faces, but rather to drop a living seed gently into their ears, that it might find its way in secret to some broken place in their hearts. A certain portion of the truth he communicated to them; more they would not have received. The whole truth on this subject, if it had been bluntly declared, would have driven them away in disgust.

Elsewhere the Master expresses his mind very clearly, "Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven;" but it pleased him on this occasion to teach another lesson, namely, that even although they were as righteous as they deemed themselves to be, the recovery of a lost one would afford the Redeemer a greater joy than the retention of the virtuous. Beyond expression precious is the doctrine unequivocally taught here that so far from receiving prodigals with a grudge, the Saviour experiences a peculiar delight when a sinner listens to his voice and accepts pardon at his hand. This doctrine we learn is divine; we know it is also human: almost every family can supply an example of the familiar principle that the mother loves most fondly the child who has cost her most in suffering and care.

XXIII.

THE LOST COIN.

"Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."--LUKE xv. 8-10.

The three parables of this group, as has been already intimated, do not constitute a simple consecutive series of first, second, and third: the group consists of two parts, and the first part contains two parables. The saving of the lost is represented in the first division as it is seen from God's side, and in the second as it is seen from man's. In the first, the Saviour appears seeking, finding, and bearing back the lost; in the second, the lost appears reflecting, repenting, resolving, and returning to the Father.

The two parables which constitute the first division are generically coincident, but specifically distinct. Both represent the side on which the sinner is passive in the matter of his own salvation, and the parable of the prodigal alone represents the aspect in which he is spontaneously active; but while the first two agree in their main feature, they differ in subordinate details. The second goes partly over the same ground that has already been traversed by the first, and partly takes a new and independent track of its own.[80]

[80] Recognising in the lost coin mainly a repetition of the same lesson which the lost sheep contained, but justly anticipating from the mere fact of a repetition, that the second will present some features which were not contained in the first, Dr. Trench finds the expected difference in this,--that "if the shepherd in the last parable was Christ, the woman in this may, perhaps, be the Church." After suggesting as an alternative that the woman may represent the Holy Spirit, he remarks that these two are in effect substantially identical, and finally rests in the conclusion that it is "the Church because and in so far as it is dwelt in by the Spirit, which appears as the woman seeking her lost." This able expositor speaks with evident hesitation when he represents the Church as the seeker here; and accordingly we find him with a happy inconsistency affirming in a subsequent paragraph that "as the woman, having lost her drachm, will light a candle and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it, even so the Lord, through the ministrations of his Church, gives diligence to recover the lost sinner," &c. I am willing to accept the phraseology of this sentence, but it is obviously at variance with the view which he had previously presented, and to which he recurs in the close, that in this parable it is the Church which seeks the lost, while in the preceding parable it is the Saviour. Further, if he maintain that the woman seeking the lost coin represents the Lord seeking sinners through the ministrations of the Church, he must also maintain that the shepherd seeking the lost sheep represents the Lord seeking sinners through the ministrations of the Church. If the Lord himself is in both cases equally the seeker, there is no reason in the text of Scripture, and Dr. Trench suggests none from any other quarter, why he should be represented as seeking through the ministrations of the Church in one case and not in the other. The letter of the word and the nature of the case peremptorily demand that the qualification regarding the instrumentality of the Church should be attached to both or to neither. In either case it remains that, in respect to the person who seeks the lost, these two parables teach precisely the same lesson.

The house in which the coin is lost means, according to Dr. Trench, the visible Church: the result is that the Church (invisible) searches in the Church (visible) for sinners that have been lost there, and restores them when found to the Church, but whether the visible or invisible I cannot discover. The Church then calls upon the angels to rejoice with her over the recovery of the lost. This exposition seems confused and inconsistent; and it is a dim mysterious conception of "the Church" that constitutes the disturbing element.

From the similarity of structure and the studied identity of expression in the two cases, I gather surely that the persons who seek and find the lost in those two parables both represent the same Seeker of lost men, the Lord Jesus Christ. On any other supposition, I cannot find a spot on which the foundation of a satisfactory exegesis can be laid. The introduction of the second parable by the particle either ([Greek: ê]) in the eighth verse, prepares us to expect, not another subject, but another illustration of the same subject; whereas, when the Prodigal Son is introduced in the eleventh verse, the connecting link distinctly indicates a change of theme.[81]

[81] Nor do I see any force in the minute criticism by which Dr. Trench endeavours to make out that while the sheep were the shepherd's property, the money did not belong to the woman. He says, "I have found my sheep which was lost;" while she says, "I have found the piece which I had lost;" but these are nothing more than varieties of expression. The absolute identity of the terms in which the two cases are introduced, proves that these seemly and slight variations of phraseology at the close, do not indicate a substantial difference. "What man of you having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them?" and "What woman, having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece?"--these questions, so carefully and completely parallel, conclusively show that, after making allowance for the necessary difference in the nature of the subjects, the two cases, in relation to possession, loss, and finding, are precisely the same.

Assuming from the fact of its repetition that some feature or features of the lesson must be contained in the second picture which the first was not fitted to display; and finding in the possessors, with their misfortune, their success and their joy, no difference, but on the contrary, a studied balanced parallelism, I look for the distinction in the nature of the property which, in the two cases respectively, was lost and found. The sheep is an animated being, with desires, and appetites, and habits, and locomotive powers; when it is lost, it is lost in virtue of its own will and activity. The silver coin, on the other hand, is a piece of inanimate matter; and when it is lost, it is lost through its own gravity and inertia. When support fails, it falls to the ground. Here lies an inherent and essential difference between the two cases. It is through this opening mainly that light comes to me regarding the specific difference between the lessons which these two cognate parables respectively convey. The inquiry at present concerns this difference only, for the doctrine which is taught in common by both is abundantly obvious. While in both examples alike the property is lost and found again, the manner of the loss and the finding corresponds in each case to the nature of the subject. In the case of the living creature, the loss is sustained through its spontaneous wandering; in the case of the inanimate silver, the loss is sustained through its inherent inertia. The one strays in the exercise of its own will, and the other sinks in obedience to the laws of matter; the method of search varies accordingly.

Both parables alike represent the sinner lost and the Saviour finding him; but in the one case the loss appears due to the positive activity of an evil will, and in the other to the passive law of gravitation. Not that, in the spiritual sphere, one sinner departs from God by an exercise of his corrupt will, and another is drawn away by the operation of an irresistible law; it is one transaction represented successively on two sides. The representations are different, but both are true. In the fallen, sin is both active and passive. The sinful select their own course and go astray in the exercise of a self-determining power; they also gravitate to evil in virtue of an inborn corruption, which acts like a law in their members. In connection with these two sides or features of sin, the two doctrines opposite and yet not contrary, the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man, meet and embrace each other in the work of redemption. To the disease of sin in both its phases,--as an active choice and an innate tendency,--the divine physician has prepared an antidote; He brings the wanderer home, and lifts the fallen up.

Compare once more the lost sheep and the lost coin: in both the sinful are lost, and in both the Saviour saves; but there we see a spontaneous error, and here the effect of inherited corruption. These, when kept together like the right and left sides of a living man, constitute, in this matter, the whole truth: to tear them asunder is to kill both.

The number of the coins is appropriately fixed at ten, while the number of sheep was a hundred. Ten sheep would not have required or repaid the care of a shepherd; and a hundred pieces of silver would not, in ordinary circumstances, have been at one time in the hands of a working woman. The difference of numbers is fully accounted for by the natural circumstances, and no benefit is obtained by squeezing from it a distinct spiritual signification. The numbers, I think, belong to the adjuncts of the material pictures, and they constitute only elements of disturbance when they are brought into the interpretation.

The lessons which some draw from the preciousness of the metal on the one hand, and the image of the king which it bears on the other, although attractive and useful in themselves, are not relevant here. It is better to forego for the time even precious morsels of instruction, than to obtain them by doing violence to those exquisite analogies which the parables present.

XXIV.

THE PRODIGAL SON.

"And he said, A certain man had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it: and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out and intreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: but as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found."--LUKE xv. 11-32.

Recall the relation that subsists between this parable on the one hand, and the two that immediately precede it on the other. These two divisions of the group contain two different and in some respects opposite representations. Both exhibit the salvation of lost men; but in the first, that deliverance appears as the effect of the Redeemer's sovereign love and care; in the second, it appears to spring in the depths of the sinner's own soul. There the wanderer is sought and found and borne back; here he spontaneously repents and returns. There the Saviour's part is revealed; and here the sinner's.

These examples represent not two distinct experiences, but two sides of the same fact. It is not that some of fallen human kind are saved after the manner of the strayed sheep, and others after the manner of the prodigal son; not that the Saviour bears one wanderer home by his power, and another of his own accord arises and returns to the Father. Both these processes are accomplished in every conversion. The man comes, yet Christ brings him; Christ brings him, yet he comes. In the two pictures which we have last examined, the sovereign love and power of the Redeemer occupied the front, while the subjective experience of a repenting man was thrown scarcely visible into the back-ground; in the picture which is now under inspection the view is reversed--the subjective experience of the sinning man is brought full size into the centre of the field, while the compassion of a forgiving God, although distinctly visible, lies in smaller bulk behind.

Among the parables that of the prodigal is remarkable for the grandeur of the whole, and the exquisite beauty of the parts. The sower is the only one that can be compared with it in comprehensive completeness of outline and articulate distinctness of detail. These two greatest parables, however, are thoroughly diverse in kind. The two chief elements which generally go into the composition of a parable are the processes of nature and the actions of living men--parables, in short, as to their constituents, are composed of history and natural history. In the tares, for example, both these elements are combined in nearly equal proportions. In the malicious sowing of the darnel, the zealous proposal of the servants, and the cautious decision of the master, you have threads of human motive and action running through the whole; but in the growth of the darnel, its likeness to the wheat in spring, and the decisive difference between them in the harvest, you have the processes of nature profusely intertwined. A parable is ordinarily woven of human action and the unconscious development of nature, as warp and woof. In the two greatest parables those twin ingredients are in a great measure separated: the sower is almost wholly composed of processes in nature, the prodigal almost wholly of human motive and act.

This parable reveals one of the brightest glimpses of God's character and way that men in the body can obtain. There are greater and less among the parts of God's word as well as among the parts of his creation. Taking the discourses of the Lord Jesus, as the little child took the stars, for "gimlet-holes in heaven to let the glory shine through," we find in the prodigal the largest of them all. It differs from other stars in the same firmament by its bulk and its brightness. Never man spake like this man; and nowhere else has even this man spoken more fully or more winsomely of man's need and God's mercy. Both the departure and the return--both the fall and the rising again, are depicted here. The lesson sweeps the whole horizon of time from the unfallen state at first to the glory that shall at last be revealed. The way is laid open with marvellous precision from the lowest state of sin and misery to a heavenly Father's heart and home. Here a gate is opened by the Mediator's hand, and no man can shut it, until the angel shall proclaim that time shall be no more. Here resounds a voice clear, human, memorable--a voice that all the hum of the world cannot drown, proclaiming to the lowest, furthest outcasts, and to the latest generations, "Whosoever will, let him come."[82]

[82] A curious illustration of the bondage to which an indurated Erastianism has reduced many of the Protestant Churches of the Continent, is incidentally afforded in a remark made by Stier regarding the peculiar fulness and preciousness of this parable:--"That this parable, which Lange beautifully terms a gospel within a gospel, this universal text for preaching about the lost and recovered sons of our heavenly Father (and the hopelessly lost first-born to the rich possessions of the house), should be wanting in the pericopæ of the Sunday Kalendar, is an omission which is utterly unjustifiable on any ground whatever, which is not compensated by the insertion of the previous similitudes, and which of itself is ample reason for that reformation of the Kalendar which Palmer desires."--_Words of the Lord Jesus, in loc_. The successors of Luther must, it seems, tread the mill from year to year on the same limited curriculum of texts which their Kalendar contains; and those of them who are weary of the restraint long in vain for an opportunity to preach on such a subject as the prodigal, for it is not set down in the bond. That Church surely is greatly defective both in godliness and manliness, that cannot or will not throw open all the Word of God alike, at all times, to its ministers and congregations in their Sabbath solemnities.

It is not necessary in this case to submit a sketch of the material frame-work: there it lies, and the simplest may see it for himself. The least learned may go round without a guide, and not miss any essential feature of the scene. In this case the bare reading of the story from the Bible leaves the image sharply outlined, and permanently impressed upon the reader's mind. Assuming that the body of the lesson may be easily seen, let us proceed at once to seek for its soul in the spiritual meaning, which the picture covers and yet reveals.

"A certain man had two sons:" one of the greatest difficulties meets us in the first line. It is evident that God, as specially manifested in the Gospel, is represented by the father; but who are represented by the two sons,--the elder, who remained at home, and the younger, who went away? On this point three distinct interpretations have been suggested: the two brothers of the parable may represent angels and men, Jews and Gentiles, or Pharisees and publicans. I do not think it is a profitable method to send these three into the field to fight until two are destroyed, and one is left in undisputed possession. I am convinced that we shall more fully and more correctly ascertain the mind of the Lord by employing them all than by selecting one.

In representing the human figure, an artist may proceed upon either of two distinct principles, according to the object which, for the time, he may have in view. He may, on the one hand, delineate the likeness of an individual, producing a copy of his particular features, with all their beauties and all their blemishes alike: or he may, on the other hand, conceive and execute an ideal picture of man, the portrait of no person in particular, with features selected from many specimens of the race, and combined in one complete figure. The parable of the prodigal is a picture of the latter kind. It is not out and out the picture of any man; but it is, to a certain extent, the picture of every man. This prophecy of Scripture is not of private construction; and therefore it is not of private interpretation. As the ideal portrait is in one feature the likeness of this man, and in another the likeness of that man, while it is not throughout the likeness of any; so the elder and younger sons of this parable find at one point their closest counterpart in angels and men, at another in Jews and Gentiles, at a third in Pharisees and publicans, and indefinitely in as many pairs of corresponding characters as have been, or may yet be, found in the world.

In the first act of the drama,--the departure of the younger son, the case of angels and men, presents by far the most exact counterpart to the case of the two brothers. Man is the youngest child of God's intelligent family. Elder and younger remained together in the house awhile. You may observe sometimes in human families that the children who have reached the years of understanding at the birth of the youngest rejoice over the infant with a fondness second only to that of the mother. Thus the elder brother angels of our Father's house,--the morning stars of creation, sang together over the advent of man. But the younger son did not remain in the house: having become alienated in heart from the Father, he was uneasy in his presence, and sought relief by going out of sight.

In the description of the younger son's conduct, we find a picture both of the first fall and of the actual apostasy of each separate sinner. "The younger said to his father, Father give me the portion," &c. Only his words are preserved in the record; but we know that thoughts unseen in his soul were the seeds whence these words sprang. He desired to please himself, and therefore grew unhappy under the restraints of home. Bent on enjoying the pleasures of sin, he determined to avoid the presence of his father: alienated in heart, he becomes vicious in life.

The same two elements go to constitute the character and condition of the sinful before he is reconciled to God. There is a lower and a higher link in the chain that binds the slave. There is a body of this death, and a soul: there is a spiritual wickedness in high places, and a bodily wickedness in low places. The one is guilt, the other sin: the heart is at enmity, and the life is disobedient.

The younger son did not humbly sue for a gift from his father's bounty: he claimed a share of the property as of right. The terms are significant; "Give me the portion of goods that _falleth_ ([Greek: to epiballon meros]) to me." The phrase faithfully depicts the atheism of an unbelieving human heart; the fool hath said in his heart, "No God." He has become brutish: as swine gather the acorns from the ground, heedless of the oak from which they fell; alienated men snatch God's gifts for the gratification of their appetites, and forget the giving God. This seeing eye, and this hearing ear, and these cunning hands, the irreverent son counts his own, and determines to employ them in ministering to his own pleasure.

The father might justly have refused to comply with his son's demand: although a certain part of the property might by law "fall" to the younger son at the death of the father, there was no law or custom that gave the youth a right to any of it during his father's life. In this case, however, the father saw meet to let the young man have his own way; he threw the reins loose upon the neck of the prodigal. Although the father of his flesh could not see the end from the beginning, the Father of his spirit, in permitting his departure, already planned the glad return.

"Not many days after:" weary of paternal restraint, he made off as soon as possible. He gathered all; for he needed all as a price in his hand to pay for his pleasure. He went into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. Even a large substance may in this manner soon be consumed; money and health waste away quickly when they are employed as fuel to feed the flame of lust. An interesting parallel to this portion of the parable occurs in Luke xii. 45. A servant to whom much had been intrusted thought his master was at a great distance, and would remain a long time away; then and therefore he began "to beat the men-servants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken." It is when a man is, or imagines himself to be, far from God that he dares to indulge freely his vicious propensities: and conversely, those who are secretly bent upon a life of sin, put God far from their thoughts, in order that they may not be interrupted in their pleasures.

The crisis came. The "season" of pleasure did not last long; and the man who had "sowed to the flesh" was compelled to fill his bosom with an early harvest of misery. The hunger, nakedness, and shame that accumulated on the head of this wayward youth aptly represent the bitter fruits which sin, even in this life, bears as an earnest of the full wages in the second death, which it promises to pay its servants.

His sufferings did not in the first instance turn him from his sin: human sorrow is not all or always godly sorrow. Although the prodigal was in want, he did not return to his father. Convictions and terrors in the conscience seldom bring the wanderer at once to the door of mercy: he generally tries in succession several other methods in order to obtain relief. As the prodigal attempted to keep body and soul together by the most desperate and loathsome expedients, rather than throw himself on his father's compassion; so an alienated human soul, conscious of having wantonly offended a good God, and therefore hating deeply the Holy One, will bear and do the will of the wicked one to the utmost extremity of misery rather than come home a beggar, and be indebted for all to a father's love. The picture, although drawn by the Master's own hand, is necessarily drawn in the colours of external nature, and therefore it comes far short of the original, which is a spiritual wickedness. The cherished son of an affluent and honourable house in Israel has become the swineherd of a stranger in a famine-stricken land: the transition is as great as could be displayed on the limited stage of the present world; but when he who was made in God's image and treated as God's child is bound by the chain of his own passions, and indentured as a slave in the devil's service, the fall is greater, as heaven is higher than the earth, and the world of spirit deeper than the world of flesh. "No man gave unto him:" when a son deserts the Father of lights, from whom every good gift comes down, his soul cannot be satisfied from other sources: the world's breasts are dry, or yield only poison to the eager drawing of the famished child.

There is a blank in the history here. The later stages of the prodigal's misery are not exhibited in the light: fully exposed, they might have been shocking rather than impressive. Every height has its opposite and corresponding depth: as eye has not seen nor ear heard in all its fulness the blessedness that God hath prepared for them that love him; so neither can our faculties measure the miseries of sin, in their foretastes here and their fulness hereafter. How the prodigal fared under that veil, as his misery day by day increased to its climax, we know not; but at length he suddenly emerges another man. "He came to himself:" the wild foul stream that had sunk into the earth and flowed for a space under ground, bursts to the surface again, agitated still indeed, but now comparatively pure. We learn for the first time that the man has been mad, by learning that his reason is restored. It is a characteristic of the insane that they never know or confess their insanity until it has passed away: it is when he has come to himself that he first discovers he has been beside himself. The two beings to whom a man living in sin is most a stranger are himself and God; when the right mind returns, he becomes acquainted with both again. The first act of the prodigal, when light dawned on his darkness, was to converse with himself, and the second to return to his father.

A man can scarcely find a more profitable companion than himself. These two should be well acquainted, and deal frankly with each other; in the case of the prodigal how disastrous was the estrangement, how blessed the reconciliation between them! The young man, during the period of his exile, was as much a stranger to himself as to his father. His return to himself became the crisis of his fate; from the interview sprang the burning thought, "I will arise and go to my father," and the resolute deed, "he arose and went."

When he had determined to return, he returned at once, and returned as he was. Emaciated by prolonged want,--naked, filthy, hungry, he came as he was. He did not remain at a distance until by efforts of his own he should make himself in some measure worthy to resume his original place in the family; he came in want of all things, that out of his father's fulness all his wants might be supplied. The signification of this feature on the spiritual side is obvious; it exhibits a cardinal point in the way of a sinner's return to God.

But while the repenting youth did not pretend to bring anything good to his father's house, neither did he presume to bring thither anything evil: his poverty and hunger were brought with him, but the companions and instruments of his lusts were left behind. This is a distinctive discriminating feature of true repentance. In the act of fleeing to his father the prodigal leaves his associates, and his habits, and his tastes behind: and conversely, as long as he clings to these he will not--he cannot return to his father.

In the narrative it is made evident that a return to his father was the son's last resort; he did not adopt it--he did not even entertain it, until all others had failed. The grief which he must have known his unnatural exile caused in the bosom of the family at home did not move him: even want, when it came upon him like an armed man, failed to overcome his stubborn spirit. He will be the servant of a stranger rather than his father's son; he would live on swine's food, if it had power to sustain a human life, rather than sit at his father's table. It was not till death stared him in the face that he consented to return. He encountered all extremities of privation rather than come home; no thanks to him, then, for coming at last. Yet he was received with an ardent welcome, and without upbraiding. The son's sullen, obdurate, desperate resistance becomes a measure and a monument of the father's forbearing, forgiving love. It is thus that sinful men return to God in Christ to-day; and thus that God in Christ to-day receives sinful men. Prodigals returning deserve nothing, and yet obtain all. Of even the last rag of merit that the imagination can conjure up--the merit of being willing to receive favour--they are utterly destitute. Though we do not come back to our father until all other resources have failed--although we come, as it were, only when we cannot help coming, he receives us with open arms; he takes the sin away, and does not cast it up.

"When he was yet a great way off his father saw him." He must have been looking out. Often, doubtless every day, his eye turned and strained wistfully in the direction of his son's retiring footsteps. While that son was starving in a foreign land, his father was weeping at the window, longing for his return; when at last the prodigal appeared, the watchful father caught sight of his form in the distance, and ran to meet him. Behold again in this glass another feature of redeeming love! Jesus, looking down on Jerusalem, wept for sorrow, because its giddy multitude would not turn and live; if they had with one accord come forth to accept the pardon which he offered, he would have wept again for joy. In his tears, as well as in his teaching he showed us the Father.

The reconciliation is immediate and complete. The parable reveals an extraordinary outburst of paternal tenderness. The son, melted, and in some measure confused by the undeserved, unexpected warmth of his reception, bethought of the speech which, at the turning point of his repentance, he had resolved to address to his father, and began to recite it as he had conned the words in exile:--"Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son;" but there stopped short, omitting the portion about being content with the position of a hired servant. Bengel suggests that the father may have cut the prodigal's speech short by giving aloud an order to the servants for the kind and honourable reception of his child; but another thought, also suggested by the same acute and experimental expositor, brings out, I think, more truly the deep significance of the omission:--The son lying on the father's bosom, with the father's tears falling warm on his upturned face, is some degrees further advanced in the spirit of adoption than when he first planned repentance beside the swine in his master's field. There and then the legal spirit of fear because of guilt still lingered in his heart; he ventured to hope for exemption from deserved punishment, but not for restoration to the place of a beloved sen. Now the spirit of bondage has been conclusively cast out by the experience of his father's love; the fragments of stone that had hitherto remained even in a broken heart are utterly melted at last, as if by fire from heaven. He could not now complete the speech which he had prepared; its later words faltered and fell inarticulate. He could not now ask for the place of a servant, for he was already in the place of a son.[83]

[83] The paraphrase of this Scripture, in a selection employed in most of the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland, stumbles at this point, and misses the meaning of the text. Overlooking the mighty step of progress which the prodigal had made between the time when his accumulating convictions turned the balance first in favour of repentance, and the time when the last fragment of distrust melted away in the flood of a full reconciliation, the hymn represents the son as still pleading specifically to be sent away into the place of a servant, after the embrace, and the kiss, and the tears of his father had bestowed and triply sealed his sonship.

"He ran and fell upon his neck, Embraced and kissed his son: The grieving prodigal bewailed The follies he had done."

"No more, my father, can I hope To find paternal grace; My utmost wish is to obtain A servant's humble place."

No; after the meeting the youth did indeed say that he was not worthy to be called a son, but he did not say he had abandoned the hope or the desire of being reinstated. Yet, notwithstanding this and other errors that have crept into the collection, and the superior character of many that are excluded from it, no vigorous effort has been made to obtain a revision in order to exclude the faulty and introduce better in their stead. Conservative inertia--an instinct to keep unchanged what has descended to us from our fathers--is a great and curious power in human nature, operating both on Church and State. Although not creditable to the wisdom and courage of men, it is doubtless overruled for good by the providence of God.

The father's command regarding the son's reception represents the complete reconciliation of the Gospel--the total oblivion of the prodigal's past sins, and his admission into the favour and the family of God, as a dear child. Even the details at this point have been framed after the pattern of spiritual privileges as they are elsewhere represented in the Scriptures; and they admit, consequently, of being minutely examined and applied. The best Robe points to the Redeemer's righteousness which the believer puts on, and wherein he is justified; the Ring is the signet of a king, the seal of the Spirit in the regeneration; the Shoes suggest that the sinner, forgiven and renewed, shall walk with God in newness of life; the Feast indicates the joy of a forgiving God over a forgiven man, and the joy of a forgiven man in a forgiving God.

These two lessons Christ has tenderly and plainly taught in this parable,--first, that God receives and forgives a sinner who comes back repenting; and second, that he delights in the act of so forgiving repentant sinners: on these points no ambiguity is left, and no room for controversy. These features of our Father's character, if they were fully perceived and frankly accepted, would soon change the face of the world. Guilt makes the guilty suspicious and distrustful. For the chief ailment of humanity the parable supplies a specific antidote: let the aspect of God's character, which is here displayed, take possession of a sinful heart, and it is forthwith won.

A young person is in want of employment; and a great man lives in the neighbourhood who could give him both work and wages. To this man the youth is advised in his distress to apply; but this is the man whom the youth has injured and offended,--the man whose just resentment he dreads. But it is known and reported that this possessor of great wealth is kind, generous, forgiving; that he does not retain resentment for injuries received; that he delights to bestow favour on those who have offended him. Convinced by these representations, the youth determines to venture, and accordingly sets out on his journey toward the great man's house. As he approaches it, however, his limbs grow feeble, his heart beats high, and he lacks courage to go near and knock. He halts, and is about to turn back in despair. What would suffice to encourage the trembler at that moment, and bear him through? If then and there he could in any way be thoroughly convinced that the man whom he formerly injured, and therefore now dreads, is not only in general tender-hearted and open-handed, but is at that moment specifically thinking of this individual transgressor, grieving over his impenitence, watching from his window for his coming, yearning to receive his confession, and enjoy the blessedness in his own heart of forgiving and satisfying the penitent; this will be effectual; the youth will go forward to the door now with a firm step.

It is such a conviction regarding the mind of God towards erring men that is needed, in order to bring them in clouds to his mercy-seat, like doves to their windows; and it is in order to work this conviction in our hearts that Jesus, who has authority to declare the Father, has given us the parable of the Prodigal Son. May the Spirit take this word, and make it in us quick and powerful.

Here we are not left to deal with curious or doubtful speculation. Nothing in heaven or earth can be truer, surer, plainer than this. The view that Jesus gives is the true view of the Father, as he turns his face to-day toward the children of men.

Here is a youth who has discovered suddenly that a disease has fatally stricken him, deep in the springs of life. After struggling some days against conviction, and clinging to false hopes, he has at length acknowledged that sentence of death has been passed. When the first tumult subsides, a species of calm succeeds,--the calm of earnest occupation with one over-riding and absorbing theme. The world, with its hopes and fears, is conclusively cut off: his business with time is closed. He has bidden farewell to the crowd that he has left behind, and has entered the solemn vestibule which at the other end opens on eternity. With all the energy of his being, he applies himself now to the question, Am I lost or saved?

He looks alternately backward on his own life, and upward to God's throne; both prospects trouble him. Backward he sees only sin; forward, only judgment. Himself seems the stubble, and the Judge a consuming fire. As these two approach, and their meeting seems near, he fears with an exceeding great fear, and cries with an exceeding bitter cry. He greatly wonders, meanwhile, that he never saw things in this light before. Now, in man's extremity, is God's opportunity to show him the Father. While the eyes of the body are closed in weariness, the mental vision remains active; and a picture appears, as if it were hung in light upon the wall. To the soul's eye Christ appears, and appears in the act of revealing the Father. The Father whom Christ reveals runs forth to meet his prodigal son, falls on his neck, weeps, and kisses him. There is no upbraiding, no bargaining for terms. The returning son is forgiven, accepted, clothed, honoured, loved. He has all, and abounds. This is doubtless a true picture, the dying youth reflects, for it is Christ that displays it; but, alas, it brings no hope to me. I have stifled convictions, and lived for my own pleasure; and though I often heard of mercy, I never sought it, until I found that death was on my track. How can I expect that God should receive me, when I make him a do-no-better, for I never thought of seeking him until all my chosen idols had forsaken me, and I was left destitute?

Brother, look; what good thing was in the lost son, that served to recommend him to his father? He would not remain at home; he could not enjoy his abundance as long as the father, whose face he loathed, abode under the same roof. He went away, that he might enjoy the pleasures of sin. He did not return while he had enough; he did not return when he began to be in want; he endured the extreme of misery and shame rather than return; he came back to his father only when all other resources failed;--and yet his father received him with great gladness. Sinner, look on this love,--look on it till you live in its light. It is not him that never departed, or came back while he yet had plenty, or came back soon, or came back with an improved heart,--it is, "_Him that cometh_ I will in no wise cast out."

Those who from this parable conclude that God receives sinners into favour without a propitiation, and those who endeavour to escape from that conclusion by affirming that the father in the parable represents Christ, err equally, although on opposite sides.[84]

[84] Stier's observations on this point are excellent:--"The well-meaning efforts which are made to explain the absence of reference to the mediating _propitiation_ of the Son of God in this instant exhibition of the _Father's mercy_, are altogether needless; they rest fundamentally on false dogmatic views of this propitiation, as if there were not existing in the Father's being the same love which is expressed in the Son,--as if the Father needed abstractly to be propitiated in order to entertain this love! We are not to seek _Christ himself_ as mediator in the person of this father; nor (though Melancthon has strangely ventured to affirm it), afterwards in the fatted calf, as sacrificially slain. _His_ place here is rather to be sought in his thus authoritatively testifying of the Father's mercy. As Nitzsch excellently says:--'If he seems to conceal himself here, he is all the more manifest there, where the Shepherd seeks the lost sheep. For _the_ Son--who is neither an elder nor a _younger_, the _eternal_ Son of the Father, one with him, his eye and his heart towards the lost--is come into this world, although invisible and unnamed in the parable, to reveal the Father where he had been ever invisible, and where no man knew him: and he is to the children of the law and the curse, not only a living herald of the propitiable--we shall rather say of the already propitiated--Father, but the (that is _our_) propitiation itself, and the way whereby every one of us may come back to God.' The mediation of Christ is no more denied by this silence than the seduction of Satan was denied in the sinner's apostasy at the beginning of the parable. We may also say with Von Gerlach that the 'coming out of the father to meet his son, here figuratively exhibits the sending of the Son.'"--_Stier in loc_.

The notion that a mediator is not needed, because a mediator is not here specifically represented, proceeds upon the assumption, obviously and inexcusably erroneous, that all truth must be taught in every parable. While occasionally visiting the printing works of the publishers as these sheets are passing through the press, I have observed the process of printing coloured landscapes by lithograph. One stone by one impression deposits the outline of the land; another stone, by another impression, fills in the sea; and a third stone, on a different machine, subsequently adds the sky to the picture. No observer is so foolish as to complain, while he sees the process in its earlier stages, that there is no sea or no sky in the landscape. It is thus with the parables in general, and with this group in particular. By the two first, certain portions and aspects of the scene are represented; and by the last one, when it is impressed on the same field, the remaining features are completed.

* * * * *

Hitherto we have been occupied exclusively with the younger of the two sons; but the notice given in the first sentence of the parable prepares us for meeting with the elder in some significant capacity ere it close; and here, accordingly, he comes up to sustain his part.

At the moment of the prodigal's return, his elder brother was in the field, whether for his father's profit or his own pleasure we are not informed. When he came home in the evening, and before he had entered the house, he heard the sound of the festival within. Surprised and displeased that a feast on so large a scale should have been instituted without his privity and participation, he assumed and maintained an attitude of haughty reserve. Instead of going in at once and seeing all with his own eyes as a son, he went to a servant, and in the spirit of an alien, inquired the reason of the mirth. Having learned the leading facts, instead of imitating his father's generosity, he abandoned himself to selfish jealousy, and went away in a pet. The father, on every side true to his character, came out and pleaded with him to enter and share the common joy. Hereupon the true character of the _soi-disant_ model son is revealed; he peevishly casts it in his father's face, as a reproach, that he had never provided such a feast for his immaculate and superlatively dutiful child.

The elder son, in his statement of the case, introduces an elaborately constructed double contrast between his brother's experience and his own, which is peculiarly interesting in relation to the mercy of God and the methods of the Gospel. To the jaundiced eye of this sour-tempered pharisaic youth, it seemed that his father gave much to him that deserved least, and little to him that deserved most: to the profligate son, the fatted calf; to the eminently dutiful child, not even a kid. Here the hard, self-satisfied formalist, like Pilate and Caiaphas, preaches the Christ whom he did not know. The envious contrast portrayed by the elder son is a dark shadow which takes its shape from the Light of life. It is a law of the Gospel that nothing is given to the man in reward for the righteousness which he brings forward as his boast; but all is given to the man who has flung away his own righteousness with loathing as filthy rags, and come, "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked," to cast himself on the mercy of God. The greatest gift is bestowed on the most worthless; for "God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. v. 8).

At this point the line of our parable touches that of the lost sheep, and thenceforth runs coincident with it to the close: it points to the same features of human character, and teaches the same principles of divine truth. In the first place, it repeats the answer already given in the two preceding parables to the question embodied in the complaint of the Pharisees,--"This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them." The father announces with great clearness and fulness, the grounds on which he rejoiced more that day over the prodigal restored than over the elder son, who had never left home. It is a rule in human experience, universally understood and appreciated, that though a son never lost is as precious as one who has been lost and found, parents experience a more vivid joy in the act of receiving the exile back than in the continuous possession of a son who has been always in their sight.[85]

[85] This law may be illustrated by an analogous fact in the material department of creation. Lay a ball, such as a boy's marble, on an extended sheet of thin paper, and the paper, though fixed at the edges and unsupported in the midst, will bear easily the weight: take now another ball of the same shape and weight, and let it drop upon the sheet of paper from a height, it will go sheer through. The two balls are of the same weight and figure; but the motion gave to one a momentum tenfold greater than that of the other at rest. It is in a similar way that the return of a lost son goes through a loving father's heart, and makes all its affections thrill; while the continued possession of another son, equally valuable and equally valued, produces no such commotion either in the heart of the father or his home.

In the meantime, it is very sweet to learn from the lips of Jesus that this law, which may be clearly traced on earth, penetrates to heaven, and there prepares for repenting sinners, not a bare escape from wrath, but an abundant entrance into the joy of their Lord.

But while the parable thus demonstrates that even though the claim of the Pharisees were granted their objection falls to the ground, it most certainly does not grant that claim. So far from conceding that they needed no repentance, the Lord makes it evident that they kept company with the publicans in sin, and only differed in this, that they did not repent and forsake it. The elder brother, towards the close of the parable, presents a life-likeness of the Pharisees; in him they might have seen their own shadow on the wall.

The self-righteousness, the pride, the peevishness, the jealousy of the elder brother in the close of the parable represent, in its most distinctive features, the character of the Jewish people and their leaders, in the beginning of the Gospel. One of their leading reasons for refusing to own Jesus as the Messiah was his manifested willingness to extend the blessings of redemption to the needy of every condition and every name. When the Lord reminded them that Elijah was sent past many suffering widows in Israel to relieve a stranger at Sarepta, and that Elisha left many lepers uncured among his own countrymen when he healed the Syrian soldier, they were so exasperated by the suggestion that God's favour had already flowed out to the Gentiles, and might flow in the same direction again, that they "rose up and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong" (Luke iv. 29). The same spirit burst forth when they were touched on the same tender point in the ministry of the apostles. Paul was permitted from the stairs of the fortress attached to the temple at Jerusalem to address an excited multitude on the faith as it is in Jesus. Loving the Hebrew tongue in which he spoke better than the Greek, which they had expected him to employ, they listened with interest and in silence to the story of his conversion through the appearing of the risen Jesus; but when in the progress of the narrative he found it necessary to inform them that the Lord his Saviour gave him a commission to preach the Gospel beyond the boundaries of Israel, saying, "Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles, they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live" (Acts xxii. 21, 22). In this inveterate prejudice of the Pharisaic Jews against the admission of persons or communities other than themselves into the privileges of Messiah's kingdom, we see the reason why the Lord gave his parable the turn which it takes in the extraordinary conduct of the elder brother. Counting that the kingdom belonged exclusively to themselves, the Jewish hierarchs violently resented every suggestion that pointed to the reception of strangers. It was to them that this series of parables was addressed; and to them, in immediate relation to their stupid and impudent cry, "He receiveth sinners!"

But we have not exhausted this portion of the lesson when we have pointed out that those whom the elder brother represents fret proudly and peevishly against the admission of their neighbours into the kingdom: by that very fact they unconsciously but surely demonstrate that themselves have not entered yet. The spirit that in regard to self is satisfied, before God unhumbled, and towards men unloving, has no part with Christ: this is the proud whom God knoweth afar off, not the meek whom he delights to honour.

Ah, woe to the man who serves God as that son served his father, with a mercenary mind and an unbroken heart,--who thinks his obedience praiseworthy, and would be surprised if it should go without reward. The elder son was lost as well as the younger; but as far as the parable reveals his history, he was not like him found again: he, like his brother, went astray; but unlike him, refused to come back. The father was grieved as much by the sullen, dry, hard, cold, dead formality of his elder son, as by the prodigal wastefulness of the younger, without getting the sorrow balanced by a subsequent joy. Whited sepulchre! what will thy residence in the house, and thy constant and punctilious profession avail thee while thou art planting daggers in thy father's heart, and nursing vile hypocrisy in thy own? It is the empty open vessel that gets itself filled when it is plunged into a well of living water; the vessel that is full and shut, although it is overflowed by rivers of privileges, does not receive and retain a drop. Before God and under the Gospel, the turning-point of each man's destiny is not the number or the aggravation of his sins, but the discovery of his own guilt, and the consequent cry out of the depths for mercy. That which really in the last resort hinders a man's salvation and secures his doom is not his sin, but his refusal to know and own that he is a sinner. All the excesses of the prodigal will not shut him out of heaven, for he came repenting to the father; but all the virtues of the elder brother will not let him into heaven, for he cherished pride in his heart, and taunted his father for overlooking his worth. The ground on which the Laodiceans were condemned was not the sinfulness of their state, but their stolid satisfaction with the state they were in. "Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" (Rev. iii. 17). What although they were not rich;--if they had known their poverty, all the treasures of the Godhead were at their disposal: what although they were wretched;--all the blessings that are at God's right hand were theirs for the asking. What although this son was prodigal;--there is a place for him in God's favour,--a place for him in the mansions of the Father's house for ever when he comes back repenting, confiding; but what although he never strayed--never missed a diet of worship or a deed of alms, the elder brother by holding to his own righteousness, rejects the righteousness which is of God by faith, and shuts himself out of the kingdom. Him who thought he was poor and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked, the father runs to meet with kisses of love and tears of joy: but him who thought himself rich and increased with goods, and in need of nothing, the father puts away, with the most piercing expressions of loathing which the whole Scriptures contain, "I will spue thee out of my mouth."

XXV.

THE PRUDENT STEWARD.

"And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward. Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore. And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations."--LUKE xvi. 1-9.

On the face of this parable a difficulty presents itself, all the more formidable in that it lies not in the critical, but in the moral department. In almost all the other examples, the acts attributed to human agents are either morally blameless in themselves, or are manifestly exhibited in order to be condemned: but here, an element of injustice is inseparably mixed up with the prudence which is commended in the conduct of the steward. The difficulty lies in this, that the specimen of worldly prudence presented in order to suggest and stimulate spiritual prudence in securing the interests of the soul, is dyed through and through with the loathsome vice of dishonesty. It is not easy, at least for us, to gather the lesson which this man's prudence contained, out of the dishonesty in which in was steeped.

When we read the parable we may detect a feeling of surprise creeping over our minds, that the Lord, who had the whole world and its history before him whence to select his examples, should have chosen a specimen of worldly wisdom, damaged by an admixture of downright falsehood, in order to stimulate thereby the spiritual zeal of his own disciples. The three following observations will, in my judgment, explain and completely remove the difficulty:--(1.) The Holy One, precisely because he is perfectly holy, can come closer to the unholy than we who are infected with sin and susceptible of injury from contact with impurity. Jesus talked with the Samaritan at the well, and permitted the sinner to wash his feet with tears in Simon's house. His own disciples and the Pharisees wondered by turns why he came so close to the unclean; but if they had been free from sin as he was, they could have handled it freely when in their ordinary ministry it crossed their path. Inflammable matter must be kept far from fire; whereas matter that is incombustible may, when a necessary cause occurs, safely pass through the midst of the flame. (2.) A shorter parable in another place presents and explains the same difficulty: "Be ye wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." Serpents are proposed to the disciples as examples to be imitated; but it is the wisdom only and not the hurtfulness of the serpent that their Master enjoins them to imitate. Foresight and dishonesty are not more closely or inseparably united in the character of the cunning steward than wisdom and hurtfulness in the nature of the serpent. In both alike the Master meant that one quality which is commendable should be selected for imitation, and the other quality which is vile should be cast away with loathing. (3.) The key-note of the parable is expressed in verse 8: "The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light." The line of interpretation must be drawn through this point, and all the scattered features of the picture brought up or brought down to meet it. Thus the tinge of dishonesty that runs through the prudence of the steward, so far from rendering his case unsuitable for the purpose of the Lord, imparted to it additional appropriateness and point. The methods, as well as the ends of the worldly, were different from those of the spiritual. This example shows that, from the ungodly man's own view-point, and according to his own maxims, he prosecutes his object with energy and skill. Let the Christian, with his clearer, purer light, prosecute his high aim by holy means with an energy and zeal similar to those which the ungodly exhibit in the pursuit of their gains or pleasures. It was the design of the Lord not simply to give his disciples generally an example of wisdom, but to give them specifically an example of the wisdom of the world--the wisdom that neither fears God nor regards man. An example of prudence taken from a good man's history, and exercised under submission to the law of God, would not have suited the Master's purpose so well as the one that has been chosen.

It is important to notice at the outset, that in this instance the Lord addresses his instructions specifically to his own disciples. The three parables which are recorded in the preceding chapter were spoken to the Pharisees; immediately after these, and in continuation of the history, the evangelist intimates that "he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man," &c. Besides those lessons which he gave to the multitude, teaching how the distant may come near, he gave this lesson to those who had already come near, in order to incite them to diligence in the course which they had chosen: this Teacher rightly divides the word of truth, giving to each his portion in due season. In this lesson the diligence of worldly men is employed to rebuke the slothfulness of Christians. Those who make perishing things their portion are thoughtful, inventive, energetic, decisive in prosecuting their object; how thoughtless and slow are the heirs of the kingdom in the work of their high calling!

"A certain rich man had a steward." We learn here, incidentally, how evenly balanced are the various conditions of life in a community, and how little of substantial advantage wealth can confer on its possessor. As your property increases, your personal control over it diminishes; the more you possess, the more you must entrust to others. Those who do their own work are not troubled with disobedient servants; those who look after their own affairs, are not troubled with unfaithful overseers.[86]

[86] A case came up lately in an English court of justice, in which a certain duke prosecuted his butler for malversation in his charge. It appeared in evidence that the defalcation on the account for wine alone amounted to L. 1500. This fact incidentally reveals two things:--How great is the wealth of these British princes; and how little that wealth is under their own control.

This overseer cheated his master, and concealed the fraud for a time under the folds of complicated accounts; but, as in all similar cases, this career of wickedness came suddenly to an end. Some person discovered the facts and informed the proprietor. When suspicion was raised inquiry could not be resisted; and, when an inquiry was instituted, the crime could not be hid. The steward seems to have given up his case as soon as he was accused; he uttered not a word in his own defence. There was no proof on one side, and no denial on the other. The case was clear, and the process summary; sentence of dismissal was pronounced on the spot. But the proprietor was still in a great measure at the mercy of this unfaithful servant; the accounts were all in his hand, and the owner could not instantly resume the power which he had delegated. The agent accordingly was ordered to prepare and submit a balance-sheet, on which his successor might proceed to administer the estate.

There was not much time for deliberation: the decree of dismissal had already passed, and as soon as the state of accounts could be made up, this once comfortable and important personage must be cast penniless upon the world. Now or never, he must do something for himself. With habits, both mental and physical, cast in another mould, he cannot win his bread as a labourer; and his pride revolted against the prospect of becoming a beggar on the spot where he had long been owned as master by the multitude. His resolution is quickly formed, and as quickly carried into effect. He will employ his present opportunity, so as to provide a refuge for himself in his future need: he will so deal with the money while it is still in his hand, as that he shall not be left destitute when he is driven from his place.

In prosecution of his purpose, the steward summoned his master's debtors one by one into his presence. He held their acknowledgments for goods received, or their signatures for the amount of rent which they had agreed to pay for their lands. Having in his hands the documents which bound the debtors, he might have read off from these the amount due by each; but it suited his purpose better to ask the obligants what sums they owed, and to proceed wholly upon their voluntary acknowledgments. The first owed a hundred measures of oil, the second a hundred measures of wheat. What these quantities may have been in relation to our standards is a question which possesses only a critical and antiquarian interest: it has no bearing on the interpretation of the parable, and therefore we pass it without further notice. The absolute amount of the debt has no influence on the meaning of the parable; the point which is really important is the proportion between the amount owned by the debtors and the amount exacted by the steward. Olive oil and wheat were two of the staple products of the country, and the obligations in regard to them may have been incurred either in transactions of a mercantile character, or in those which intervene between landlord and tenant.[87]

[87] Probably the rents were paid in kind, and these were the arrears which the tenants acknowledged.

The method of the overseer is short and simple: apart from considerations of morality, conscience, and divine retribution, it seemed a short road to the accomplishment of his purpose. He surrendered to the debtors their obligations, and received in return obligations for smaller amounts, in one case for fifty, and in another for eighty, instead of a hundred. These two cases are submitted as specimens: others were treated in a similar way. Of course the steward could not obtain from these debtors any obligation in his own favour for the portion remitted, which could be enforced in a court of justice; for the proof of the claim on the one side would have revealed his guilt on the other: but it was assumed between the parties that the benefit conferred should in due time be substantially acknowledged and repaid. The steward counted that in the day of his distress those men on whom he had conferred favours would receive him into their houses.[88]

[88] Of the same nature were the long leases of ecclesiastical property in England at low rents, granted by the living incumbents, in consideration of a sum of money in name of fine paid to themselves.

It was expected, moreover, that the proprietor, or the steward whom he might afterwards employ, could not exact more than the smaller sums, for which they possessed the acknowledgments of the parties. We could indeed conceive a case in which the injured owner could lead a proof of fraud in the transaction, and enforce from the obligants the original amounts; but it is not probable that, in an age when records were defective, and the two parties immediately connected with the fraudulent transaction deeply interested in concealing it, such a suit could be successfully carried through.[89]

[89] A case emerged lately in the courts of this country, in which a proprietor, who had lost very large sums by the unfaithfulness of his agent, prosecuted the parties for restitution, on the ground of the agent's bad faith in the transactions. The case was protracted, and I lost sight of it before the solution was reached; but it is enough for my present purpose that a plea was actually raised to obtain from one debtor the price of a hundred measures of oil instead of fifty, which he acknowledged, on the alleged ground that the absconded steward had corruptly and for his own interest sacrificed the rights of his employer.

The lord, that is the injured proprietor, commended the unjust steward, because, or in that, he had done wisely. The difficulty here lies on the surface,--lies, as it were, in the sound; upon a close examination it vanishes. First of all, the lord who praised the steward is, as the translators have indicated by printing the word without a capital, not the Lord Jesus, the speaker of the parable, but the master, whom the cunning agent had robbed. Further, this praise obviously did not indicate moral approval. The master praised the servant when all was over, not for the faithfulness with which he had been served, but for the cleverness with which he had been cheated. The commendation which the master bestowed upon the servant was that of sharply looking after himself. It is the commendation which one whose house has been robbed during the night might bestow in the morning upon the robber, after noticing how adroitly he had opened the locks, and carried off the booty.

This nefarious transaction was, from the perpetrator's view-point, cleverly planned and promptly executed. It was no sooner said than done; delay might have ruined the steward's prospects. He must have everything done before he is summoned actually to transfer his books to his successor's hands. He provided in his own way for his own future need; the plan was well-contrived, and successfully carried into effect. This praise, but expressly and only this, the injured master bestowed upon the man.

"And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." Such is the lesson which the Lord draws from the picture. Difficulties, indeed, adhere to the phraseology in its details; but the interpretation, in its main line, is determined and made evident by landmarks which can neither be overlooked nor removed. The mammon of unrighteousness means the world with all its business and its possessions; mammon is denominated unrighteous, generally on account of the manner in which it is employed by worldly men, and specially on account of the case in hand, where a gross injustice was perpetrated without scruple, and as an ordinary matter of business. Alas, how prevalent is this form of unrighteousness still! Although justice in a large measure pervades and so sustains the vast commerce of the country, many mean tricks insinuate themselves between its mighty strata, corroding its fabric, and undermining its strength.

In counselling the disciples to acquire for themselves friends from the mammon of unrighteousness ([Greek: poiêsate heantois philous ek tou mamôna tês adikias]), the Lord obviously adopts the terms of his spiritual lesson from the structure of the parable which conveys it. By remitting part of their debts the steward made the debtors his friends; he won them to his side, and made sure of their sympathy when his day of need should come. His prudence and skill were commendable, but the fraud which was mingled with them is neither approved by the Lord, nor prescribed as a pattern for the disciples.[90] Nor is it difficult to lift the pure lesson from the impure ground on which it lies. The steward could not reach his unrighteous object except by a crooked path; but the ends which a Christian strives to attain neither require nor admit the employment of falsehood. Use the world in such a way that it shall help and not hinder the interests of your soul and of the world to come.

[90] The Emperor Julian adduced this parable in order to prove that the doctrines of Christ were adverse to good morals. This is precisely the place where the apostate, seeking reasons to justify his apostasy, will most readily find what he seeks.

The position of the phrase, [Greek: eis tên genean tên heautôn], in or for their own generation, near the end of the sentence, determines that it is applied equally to both parties. It is implied that both classes, the children of the world and the children of light, look after their own affairs; and it is intimated that the one class attends to its business more earnestly and more skilfully than the other. This man cleaves to the world as his portion, and that man has chosen the Saviour as his: but, in point of fact, he who has chosen the inferior object prosecutes it with the greater zeal. The superior energy of the worldling in the acquisition of gains is employed to rebuke the Christian for his slackness in winning the true riches. This is the main lesson of the parable.

The specific form which the lesson assumes is,--Provide now for future need, and make the opportunities of time subservient to the interests of eternity.

The characteristic features of the steward's skill were, that when his dismissal was near, he occupied the short time that remained, and the resources still at his disposal, in skilfully providing for the future. We are stewards in possession still, but under warning; do we employ the time and the opportunities that remain in making our calling and election sure?

Many precious possessions have been placed in our hands by the owner of all; health of body and soundness of mind; home and friends; good name or great riches, or both conjoined;--these and many others have been by their owner placed under our charge, that we should lay them out for him. Soon the stewardship will be taken from us. "When ye fail,"--that is, when we can no longer retain our hold of time and life; when flesh and heart are failing; when a mist comes over the eye, so that it can no longer see the circle of weeping friends that stand round the bed of death,--have we an everlasting habitation ready to receive the departing spirit?

More particularly the practical question is, Have we disposed of earthly possessions and opportunities, so that they helped and did not hinder the acquisition of an incorruptible inheritance?

There is a place and a use for temporal things in making sure of the life eternal. How constant has been the tendency of fallen humanity to run wildly into opposite extremes of error; because the Popish system gives worldly possessions too high a place in the concerns of the soul, we may readily fall into the error of giving them no place at all. We lean hard over against the superstition that expects by alms, and money paid for masses, to smooth the spirit's path to peace beyond the grave; but when we have refused to make money directly the price of our admission into heaven, we have not exhausted our duty in regard to its bearing on our eternal weal. The property, and money, and occupations of time may instrumentally affect for good or evil our efforts to lay up the true riches. According as they are employed, they may become a stumbling-stone over which their possessor shall fall, or a shield to cover his head from some fiery darts of the wicked one.[91]

[91] For example, their competence and the comforts which it brings shield women of the higher and middle classes in this country, in a great measure, from certain snares of the devil in which multitudes of their poorer sisters miserably fall. If those who enjoy this protection throw away their advantage by turning that which is a protection on one side into a temptation on the other, and so bring themselves to an equality over all with the less favoured classes, the fault is their own. It is proved by obvious facts that worldly possessions may be placed between you and temptation, as cotton bales and sand bags may be employed to ward off cannon shot from stone walls. They are capable of being turned to some account in advancing our eternal interests; for our inheritance in heaven, the world is useful, if it is rightly used.

Could it be truly said of any who are lost that the mammon of unrighteousness brought them to the place of woe? or, conversely could it be truly said of any who now stand round the throne in white, that the mammon of unrighteousness became the friend who introduced them to that everlasting habitation? I reply, this mammon is not and cannot be a cause either of being saved or being lost; but it, as well as all other things in time, may become instruments in the saving or destroying of a soul, according as it is wisely used or foolishly abused. For example, in the next parable, it was sin and not wealth that ruined the rich man; many richer men than he have walked with God on earth, and entered rest when they departed. Wealth was not his destroyer, yet he so used his wealth as to permit the wicked one to bind his soul with it as with chains over to the second death. On the other hand, it was neither the poverty nor the sores of Lazarus, nor both together, that saved him; many as destitute of money and as full of sores as he are never saved. Christ was this man's Saviour,--Christ alone; yet, his poverty became in God's hands, and through his servant's faith, the instrument of shielding him from temptation and purging his dross away. In the same subordinate and instrumental sense in which the rich man's wealth was his ruin, the poverty of the poor man saved him. But these results are not uniform--are not necessary; they may be--they often are reversed. The wealth of a rich man may help him heavenward, and the poverty of a poor man may press him down toward the pit. The cardinal point of the parable is, employ the mammon of unrighteousness--this world's affairs all, with forethought, skill, decision, and energy, to further your own salvation; turn all to account for the gain of godliness.

A ship leaves our shores bound westward to an Atlantic port: the wind, being from the north, beats on her right side all the way. She makes a quick voyage and reaches her destination in safety. Another ship at another time leaves these shores for the same destination: the wind, blowing from the south, beats on her left side. She wanders from her course and is shipwrecked. Whence these opposite results? Was the first ship saved because she met a north wind, and the second lost because she fell in with a wind from the south? Nay, verily: but because the one so received the wind, from whatever point of the compass it might blow, as to be impelled by it onward in her course: and the other, instead of wisely employing every wind to help her forward, allowed herself to drift before the wind that happened to blow.

Mammon, the world--ah, is it not adverse to the interests of our souls? What then? Believer, adversary though it be, you may make it your friend. A skilful seaman, when once fairly out to sea, can make a wind from the west carry him westward! he can make the wind that blows right in his face bear him onward to the very point from which it blows. When he arrives at home, he is able to say the wind from the west impelled me westward, and led me into my desired haven.

Thus if we were skilful, and watchful, and earnest, we might make the unrighteous mammon our friend; we might so turn our side to each of its tortuous impulses, that willing or unwilling, conscious or unconscious, it should from day to day drive us nearer home.

The parable is in this peculiar, that in the moral lesson which the Master enforces at the close, he retains and employs the phraseology of the story. "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness," &c. The meaning is by the context made plain, and the reader may translate the metaphor as he proceeds. The steward, while he remained in his place, so handled the property in his power as to secure for himself a home when he should be removed from his place: in like manner let men so use material possessions while they live on earth, that these very possessions shall be found to have helped them toward their eternal rest. When a man's ways please God, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. These things that are enemies, and that overcome many, you may make your friends; you may turn to them such a side, that every time they strike they shall press you nearer rest, and at their last stroke impel you through the narrow entrance into the joy of your Lord.

XXVI.

THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS.

"There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died and was buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham; but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."--LUKE xvi. 19-31.

The intervening portion of history, contained in verses 14-18, should not be permitted to conceal from us the intimate relation that subsists between this and the preceding parable. The application of the first for the reproof of covetousness, touched a besetting sin of the Pharisees, and stung them to the quick. Unable to bear in silence a rebuke which their own consciences recognised as just, they interrupted the preacher with rude derision. They attempted to shield their own open sores from painful probing by raising a laugh at the expense of the reprover. I suspect they reckoned without their host in this matter. This man spake with authority, and not as the scribes; the common people heard him gladly. His speech was too divinely grave, and too palpably true, to be turned aside by the clumsy wit of the men whom it condemned. Intermitting for a moment the thread of his parabolic preaching, he turned aside and addressed a few withering words directly to these uneasy interrupters.[92]

[92] From the introduction of a new subject abruptly in the 18th verse--the much agitated question regarding a man's right to put away his wife--I think it probable that the interruption had been repeated and continued; that it took the form of a dialogue, the Pharisees throwing in what they considered a damaging question, and Jesus giving an answer by turns--a scene which is frequently repeated in modern missions among the heathen.

When this episode was over, the Lord resumed his theme where it had been broken off. I think it probable, both from the terms of the narrative, and the nature of the case, that if these Pharisees had not been present, or if they had held their peace when the preaching galled them, the matter of verse 19th would have touched that of verse 13th--the parable of the rich man and Lazarus would have been connected in place as well as in purport with that of the prudent steward.

When he had followed up the first parable with a pungent application regarding the abuse of riches, "the Pharisees, also, who were covetous, heard all these things, and they derided him." To them, in reply to their jesting, he spoke the words verses 14-18, and then resumed, in verse 19th, "There was a certain rich man," &c.[93]

[93] Dr. Trench's disquisition regarding the latent union between covetousness and prodigality, involving a proof that the discourse about the rich man was applicable to the Pharisees who were not of prodigal habits, although very good in itself, is scarcely relevant; inasmuch as it is not the parable of the rich man, but the reproofs intervening between it and the unjust steward that are expressly addressed to the Pharisees.

At the beginning of the chapter, addressing his own disciples particularly, although some of the Pharisees were present, he had taught them from the case of the prudent steward to use the possessions of this world with a view to their bearing on the next; and now, to complete the lesson, he will teach them, by a terrible example, the consequences of neglecting that rule.

But before we proceed to examine the parable in detail, it is important to determine generally regarding its nature whether it is an allegory in which spiritual things are represented by sensible objects, or simply an instructive example, historic or poetic, charged like other examples with moral warning and reproof. The parable of the sower is an allegory: the sower represents not a sower, but a preacher; the seed represents not seed, but the Gospel: whereas in the inner substance, as well as the outward form of the lesson, the good Samaritan is simply a good Samaritan, and the wounded traveller is simply a wounded traveller. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is not allegory; it belongs to the class of the Samaritan, and not to that of the sower. It is not like a type, which a man cannot read until it is turned; but like a manuscript, which delivers its sense directly and at first hand.[94]

[94] It is true a figurative meaning has been applied to it, as to all the rest, both in ancient and modern times. In this case the lesson, when metaphorically rendered, possesses a remarkable measure of beauty, truth, and appropriateness. The rich man is the Jewish nation, by God's gift rich in position and privilege, but selfishly keeping all to itself, despising and neglecting others. Lazarus represents the Gentiles, spiritually poor, naked, hungry, homeless, within reach of the privileged people, yet by them left destitute. Both die: the old dispensation runs out, and Jews and Gentiles are together launched into "the last times." By apostolic messengers, the poor outcasts are now led unto the blessed privileges of the Gospel; these stones become children of Abraham; while the Jews, who enjoyed so good a portion in the former dispensation, are cast out. In this case, as in that of the Samaritan, it is easy so to turn the polished instrument in the light, that it shall throw off bright glimpses of great evangelic facts and doctrines. Perhaps the Lord, in constructing it, kept this capability in view; but we must take the parable as in the first instance and mainly a direct moral lesson, accounting its allegorical capabilities secondary, and to us uncertain.

The description of the rich man is short, but full. He "was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day." He maintained a royal state and a prodigal expenditure. This excess of luxury was not confined to great occasions; it was the habit of every day.

Here, as in other cognate parables, great wisdom is displayed in bringing the whole force of the rebuke to bear on one point. It is not intimated that this man made free with other people's money, or that he had gained his fortune in a dishonest way. All other charges are removed, that the weight lying all on one point may more effectually imprint the intended lesson. To have represented him as dishonest or drunken, would have blunted the weapon's edge. Here is an affluent citizen, on whose fair fame the breath of scandal can affix no blot. He had a large portion in this world, and did not seek--did not desire any other. He spent his wealth in pleasing himself, and did not lay it out in serving God or helping man. It is not of essential importance whether such a man miserably hoard his money, or voluptuously spend it in feasts and fine clothing. Some men take more pleasure in wealth accumulated, and others more in wealth as the means of obtaining luxuries. These are two branches from one root; the difference is superficial and accidental: the essence of the evil is the same in both--a life of self-pleasing--"without God in the world."

By a transition, purposely made very abrupt, we learn next that a beggar named Lazarus[95] was laid at this rich man's gate, full of sores. Whether the position was chosen by the man himself, or by his friends for him, the motive is obvious--it was expected that where so much was expended, perhaps also wasted, some crumbs might come the beggar's way.

[95] The name of the poor man is given, while the rich man is left nameless. Generally, Christ's kingdom is not of this world, and, in particular, it does not imitate this world's kingdoms in throwing the common people into anonymous heaps, and recording the names of only the great. I saw in an extension of the parish churchyard the graves of the two hundred men who perished in the pit accident at Hartley a few years ago. They were grouped in families of two, three, four, or five, and these family groups were arranged in extended rows; but all were nameless. Near them slept the dust of the hereditary owners of the soil under monumental marble, loaded with statuary and inscriptions. Subjects of Christ's kingdom, "it shall not be so among you." Nor is the law which obtains in the heavenly the direct reverse of that which obtains in the earthly kingdom; it is not the poor, but the "poor in spirit," to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs. The names that are recorded in the Lamb's book of life are neither those who have nor those who lack this world's wealth, but those who are poor in spirit and rich in grace.

"The dogs came and licked his sores;" perhaps the dogs, always plentiful in eastern cities, that had no master; perhaps the dogs that belonged to the rich man, and had turned aside to lick the beggar's sores when their master rode past on the other side, and hid from the sight of misery within the drapery of his stately mansion. The act attributed to the dogs accords, as is well known, with their instincts and habits. It is soothing to the sufferer in the sensations of the moment, and healthful in its effects. When the beggar's fortunate brother took no notice of his distress, the dumb brutes did what they could to show their sympathy. The stroke, though it wears all the simplicity of nature, is in the parable due to consummate art; the kindness of the brute brings out in deep relief the inhumanity of man.

"And it came to pass that the beggar died." Towards this point the narrative hastens. Here on the border is the hinge on which the lesson turns. The whole parable is constructed and spoken in order to show how this life bears on eternity; and to make eternity, thus unveiled, bear reciprocally on the present life. The death of Lazarus happened in the ordinary course of things: his sufferings came to an end. Not a word of his dust, whether it was buried, or how. Of design, and with deep meaning, the body is left unnoticed, and the history of his soul is continued beyond the boundary of life, as the real and uninterrupted history of the man: in the same breath and in the same sentence that intimates his death, we are informed that he was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom. The dying and the entrance into the rest that remaineth are expressed in one sentence, the two clauses connected by a copulative conjunction: the Lord means manifestly to teach us, as he afterwards taught the repenting malefactor on the cross, that there is no interval to his people between departing from the body and being with Christ.

Nor did Jesus then reveal the immortality of the soul: the doctrine was already accepted, and he assumed it in his discourse as a truth known and acknowledged. Even the resurrection of the body was a commonplace among the immediate disciples of Jesus during the period of his ministry: "Thy brother shall rise again," said the Lord to Martha. "I know that he shall rise again," she replied, "in the resurrection at the last day:" this was a belief that she previously possessed.

Abraham's bosom, we may assume, was already an expression employed by the Jews to designate the place of the blessed beyond the grave. It accords much better with the Lord's purpose and method to suppose that this phrase and the term paradise, which he afterwards employed to express the same idea, were adopted by him from the current custom, than that they were then first introduced.

"The rich man also died and was buried." Here, for once, the rich and the poor meet together: the beggar died, and the rich man died too. The same event happened to both, and in both cases the same terms are employed to record the events; but very remarkable is the difference introduced immediately after the article of death. What came after death in the case of Lazarus? He was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom. What came after death in the case of this rich man? He was buried. Perhaps as much could not have been said of Lazarus. The rich man was carried from a sumptuous table to a sumptuous tomb; and the poor man perhaps had not where to lay his head, when its aching had ceased at length. It may be that his body did not find a grave. His spirit found happy rest and holy company; and we can afford therefore to lose sight of the dissolving dust. First and last the one had excellent earthly accommodation, and the other had none; but conversely, he who had neither a house when living nor a tomb when dead, walked with God while the tabernacle stood, and went to God when it fell; whereas he who made the earth his portion got nothing for his portion but earth.

It would be a mischievous perversion of the parable to suppose that because the one was rich he was cast out, and because the other was poor he was admitted into heaven: the true lesson is in one aspect the reverse proposition: an ungodly man is in the highest sense poor in spite of his wealth; and a godly man is in the highest sense rich, in spite of his poverty.

We enter now, or rather have already entered, the region where the parable must needs glide, not indeed from the literal into the metaphorical, but from a foreground where every object is distinctly seen to a background where the real objects cannot be seen at all, and where, accordingly, only signals are thrown up to tell what is their bulk and their bearing. When the line of the instruction goes through the separating veil and expatiates in the unseen eternity, it must become dim and indistinct to our vision. The moment that the parable in its progress goes beyond the sphere of the present life, our effort to follow it is like the struggle of a living creature out of its element. Even when the Lord of that unseen world is our instructor, our conceptions regarding it are necessarily indirect, second hand, and obscure. In this region the capacity of the scholar is infantile, and, consequently, the ability of the teacher cannot find scope. While, therefore, those parts of the parable which lay within our sphere were direct and literal, the latter portion, lying beyond our sphere, is necessarily indirect and expressed by signs: consequently, though sufficiently precise in its larger leading features, it is, in its minor details, indistinct, inarticulate.

"The beggar died;" this is sufficiently direct and literal: "and was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom,"--there we are already beyond our depth. The horizon is dim now, by reason of distance and intervening clouds. Equally obscure is the other line of information when it has crossed the boundary of time. The rich man died and was buried; this we clearly comprehend: but "in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment,"--these are events of the eternal world, shadowed forth in the language and according to the conceptions of the present. We perceive the direction in which they lie, and can understand the moral lesson which they contain, but the things themselves are shrouded from our intellectual vision in impenetrable darkness. Not perhaps intentionally in the structure of the parable, but necessarily, on account of the place where its scene is latterly laid, a veil thicker than that of allegory is wrapped around it.

In accordance with the use of the word in classic Greek, and of the corresponding term in the Hebrew Scriptures, we might assume that "hell" (Hades) only indicates generally the world of spirits, as distinguished from this life in the body; while the expression "being in torment," serves to determine the specific region or condition in that world to which the rich man was consigned: the term, however, wherever it occurs in the New Testament, seems to be applied, in point of fact, to the place of punishment, except in passages that are directly quoted from the Old Testament. Both were now in the world of spirits; but the beggar in that world was in Abraham's bosom, and the rich man in torment. Both spirits near the same time passed from this world by the same narrow passage; beyond the boundary their paths diverged in opposite directions. Each went to his own place as certainly and as necessarily as vapour rises up, and water flows down. The ransomed man entered the Father's house and joined the company of the holy; the ungodly gravitated, according to his kind, into the place of woe.

Having lifted up his eyes, "he seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom, and he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me." Deeper and deeper into the mystery we are led at every step. While the outline of the landscape is defined sufficiently for the purpose or affording a landmark to direct our course, all the lesser objects are entirely concealed by the distance. We must beware lest, in straining to get a glimpse of the invisible, we should mistake the flitting shadows that the unnatural effort sets afloat in the humours of our own eyes for the veritable objects of the spiritual world.

Here I would fain arrest attention on one guiding and dominating consideration, which may become a thread to lead us safely through the labyrinth, saving us the trouble of working out difficult speculations, and averting from us the danger of injuring ourselves by falls in the dark. The Lord delivered and the evangelist recorded this parable for the purpose of teaching, warning, directing, not spirits disembodied in the other world, but men in the body here. "All things are for your sakes;" the great Teacher determined all his words and acts by a regard to the benefit of his people. Even when Lazarus died at Bethany, he said to his followers, "I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent that ye might believe;" his absence led to the resurrection of Lazarus, and that event, he foresaw, would confirm their faith. So here, his aim is not to show how much he knows of the separate state, or to astonish the world by the display of its secrets; it is to give men while they are in the body those views of the separate state which will tell most effectually in leading the wicked to repentance, and in establishing believers in the faith.

Taking the Teacher's aim as the determinating principle in the interpretation of his discourse, I gather that the dialogue between the rich man and Abraham does not describe absolutely what is possible and actually takes place in the world of spirits, as if it were addressed to an inhabitant of that world, but gives such pictures of it, or signs regarding it, as are intelligible to an inhabitant of this world, and as will best bring the realities of the future to bear with beneficial effect upon the present character of men. By a system of coloured lights we contrive to warn the conductors of engines on our railways of danger to be avoided on the one hand, and to intimate the line of safety on the other. The things regarding which the engineers get instruction are not within their view. A red or a white light are not like the things in the distance that are to be dreaded or desired; but a red or a white light displayed serves the purpose when the things themselves cannot be made known. There everything is determined with a view to immediate practical benefit. I think this helps me to grasp the difficult portions of the parable. The purpose of the Lord was not to display his own knowledge or gratify our curiosity. He ever acted as the Saviour of the lost; he never swerved from that aim. It was his meat to do the Father's will, and to finish his work. In this particular case, accordingly, the object which he kept in view was not to convey to men in the body the absolute knowledge of a state, for knowing which their faculties are unfit, but to convey to them in time such shadows or signals of danger and safety as the actual state of matters in the unseen world truly suggested, and in such forms as that living men, from their view-point, and with their mixed constitution, could comprehend and appreciate.

When this principle is permitted to dominate, the exposition of the dialogue becomes comparatively both short and easy.

I do not know whether the saved are within view of the lost in a future state, or whether any communication can pass between them; I only know that this parabolic picture, constructed as from a view-point within the present world, is the exhibition best fitted to make the diverse conditions of the good and the evil beyond the grave effectual to warn and instruct living men in the body. If any one should curiously inquire about flame, what is its nature, and how it can hurt a spirit, I can give no information on the subject, and I can gather none from the parable. One thing I know, that this representation is a red light hung out before me, as I am rushing forward on the line of life--hung out to warn me of danger, and hung out by the hand of him who came to save the lost. I understand perfectly what the beacon means to me: it is my part to take the warning which it gives; and, as to the exact state of events and capabilities in the world to come, I shall learn all when I enter it. It may be quite true that there is not a flame like that which we are accustomed to see, and not a body, previous to the resurrection, that may be burned in it. But he who gave the word is my Friend; and he is true; I shall trust him. He knows what I understand by a flame; he knows how I am affected by the thought of the pain which it inflicts. Knowing all these, he has employed that word in order to apply the terrors of the Lord for my warning; he has done all things well. The minute features of the dialogue all serve to give point to the main conception. The request for a drop of water contributes to bring out the intensity of the suffering; the answer of Abraham shows that, beyond the boundary of this life, there is no hope of relief. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners--it was to this world he came; but no Saviour goes to that other world to win back the lost who have permitted the day of grace to run out. Christ is the way unto the Father; but there is no way of passing from death unto life, if the passage has not been made in this present world.

Interpreting the rich man's intercession for his brothers on the same principle, I do not know and cannot learn here, whether those who have passed through death into the next world unsaved, remember the character of the relatives whom they left behind on earth, or whether, remembering their condition, they will or can make intercession in their behalf. All that I gather certainly on the subject from this parable is, that although a brother may permit his brother to abide in sin without instruction or reproof, while all are living here and walking by sight; yet, if the fate that awaits the impenitent were adequately believed and realized, he who believed and realized it, could not refrain from effort to arouse the slumberers, and lead them to repentance. Again, as in previous parts, I am taught here not what I shall wish when I shall be in the world of spirits, but what I should do now while I am in the body and under grace. I should get the message sent to every heedless brother who is wasting his day of grace, while a messenger of flesh and blood may be found, and there is a way by which I may reach the objects of my solicitude.

By aid of the same machinery--the dialogue between the rich man and Abraham--another lesson is brought from the world of spirits to the land of living men--the lesson that those who refuse to believe and obey under the means of grace which God has appointed in the Church, would not be more pliable if prodigies were shown to them by way of overcoming their unbelief. The conception, although conveyed by the lips of the rich man after he had gone to his own place, that a miracle of power would, if it were exhibited, bring alienated hearts submissively back to God, springs native here in time. It is the deceit with which many sing themselves to sleep--they would believe if one rose from the dead. There are two answers to it:--one is, it would not be effectual although it were granted; and the other is, even though it were fitted to accomplish the object, it will not be given.

The conclusion of the whole matter is, delays are dangerous; "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation."

Some lessons still remain, that invite our attention, and will repay it.

1. For mankind, after this life is done, another world remains, consisting of two opposite spheres or conditions, one of holiness and happiness, the other of sin and misery. The Jewish people and their rulers persistently demanded of Jesus that he would show them a sign from heaven; and this demand he as steadily refused to gratify. Unlike all false prophets, the Lord Jesus maintained silence in regard to the particular characteristics of the unseen world; but one thing in compassionate love he made known with abundant clearness, that there is an absolute and permanent separation between good and evil in the world to come, and that there are distinct places of rewards and punishments.

Some people labour hard to shake from their own minds the belief in a place and state of retribution. To these I would affectionately suggest that to disbelieve it will not destroy it. Even in Scotland--the narrow end of an island nowhere very broad--I have met with persons well advanced in life, of good common education, and good common sense, who had never seen the sea. Suppose that these persons should have cause greatly to dread the sea, and should therefore ardently desire that there were no such thing in existence. Suppose further, that, in the common way of the world, the wish should become father to the thought, and that they at last should firmly believe that there is not a sea. Would their sentiment change the state of the fact? Sinners, to whom the name and nature of a place of punishment are disagreeable, have no more power to annihilate the object of their aversion than the shepherds of the Cheviots to wipe out the sea by a wish. The sea is near those men though they have never seen it; and, if they were cast into it, they would perish, notwithstanding their opinion. Ah! the thing which by God's appointment is, cannot by our arguments be blotted out of being.

2. There is a way from this present life to the place of future misery, and also a way to the place of future blessedness. The way from this world to the place of woe was made by man's sin; the way from this world to the place of rest was made by the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ. By the one way you can glide easily down; by the other you may climb toilsomely, but surely up. The one goes with the corrupt affections; the other against them. But let it be remembered that the way of life, though hard, is not unhappy; the struggle, when once fairly begun, is a grand, gladsome thing. Forth from this world there are only two paths; by one or other of these two all men take their departure; on one or other of these two paths we all are treading now. We owe it to Christ that a way into safety has been opened for our sinful world: "I am the way, ... no man cometh unto the Father but by me."

3. There is no way over from one of these future states to the other. The great gulf between them is fixed. This is the main fact of the parable, and hereon its greatest lesson grows. The great gulf is fixed, and after death none can change his place. This fact we now know without further revelation, and if we believe it not on the testimony of Jesus, neither would we believe it although one should rise from the dead to declare it. This parable, in some of its minute features, is to our vision necessarily obscure, because the scene is laid in the life to come, but its main outline is as clearly visible as any temporal object could be. It teaches with great perspicuity that when immortal spirits, at the dissolution of the body, are thrown into the eternal world, it is no longer possible that their place or their condition should be changed: those who will not learn from this word of Christ that the condition of the departed is for ever fixed at death will not learn it in time to profit by the lesson.

4. Our Lord has thus emphatically taught us that there is no possibility of passing from one state to another beyond the boundary of this life in order that he may thereby constrain us to make the needful transition now. The impassable gulf between the saved and the outcast in eternity is a dreadful sight; it was the compassionate Jesus who drew aside the curtain and exposed it to view, and it was his great love that moved him to make this revelation. There is a line that crosses our path a little way forward from the spot where we stand to-day--a line that divides our time from our eternity--invisible to our eyes, but known unto God. We never know as we advance what step of the journey will carry us over this line. Christ has told us that if we pass it unsaved we cannot obtain a change of condition beyond it; and he has revealed to us this truth in order that we might be induced now to make our calling and election sure. These terrors of the Lord are displayed in order to persuade men. There is no impassable gulf now between a sinner and the Saviour; the way is open, and the perennial invitation resounds from the Gospel, "Come unto me;" but to those who pass from this life without having obeyed that call, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, no more a refuge from judgment.

This word of Christ is not of any private interpretation; it may have pointed to Herod or to the Pharisees in the first instance, but it was of the nature of a seed, and its applications multiply a hundred times a hundred fold down through the history of the world. We may find the rich man in this land to-day as certainly as in the circle that listened that day to the preaching of Jesus. We find the counterpart of this picture, not only in individuals, but in associated churches; and if Christians, both in their private and corporate capacities, are rich both in temporal means and spiritual privileges, they need not go far to seek for the Lazarus who is laid at their gate. Lazarus lies in the streets and lanes of our opulent cities; and, oh, he is full of sores! For his sake, for Christ's sake, for our own sake, we must go out and show him kindness. Dives lost his opportunity,--lost it for ever: we must "haste to the rescue" lest we lose ours too. If we love the Lord, our love will stir and burst out and overflow in life. The life that will exercise itself in Christ-like charity must begin now; and if a new life in the Lord begin, it will reveal itself in love's labour. If we are bought with a price and quickened by the Spirit, the beggar at our gate will soon discover the change. He will not be left longer to the mere promptings of natural instinct among his neighbours for the soothing of his sorrows; the warm skilful hand of intelligent and affectionate brotherhood will raise him up and minister to his wants. Lazarus, instead of having only a dog to lick his sores, will be compassed about with human affections, and all his wants supplied. As a diseased, miserable, neglected lazar world felt the coming of Christ, the poor and destitute of the world's inhabitants will know when a loving, hopeful Christian comes within reach. Who touched me? might the huge world have said, if it had possessed intelligence, when God became man and dwelt among us. Who touched me? will the outcasts on the earth begin to cry as they awaken to consciousness, when a revived Church has visited them in their prison, and brought to them the bread of life.

XXVII.

UNPROFITABLE SERVANTS.

"Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him. And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you. But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do."--LUKE xvii. 1-10.

We are accustomed to observe a connection, more or less intimate, between the parable and the history that precedes it. Generally, some recent event, or some question by friend or foe, suggests the similitude. In almost every case we are able to trace the natural history, as it were, of the parable,--to determine what feature of the events or discourses preceding called up the image and gave it shape. Here the relation between the parable and the antecedent instruction is closer still: in this case there is not merely a connection, but an absolute union. The direct and the metaphorical are here successively employed to enforce one continuous lesson. The lesson is one: the first portion of it is delivered in simple didactic language, and the second in parabolic figure. Some instruments are made of two different kinds of metal, not mixed in the crucible, but each occupying its own separate place: one part consists of steel, and another of brass, soldered together, so as to constitute one rod. The nature of the work is such that steel suits best for one extremity of the tool, and brass for the other. It is in a similar way that two different forms of speech are employed here to impart one lesson: the discourse begins with literal expressions, and ends with a similitude.

The passage 1-10 as a whole, teaches the double truth, That God requires of men a complete obedience, and that even though a complete obedience were rendered, the master would not be laid under any obligation--the servants would have no claim to praise or reward. While the rule towards the close is made universal, in the beginning the demand is particular and specific--to bear meekly and forgive generously the injuries which neighbours may inflict in the multifarious intercourse of life. Besides the point which constitutes the main scope of the discourse, several matters of the very highest importance are incidentally involved, and must be noticed, each in its proper place.

First of all, in order to prepare his disciples for meeting the trials that lay before them, he warned them that offences will come, and pronounced a solemn woe on those who should cast them in their neighbour's way. Looking to his own--alike those who were then in his sight, and those who should believe on him down to the end of the world--he calls them, tenderly, little ones, and intimates that it would go ill with all who should dare to hurt them. This, however, appears to be laid down as a basis for the lesson which he intended at that time to teach, rather than the lesson itself. Speaking expressly for the benefit of his own followers, he was more concerned to teach them how to bear injuries than to command them to beware of inflicting injuries on others. The chief part of a Christian's duty consists in bearing well; and when that part of his duty is successfully performed, it is more effectual in serving God and convincing men than any kind or degree of active effort. The disciple is like his Lord in this, that he conquers by suffering.

Accordingly, the Teacher soon glides from the precept which forbids his people to inflict injuries, into the precept which teaches how they should bear injuries inflicted by others. "Take heed to yourselves:" this is his main design: towards this he was hastening; as a basis for this word, the previous injunction had been given. But, mark well, it is not after the manner of men that Jesus warns his disciples to take heed to themselves. He does not mean that they should be solicitous to protect themselves from receiving injury: he leaves that to the natural instincts of self-preservation, and warns them against danger on another side, where nature supplies no defence. He does not mean, Take heed lest you suffer by the stroke which an enemy may deal against you; he means, Take heed lest you sin in spirit and conduct when you suffer unjustly. You suffer one injury when a neighbour treats you unfairly: and another when you proudly, impatiently retaliate. The loss that you thus inflict on yourself is far heavier than the loss which has been inflicted by a neighbour: the little finger of the one damage is thicker than the loins of the other.

After the outpouring of the Spirit at the Pentecost, we find these scholars far advanced in this lesson, which their Master taught them while he remained at their head. The believers of those days had, especially in the persons of Peter and John, been cruelly persecuted by the Jewish authorities, and when they met after their suffering to pray, their petition ran: "And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word" (Acts iv. 29). An injury had been inflicted: they innocently suffered; and observe what in these circumstances they feared: not more suffering, but lest by the suffering they should be tempted to be silent or wavering when called to be witnesses of Christ. Not the pain they endured, but the right state of their own spirits under the endurance, exercised their minds, and stimulated their prayers.

We must not suppose, however, that the Lord has commanded his disciples to bear injuries as a clod bears blows. Mere softness in yielding to the wicked is not a Christian grace; it is, on the contrary, a mischievous indolence: it suffers sin upon a brother: it deprives him of the benefit of reproof, and so encourages him to continue in his sin. "If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him." This Teacher does not obliterate the lines which separate righteousness from unrighteousness. He enjoins tenderness: but much as he loves to see that feature in his disciples, he places it second to faithfulness. The order of precedence as regards these two has been determined by royal ordinance--"first pure, then peaceable." "Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another," said the Lord at another time (Mark ix.), plainly giving faithfulness the first place, and requiring that gentleness should press hard up behind. Rebuke the brother who does a wrong to you; if under your reproof and the working of the truth on his conscience, he be led to repentance and confession, forgive him in your heart, and express your forgiveness, that he may be encouraged and relieved. The precept "forgive" must, from the nature of the case, refer to the articulate expression of forgiveness; for in his heart and before God, a Christian forgives his enemy, although that enemy continue obdurate.

Next comes the precept, given in similar terms already in another place (Matt. xviii. 15-22), regarding the repetition of injuries. The duty of forgiving a repenting injurer is not modified by the frequency of his sin; the form of the expression "seven times in a day," is manifestly intended to intimate that there is on that side absolutely no limit. It is not the part of a Christian to count the number of the injuries he has received, and to refuse forgiveness after a certain point; it is his part to be of a forgiving spirit, and to give forth forgiveness to all like the sunlight. The example of the Lord is the pattern for his servants; "Love one another as I have loved you."

The conception of unlimited forgiving, which in Matthew's narrative is expressed by "seventy times seven," is here with equal emphasis expressed by "seven times in a day." When we understand the terms as a formula for an indefinite number, we exclude the minute question, How could we believe a man sincere, who should seven times in a day do us an injury, and as often come and express sorrow for his fault? The words should not be literally taken; and besides if any one should trifle with his neighbour by frequent and manifestly false professions of repentance, his meaning would and should be read, not by his words, but by his conduct; the rule would and should be understood in its spirit, and not in its letter merely.

Ver. 5. "And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith." An interesting and instructive view emerges here, of the relation between faith and practice. When they heard the measure of the demand which their Master made upon them in the matter of bearing and forgiving injuries, the apostles felt instantly that the weight was heavier than they could bear. They had not in their hearts such an amount of patience and love, as would enable them to fulfil this commandment of the Lord. Having already learned that faith is the secret fountain whence the stream of obedience flows, they asked with equal simplicity and correctness that their faith might be increased. In this short prayer they assumed, first, that they already believed, asking for an addition to the faith which they already possessed; and second, that it is more faith that will produce more obedience; and third, that the faith which worketh by love is not of themselves, but is the gift of God through his Son. In all this, having been secretly taught of the Spirit, these apostles are deeply intelligent, and completely correct. The appetites are generally sure guides to living creatures for the sustenance of their life; and here the appetite of the new creature, points surely to the source of supply: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."

Both in the request of the scholars (ver. 5), and in the answer of the Master (ver. 6), it is distinctly assumed as a fundamental truth in religion, that faith lies at the root of obedience. When a requisition is made upon them for an amount of meek endurance and forgiving love which their own stores cannot supply, they cry not directly for more power of enduring and forgiving, but for more faith which will strengthen them on this side, and on all other sides at the same time. It is as if you had a cistern meant to supply twelve streams, running in various directions, from whose lip twelve conduits were accordingly led: and when water from one of these was suddenly wanted, you opened it but found that little or none could be obtained. You cry out for a new supply to the cistern; that supply given will fill this channel which is for the the moment in requisition, and all the other channels at the same time. Endurance and forgiving--more than we are able to bear and bestow--are at this moment required of us; but if we had more faith, we should exhibit more of these graces, and more of all graces.

The Lord in his answer acknowledges that their inference is correct. By another form of expression, similar in character to the "seven times in a day," he intimates that faith possesses an unlimited power of production in the department of doing. To intensify the result he employs a double hyperbole, as engineers employ two pairs of wheels to generate extreme rapidity of motion; the smallest spark of faith will overcome the greatest obstacles that may lie across a Christian's path. Again, the same idea which appeared before in Matt. xvii. 20, is expressed here by a different figure: in both cases the Lord intends to intimate that what without faith is impossible, may with faith be done. In Matthew the impossible is represented by the removal of a mountain; in Luke by the planting of a sycamore in the sea. By these forms our Teacher conveys his meaning with amazing distinctness. The letters of his lessons thus sharply, deeply cut, remain indeed dead letters to those who have not experienced the grace of God; as letters of a book, the largest and loveliest lie meaningless before the eyes of a savage or a little child; but in either case, as soon as the scholar becomes capable of understanding, the meaning shines forth like light. It would be a great transition from our present position of impotence, if we should become able to remove a mountain, or plant a sycamore in the sea; such and so great is the transition when a man passes from death in sin to life in Christ; such and so great the difference between what he could bear, and hope, and do while he was at enmity with God, and what he can bear, and hope, and do when he is reconciled to God through the death of his Son.

The particular requirement which on this occasion put the faith of the disciples under a strain greater than it was able to meet, was the endurance and the forgiving of injuries; but this Scripture must not be limited to a private interpretation; this is a specimen shown in illustration of a general rule. There are diversities of operation, under the providence of God our Father; now the faith of Christians is tested in one way, and then in another. At one time they are called actively to do a great work; and at another time passively to bear a great burden. The work required of one disciple is a mission to the dark places of the earth; and the work required of another is to bear patiently many years of pain and weariness, in his own home, it may be on his own bed. By both alike the kingdom of Christ may be advanced: from both equally when they are bruised,--the one by great effort, and the other by a heavy weight,--the odour of a holy temper may be diffused all around.

We are not masters; we are servants. The Lord appoints to each his place, and his work.

* * * * *

The lesson now passes into the parable. When he had pointed out how great is God's claim, and how large faith's performance might become in the life of a disciple, Jesus warns them, on the other side, that the greatest possible, the greatest conceivable attainment in the direction of a believing obedience, implies absolutely no independent merit in man; obedience, although it reached the utmost point of perfection, would still leave God indebted to man for nothing, and man indebted to God for all.

"But which of you having a servant ploughing or feeding cattle." The state of society which supplies the ground-work of this parable is in many respects different from that which prevails in modern Europe. It is especially important here to notice the difference in these two features:--

1. It is a simple pastoral life that constitutes the basis of this picture. The principle of division of labour exists there in its lowest stages of development. It is assumed as a common and proper thing to employ a shepherd or a ploughman in serving his master at table--a practice entirely unknown among us. 2. The servitude in the instance supposed was not a voluntary limited engagement, but a species of slavery: the master's control was much more absolute and complete than it is among us. The servant's toil might be, and probably in many cases actually was, on the whole, not heavier than that to which our hired servants are subjected; but the measure of the labour, both as to its endurance and its severity, depended there on the master's will rather than on the servant's freedom. The master, under the species of relation which then largely prevailed, could demand of his servant on occasion an amount and continuity of service which now is not demanded on the one side, and would not be rendered on the other.

It should be noticed, however, that the service which is in the parable required and rendered, is both in character and quantity extreme. An ordinary example of a servant's work would not have suited the purpose of the Lord; he needed a line stretched to its utmost limits. His purpose is to teach that the utmost conceivable amount of obedience on man's part is not independently meritorious before God; and, in searching among temporal things for a suitable analogy, he selected a case in which the line stretched from one extremity to the other.

When the servant has finished his day's work on the pasture or in the field, at his return, and before he obtain either rest or food, he is compelled to wait upon his master at table. Even this extreme measure of work is required by the master and rendered by the servant as within the limits of their respective rights: the servant even in that case has done no more than was due.

"So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all these things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants."

God has given all, owns all, has a right to all. We are his by right of creation, and his by redemption, when we are in Christ. Christians are not their own; they are bought with a price. Themselves, and their faculties, and their capabilities belong to God, their Creator and Redeemer. When they have rendered all their powers, and all the product of these powers, absolutely up to God's will, they have done no more than rendered to him his own. "Will a man rob God? yet ye have robbed me" (Mal. iii. 8). It is an aggravated sin to rob God of what is his; but it is no merit or ground of praise simply to refrain from robbing him; and this is all that the creature's obedience would amount to, although it were complete.

Our Master ordinarily makes our work easy; he is gentle, and easy to be entreated. "As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him:" but at his pleasure, and doubtless in deep ways for their good, he sometimes lays extraordinary burdens on his own. He may permit offences to come, trying your temper; he may permit sickness to overtake you, trying your patience; he may permit temptations to assail you, trying your faith even at its foundations; he may require of you great and varied activity, trying your willingness to run at his call. These burdens seem heavy, as the master's demand of service in the house seemed heavy to the servant when he returned weary and hungry from field labour; but although we should bear them all with complete uncomplaining alacrity, we should acquire thereby no right to reward.

There is absolutely no such thing as a surplus of merit in man. The imagination of it has ever been rife in man-made religions, as weeds spring thick and spontaneous from the ground; but never and nowhere is there any substantial foundation for this human conceit. It springs in the deepest ignorance, and it withers when the light of knowledge begins to shine. It rests on an entire misapprehension of the relations between God and man. If a man on ship-board, thinking that the ship was about to sink, on account of being too heavily loaded, should grasp the shrouds, and hang on them with all his weight, by way of lightening the ship, the bystanders would count him fatuous; and yet such is the folly of him who, getting all from God, imagines that he has conferred on God a favour by a surplus of goodness. I have seen grown people, in possession of all their faculties, able to read, if not further educated, when, in crossing a river by a ferry, they apprehended danger, applying both their hands to the side of the boat in which they stood, and, pushing with all their might, in order to push it towards a place of safety. This implies the grossest ignorance, or at least the total forgetfulness for the time of the most obvious and ordinary of the natural laws; and yet I have found that these persons had quite enough of wit to manage all their ordinary affairs, and to get along respectably in society. I think there is some analogy between this case and the case of those who, intelligent on other points, yet blindly imagine that they merit praise for not squandering God's gifts that have been placed under their care.

"When ye have done all, say, We are unprofitable servants"--servants whom the master did not need, and who contribute nothing to him. The question whether the Lord conceded that in point of fact any man ever does perfectly perform all his duty is out of place here; The Lord's meaning is, even although a man should do all, he would still be destitute of merit before God; much more are those destitute of merit who come far short of perfection, and to this class belong all, even the best of the children of men.

Means and opportunities of bearing evil and doing good are in providence conceded to every one of us; and the law announced in another parable holds good here; If we improve aright the talents which we possess, more will forthwith be entrusted to us.

There is room for advancement; and, when grace is begun, it is sweet to grow in grace. If we had power to add cubit by cubit to our stature, we should have far to grow ere our head should strike the heavens; and in bearing meekly, and acting righteously, and living purely, we have room enough to expand: it will be long ere we have done all, and so our progress be stopped by striking the boundary. Forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forth to those that are before, we may press on and ever on; yet there is room.

Nor let any one think that bearing and doing God's will must be less blessed when we learn that God did not need this at our hand, and that we do not thereby lay him under obligation to us. When one is truly taught of the Spirit, it will increase and not diminish the pleasure which he enjoys in obedience, to learn that all he is, and has, and does, comes from God. A dependent is happier than an independent position for human beings, if he on whom they hang is great and good. The life of a child is happiest during the period when he has no possession of his own, and desires none,--when he gets all as he needs from his father; on this side, as well as on others, we must receive the kingdom as a little child.

Here is a little stream trickling down the mountain side. As it proceeds, other streams join it in succession from the right and left until it becomes a river. Ever flowing, and ever increasing as it flows, it thinks it will make a great contribution to the ocean when it shall reach the shore at length. No, river, you are an unprofitable servant; the ocean does not need you; could do as well and be as full without you; is not in any measure made up by you. True, rejoins the river, the ocean is so great that all my volume poured into it makes no sensible difference; but still I contribute so much, and this, as far as it goes, increases the amount of the ocean's supply. No: this indeed is the seeming to the ignorant observer on the spot; but whoever obtains deeper knowledge and a wider range, will discover and confess that the river is an unprofitable servant to the sea--that it contributes absolutely nothing to the sea's store. From the ocean came every drop of water that rolls down in that river's bed, alike those that fell into it in rain from the sky, and those that flowed into it from tributary rivers, and those that sprang from hidden veins in the earth. Even although it should restore all, it gives only what it received. It could not flow, it could not be, without the free gift of all from the sea. To the sea it owes its existence and power. The sea owes it nothing; would be as broad and deep although this river had never been. But all this natural process goes on, sweetly and beneficently, notwithstanding: the river gets and gives; the ocean gives and gets. Thus the circle goes round, beneficent to creation, glorious to God.

Thus, in the spiritual sphere,--in the world that God has created by the Spirit of his Son, circulations beautiful and beneficent continually play. From him, and by him, and to him are all things. To the saved man through whom God's mercy flows, the activity is unspeakably precious: to him the profit, but to God the praise.

XXVIII.

THE IMPORTUNATE WIDOW.

"And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint: saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: and there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterwards he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh; shall he find faith on the earth?"--LUKE xviii. 1-8.

Among the parables this one is signalized by the distinctness with which its object is announced at the commencement, and the principle of its interpretation at the close. No room is left here for diversity of opinion regarding the lesson which the Lord intended to teach, or the manner in which the parable should be expounded. The design is expressed in verse first; the rule of interpretation in verses sixth and seventh. Why did the Master tell this story to his disciples? To teach them "that men ought to pray always, and not to faint." How may this lesson be derived from it? As the widow by her unremitting cry obtained her desire from the judge, God's own redeemed children will obtain from their Father in heaven all that they need, if they ask it eagerly, persistently, unwearyingly.

When we rightly comprehend the design of the parable, the difficulty connected with the bad character of the judge at once disappears. It was necessary to go to a corrupt tribunal in order to find a suitable case; a pure judgment seat supplies no such example. In certain circumstances you might gather from a dunghill a medicinal herb which cleaner ground would never bear. The grain which becomes our bread grows best when its roots are spread in unseen corruption; and so perfect is the chemistry of nature, that the yellow ears of harvest retain absolutely no taint of the putrescence whence they sprung. Thus easily and perfectly the Lord brings lessons of holiness from examples of sin. He pauses not to apologize or explain: majestically the instruction advances, like the processes of nature, until the unrighteousness of man defines and illustrates the mercy of God.

It is not by accident,--it is by choice that this seed of the word is sown on filthy ground: it is sown there, because it will grow best there. The experience of a righteous human tribunal does not supply the material of this lesson. Where the presiding judge is just, a poor injured widow will obtain redress at once, and her perseverance will never be put to the test. The characteristic feature of the case which the Lord needed, was a persistent, unyielding perseverance in the cry for redress; for such a case he must go to a court where law does not regulate the judge, but where the judge for his own ease or interest makes his own law. The feature of Christ's teaching which most arrested intelligent listeners in his own day, was its inherent, self-evidencing majesty. Instead of seeking props, it stood forth alone, obviously divine. He taught with authority, and not as the scribes. Here is an example of that simple supremeness that is at once a witness to itself. He compares explicitly and broadly the method of God's dealing, as the hearer of prayer, with the practice of a judge who is manifestly vile and venal. Nor is a word of explanation or apology interposed. He who thus simply brings sweet food from noisome carrion, has all power in heaven and in earth; His ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts.

As he needed for his purpose an example of judicial corruption, examples lay ready to his hand in human history; especially in the practice of oriental empires, ancient and modern, it is easy to find cases in which the supreme authority, civil and criminal, is vested in a deputy who habitually sacrifices justice to his own ease or interest.

The thorough badness of this judge, although stated distinctly, is stated briefly; it is not made prominent in the parable, and should not be made prominent in the interpretation of the parable. That badness on both sides, towards God and man, is I apprehend not introduced here for its own sake, but for the sake of a particular effect that resulted from it;--the frequent, persevering appeals of the widow for redress. This is the thing that is needed and used in the Lord's lesson; and although the injustice of the judge stands distinctly out on the face of the parable, it is like the forest tree in the vineyards of Italy, used only to hold up the vine. Earnest, repeated, unyielding appeal by a needy, feeble suppliant before the throne of power;--this is the fruit which is precious for the Teacher's purpose, and the hollow heart of the epicurean judge is employed only as the trunk to bear it. When it has held up that fruit to be ripened, itself may be thrown away.

At certain points in frequented routes through romantic scenery it is customary to fire a gun in order to afford the tourists an opportunity of hearing the echoes answering each other in the neighbouring mountains. The explosion is in place nearest, in time first, and as to sound loudest, but this the most articulate and arrestive fact is employed exclusively for the purpose of producing the subsequent and more distant echo. The explosion is instantly dismissed from the mind and attention concentrated on the reverberation which it called forth. The conduct of the judge in this parable stands precisely in the place of that explosion. When it has produced the widow's importunity it is of no further use; it must be thrown aside.

Let us hear now the interpretation,--"And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith," &c. God's own chosen and redeemed people correspond to the suppliant widow in the parable. They are like her in her suffering and her weakness; they should be like her too in her unintermittent, persevering cry.

Like other similar lessons, this one bears equally on the Church as a body, and on an individual Christian. The Church collective, in times of persecution, and a soul surrounded by temptations, stand equally in the place of the poor widow; they are in need and in danger. They have no resources in themselves; help must come from one that is mighty. It is their interest to plead with him who has all power in heaven and in earth,--to plead as men plead for life.

The lesson here is very specific; it bears on one point, and in order that all its force may be concentrated on one point, others are for the time omitted. This parable is not spoken with the view of teaching that Christians ought to pray; that duty is assumed here, not enjoined. Neither does it prescribe what the suppliant should ask, or on whose merits he should lean. Taking for granted all these things which the Scriptures elsewhere explicitly teach, the Master in this lesson confines his attention to one thing,--perseverance in prayer when the answer does not come at first, perseverance and pertinacity aye and until the object is attained.

It is expressly intimated in the narrative that there is sometimes a long, and from our view-point inexplicable delay. This is the meaning of the expression "though he bear long with them." This phrase is not taken here in its ordinary signification,--an endurance of injuries; it means that he holds back long, and resists their pressure for relief.

Here are the two sides over against each other: they cry day and night, and he, hearing their continuous cry, refrains from bestowing the relief for which they passionately plead. As God keeps back the answer, they redouble the cry; as they redouble the cry, God still withholds the answer. Expressly we are informed he will give answer; he will avenge his own elect. The eternal Father treasures up all the supplications of his children, and he will yet give them deliverance. When his time comes the deliverance will be complete; but in the meantime the interesting inquiry presents itself, Why does he delay at all? In the light of Scripture we are able to give a satisfactory answer to this inquiry.

The reason why the widow's claims were left long unsettled in the court was the self-pleasing indolence of the judge. The love of his own ease was the motive that induced him both to refuse redress at first and to grant it afterwards. He refused to avenge her until he perceived that to do her justice would afford him less trouble than to withhold it. In the treatment which the petitions of the elect receive at the throne of God there is nothing in common with the conduct of the unjust judge, except the delay. The fact that the petitions lie for some time unanswered is common to both tribunals, but on all other points they are wholly diverse, and even the single feature of coincidence springs in the two cases from opposite grounds.

When God withholds the deliverance for which his children plead he acts with wisdom and love combined. It would be, so to speak, easier for a father who is at once rich and benevolent to comply immediately and fully with all the child's demands; it requires and exercises a deeper, stronger love to leave the child crying and knocking for a time in vain that the bounty given at the proper time may in the end be a greater boon. I once knew two men who lived near each other in similar worldly circumstances, but adopted opposite methods in the treatment of their children. The boys of this family obtained money from their father when they asked it, and spent it according to their own pleasure, without his knowledge or control: the boys of that family often asked, but seldom received a similar supply. The father who frequently thwarted his children's desires loved his children more deeply, and as the result showed, more wisely than the father who could not summon courage sufficient to say No. The wise parent bore with his own when they pleaded for some dangerous indulgence, and the bearing wounded his tender heart; but by reason of his greater love, he bore the pain of hearing their cry without granting their request. The other parent was too indolent and self-pleasing to endure such a strain, and he lived to taste bitter fruit from the evil seed which his own hand had sown.

For the same reason, and in the same manner, our Father in heaven bears with his own when they cry night and day to him for something on which their hearts are set. Because he loves us he endures to hear our cry and see our tears. We do not certainly know what thorn it was that penetrated Paul's flesh, but we know that it pained him much, that he eagerly desired to be quit of it, and that he besought the Lord thrice to take it away. From the fact that the child pleaded three times for the same boon, we learn that the Father bore with him awhile,--bore, so to speak, the pain of refusing, because he knew that the refusal was needful for Paul. The thorn was left in the flesh until its discipline was done, and then it was plucked out by a strong and gentle hand. "My grace is sufficient for thee:" there are no thorns in Paul's flesh now.

The case of the Syro-Phoenician woman (Matt. xv. 21-28) runs parallel with this as well as with the "Friend at midnight." Mark how the Lord bore with the woman. He delighted in her faith; it was his happiness to give, and yet he refused; in denying her he denied himself. But by withholding a while, he kindled her love into a brighter, stronger flame. By refusing what she asked, he reduplicated her asking; this is sweet to him and profitable to her. By the long delay on his part and the consequent eager repetition of the request on her part, a richer boon was prepared and bestowed. Her appetite was greatly quickened, and her satisfying was more full. Who shall be filled most abundantly from the treasures of divine mercy at last? Those who hungered and thirsted most for these treasures in the house of their pilgrimage.

Think of the plainness of this lesson, and the authority which it possesses. Its meaning cannot be mistaken; we know what is spoken here, and we know who speaks. Hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. Show us the Father, said Philip, and it sufficeth us; here Christ, in answer to his disciples' prayer, is showing the Father.

To reveal the Father's heart he spoke this parable. The helpless, needy woman came and came again, and cried, and would take no refusal, until the judge was compelled by her importunity to grant her request: and this is the picture chosen by the Lord Jesus when he desires to show how God regards suppliant disciples as they plead at his footstool. It is an amazing revelation, and the best of it is its truth. He who gave it has authority to speak. The Son will not misrepresent the Father; the Father's honour is safe in this Teacher's hands. We learn here, then, that the Hearer of prayer puts himself in the power of a suppliant. He permitted Jacob to wrestle, and the firmer he felt the grasp the more he loved the wrestler. The words, "I will not let thee go except thou bless me," dropping in broken fragments from his lips at intervals as he paused and panted, were sweeter than angels' songs in the ears of the Lord of Hosts. He is the same still, as he is in the New Testament revealed by Jesus. The spirit in man that will take no denial is his special delight; the spirit that asks once and ceases he cannot away with. As the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, he loveth too an eager persevering asker. The door seems narrow, but its narrowness was not meant to keep us out; they please him best who press most heavily on its yielding sides. "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." The King of Glory feels well pleased the warriors' onset,--gladly welcomes the conqueror in.

It is indeed blessed to give: but the giver's blessedness is greatly marred by the listlessness of the needy creatures on whom he has bestowed his bounty. If they who need and get the goodness are insensible, and cold, and ungrateful, the joy of the benefactor is proportionally diminished. It is thus with "the giving God." When the receiver values the bounty, the delight of the bestower is increased. Thus the Lord Jesus was specially pleased as he healed the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician mother because she gave evidence by her importunity how much she valued the boon; and, on the other hand, his plaintive question, "Where are the nine?" when the lepers took their cure so lightly, shows that he did not much enjoy the act of healing because the diseased made light both of their ailment and their cure.

Come near, press hard, open your mouth wide, pray without ceasing; for this is the kind of asking that the great Giver loves. Unforgiven sin on the conscience keeps the sinful distant, and Satan calls the silence modesty. It is not; they most honour God who show by their importunity in asking that they value his gifts.

While it is true that prayer should be a continuous fulness in the heart, ever pressing outward and upward, flowing wherever it can find an opening, it is not specifically that characteristic to which this parable points. This is not the lesson, "In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God:" the lesson here points not to the breadth of a whole spiritual life, but to the length of one line that runs through it. Whatever it be that a disciple desires, and is bent upon obtaining, he should ask not once, or twice, or twenty times, but ask until he obtain it; or until he die with the request upon his lips: and in that case he will get his desire, and more. Trust in God: trust in his love. He who has not spared his own Son, how shall he not with him freely give us all things? Do not deem that delay is proof of his indifference. Delaying to bestow is not proof of indifference in God; but ceasing to ask is proof of indifference in man. Christ assures us he will give: that should induce us to continue asking.

Give me these links--1. Sense of need; 2. Desire to get; 3. Belief that God has it in store; 4. Belief that though he withholds awhile, he loves to be asked; and 5. Belief that asking will obtain;--give me these links, and the chain will reach from earth to heaven, bringing heaven all down to me, or bearing me up into heaven.

While it is right to generalize the lesson, as we have already done, it is our duty also to notice the special form of the widow's prayer and the Lord's promise: in both cases it is vengeance against an adversary. The pleading is that the enemy who wronged the widow should be punished by the hand of power: the promise is that God will avenge his chosen ones, who cry to him.

The case is clearly one in which the weak are overpowered by an adversary too strong for them: unable to defend themselves, or strike down their foe, they betake themselves to God in prayer. The ailment is specific; such also is the request. Do justice upon this enemy--rid me of his oppression and his presence.

Ah, when a soul feels sin's power a bondage, and sin's presence a loathsome defilement;--when a soul so oppressed flees to the Saviour for deliverance, the Lord will entertain the case, and grant redress. He will avenge. "The God of peace will bruise Satan under your feet shortly."

No cry that rises from earth to heaven sounds so sweetly in the ear of God as the cry for vengeance upon the enemy of souls. When there is peace between man and his destroyer, the closet is silent, and no groan of distress from the deep beats against the gate of heaven. This is not what Jesus loves. He came not to send this peace on earth, or in heaven; he came to send a sword. His errand was to produce a deadly quarrel between the captive soul and the wicked one, its captivator. When the cry rises, broken and stifled, but eager, as uttered by one engaged in deadly strife--when the cry, "Avenge me," rises from earth, God in heaven hears it well pleased. He delights when his people, hating the adversary of their souls, ask him for vengeance; and he will grant it. Long to the struggling combatant the battle seems to last, but speedily, according to God's just reckoning, the avenging stroke will fall. If there is delay it is but for a moment, and because this added moment of conflict will make the everlasting victory more sweet.

It is worthy of notice, incidentally, that where an indolent judge, in order to avoid trouble, gives a just sentence to-day, he may, from the same motive, give an unjust sentence to-morrow. He who taught this lesson, knowing all that should befall himself, and hastening forward to his final suffering, knew well that deepest sorrow may spring from the selfishness of an unjust judge which happened for that time to bring deliverance to the widow. Pilate was precisely such a magistrate. Neither fear of God nor regard for man was the ultimate reason that determined his decision: the love of his own ease and safety was the hinge on which his judgment turned. He was disposed to do justly rather than unjustly in the case, when the Jewish rulers dragged Jesus to his bar. He would have pronounced a righteous judgment if that course had seemed to promise greater or equal advantage to himself. But the priests and people were, like this widow, very importunate and persevering. "Crucify him, crucify him," they cried. "Why, what evil hath he done?" "Crucify him, crucify him," rose again in a sound like the voice of many waters from the heaving throng. "Shall I release Jesus?" interposed the irresolute Pilate; "Away with this man, and give us Barabbas," was the instant reply. "Shall I crucify your king?" said Pilate, making yet another effort to escape the toils that were closing round him; but this fence laid him open to the heaviest blow of all: "If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend." He gave way at last: by their continual coming they wearied him, and he abandoned the innocent to their will.

Thus the unjust as well as the just judgment seat has two sides. Jesus gave the safe side to the poor widow, and accepted the other for himself. He became poor that we might be rich: he was condemned that we might be set free.

XXIX.

THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.

"And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."--LUKE xviii. 9-14.

In this parable two great classes are represented, not by symbols, but by specimens. Self-righteous men are here represented by a self-righteous man, and repenting sinners by a repenting sinner. The instruction is communicated, not obliquely by a figure, but directly by a fact. The quality of the harvest is shown by samples taken from the heap.

If allegory were deemed an essential ingredient of a parable, this lesson of the Lord would necessarily be excluded from the list; but I am not disposed to adopt such a narrow and artificial definition. Taking a general view of its substance, rather than making a minute inspection of its form, I accept the Pharisee and the publican as a parable according to the common consent of the Church.

It is almost entirely free from critical and exegetical difficulties: he may run who reads its lesson.

In announcing the class of persons for whose reproof it was spoken, the evangelist at the outset supplies us with a key that opens all its meaning:--"Certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others," were clustering round the Teacher, and mingling with his disciples. He spoke this parable for the purpose of crushing their pride: he will not suffer sin upon them. For their instruction and reproof, these examples are selected and described.

It is not necessary to suppose that the parable pointed exclusively to those who were Pharisees, or exclusively to those who were not: it concerned all who were self-righteous, to whatever sect they externally belonged. We know that within the circle of Christ's devoted followers much of this spirit still lingered. Peter enumerated the sacrifices which he and his comrades had made for their Master, and bluntly demanded what reward they might expect for their fidelity. It is expressly to his own disciples that the Lord, on another occasion, addresses the warning, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." For our benefit, then, even though we be true Christians--for our benefit, and not only for some particular sect, is this instruction given.

"Two men went up into the temple to pray." The temple was the acknowledged place of prayer; to it the devout Jews went at the hour of prayer, if they were near; toward it they looked if they were distant. The appointment was a help to prayer in the preparatory dispensation: it would be a hindrance if it were maintained still. Not in that one place, but in all places, the true worshippers pray to the Father.

"The one a Pharisee, and the other a publican." The two characters are represented in deep relief: there is no confusion, and no ambiguity. Each is exhibited in his own colour, and the two are sharply distinguished from each other.

Nor are these two men in all their features diverse: there are points of likeness as well as of difference. It is as profitable to observe wherein they are like as wherein they are unlike. The distinction does not lie in that the one was good while the other was bad: both were evil, and perhaps it would be safe to say, both alike evil. In the end, the one was a sinner forgiven, and the other a sinner unforgiven; but at the beginning both and both equally were sinners. Their sins as to outward form were diverse; but in essential character the sinfulness was in both the same. The Pharisee said and did not; the publican neither said nor did. The Pharisee pretended to a righteousness which he did not possess; the publican neither professed righteousness nor possessed it. While one maintained the form of godliness, but denied its power, the other denied both the form and the power of godliness. At first there is nothing to determine our choice between the two men as to their state before God: the one was a hypocrite, and the other a worldling. Both alike need pardon, and to both alike pardon is offered in the Gospel. "The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin;" but no effort of our own will cleanse us from any. With the forgiveness that comes through Christ, the Pharisee would have been accepted; but wanting it, the publican would have been cast out. The hinge on which the essential distinction between these two men turned was not the different quantities of sin which they had severally committed, but the opposite grounds on which they severally placed their trust.[96]

[96] There is a strong resemblance between this pair and the two sons who were severally asked by their father to work in his vineyard.--Parable X.

Both go at the same time to the same place to pray, and both adopt in the main the same attitude in this exercise; they stood while they prayed. This was the ordinary attitude; but kneeling and prostration were also practised. Each of these postures has its own peculiar appropriateness; either is a seemly and a Scriptural method of bringing the position of the body into significant harmony with the desire of the soul. Among those attitudes which are true and right, we are at liberty to adopt that which is in our circumstances most convenient and seemly. Alas! there has always been a tendency in man to lay a yoke upon himself and his fellow. Why should we judge one another where our Master has left us free? We may safely lay it down as an absolute rule, without stipulating for even a single exception, that the best position for praying in is the position in which we can best pray.[97]

[97] This question has begun of late to attract a considerable measure of attention in the Presbyterian Churches of this country. It needs a wise treatment, and, alas! we lack wisdom. For convenience and order, all the members of a worshipping assembly ought evidently to adopt the same method; but this is not a matter for arbitrary ecclesiastical enactment. The Pharisee and the publican both stood while they prayed; but their prayers seem to have been short. To enact that the congregation must stand during prayer, and then to keep them praying for twenty minutes or half-an-hour, which is sometimes done, seems to be in effect turning prayer into penance.

"The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee," &c. Those expositors are probably right who think that "with himself" is connected with "stood," rather than "prayed." It is in perfect accord with the narrative to intimate that he stood by himself--he was not the man to mingle with the common herd of worshippers; but it does not seem congruous to intimate that he prayed with himself. His prayer is addressed to God; he has no doubt much to do with himself while he utters it, but so has his neighbour the publican. As much as the proud man deals with himself to contemplate his own goodness during prayer, so much does the humble man deal with himself to contemplate his own badness. It is not then intimated that he prayed by himself, but that he stood by himself while he was praying. He counted that he belonged to the aristocracy in the kingdom of God, and must get a position apart from the multitude.[98]

[98] [Greek: Statheis pros eauton], standing by himself, as if it were [Greek: kath' eauton]. Thus the relation is preserved with the position of the publican, [Greek: makrothen estôs]. Either stood alone, but for opposite reasons: the Pharisee stood forward alone, because he thought other worshippers were not fit to be in his company; the publican stood back alone, because he considered himself unworthy to mingle with other worshippers. It may be worth while to mention, for the sake of the English reader, the order of the words in the original is, "The Pharisee standing with himself, thus prayed." You must be guided entirely by the sense in determining whether to read it, Standing with himself, thus prayed; or standing, with himself thus prayed.

In yet one other point the two suppliants are like each other; both alike look into their own hearts and lives; and both permit the judgment thus formed to determine the form and matter of their prayer. Both addressed themselves to the work of self-examination, and the prayers that follow are the fruits of their research.

At this point the two men part company, and move in opposite directions--the one found in himself only good, the other found in himself only evil. In both, and in both alike, there was only evil; but the publican discovered and confessed the truth regarding himself, while the Pharisee either blindly failed to see his own sin, or falsely refused to confess it.

The error of the Pharisee does not lie in the form or matter of his prayer. It is substantially a song of thanksgiving. This is never out of place; praise is comely. There is not a living man on the earth who has not ground for giving praise to God every day, and all day. Nor does his prayer necessarily transgress the strict limits of truth when he says, "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men." If he had been employed in numbering the mercies of God--if he had meditated on his privileges, till he was lost in wonder, that so many benefits had been conferred on one so worthless, he might with truth have burst into the exclamation, "I am not as other men." As a true penitent, when employed in considering his own sin, truly describes himself as the chief of sinners; so a thankful man, lost in the multitude of God's mercies, thinks in all simplicity that none in all the world have been so highly favoured as himself. From his own view-point a true worshipper truly counts both his sins and his mercies greater than those of other men. When he confesses his sins he counts and calls them deeper than those of others; when he recounts the benefits he has received from God, he says that they are greater than others have enjoyed. Glad praise and weeping confession correspond to each other in a true heart, as correspond the height of the sky and the depth of its shadow in still waters. When the clouds above you become high, the shadow of them beneath you becomes correspondingly deep. The same man who said, "I am chief of sinners," said also, "Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift."

It is not, then, for what he has said that the Pharisee is condemned, even when he announces that he is not as other men. If conscious of unworthiness, and amazed at God's long-suffering, he had exclaimed, I am not like other men--I have been spared and instructed, and invited and taught and led with a paternal tenderness that others do not enjoy, his thanksgiving would have been sweet incense as it rose to the throne of the Most High. He presumes to give thanks not for what he has received, but for what he is and does. Here lies his condemnation. It is not in the thanks but in the reason for the thanks that the old serpent lurks; he is delighted not with what God has graciously bestowed on him, but with what he has meritoriously given to God.

The sense in the original is more comprehensive than that which the English conveys; other men here mean all others. On one side he places himself, and on the other side the rest of human kind: the result of the comparison in his judgment is that he is better than all.

Three of the more articulate and manifest forms of wickedness he enumerates, in order by the contrast to set forth his own purity. "Extortioners" are officials having a right to something, who unjustly force from an oppressed people more than is due; the "unjust" are those who deal unfairly in the ordinary intercourse of life; and adulterers are, in fact, and were then accounted the deepest and most daring transgressors of the laws both human and divine. Probably the Pharisee was in point of fact free in his conduct from all these vices; there is nothing in the parable that forbids us in these matters to take him at his word.

Instead of extending the list of vices of which he felt himself free, he cuts the matter short by a general comparison between himself and the publican. The contempt in which the tax-farmers were held by the stricter Jews shines out in every page of the Gospel, and is well understood by the readers of the Scriptures. By way of purging himself from sin in the lump, he says shortly, "I am not as this publican." In order to condemn the Pharisee on this point, it is not necessary to suppose that he made a wrong estimate of his neighbour. Granted that this publican had up to this hour been stained with all these three vices, and that the Pharisee, knowing his character, formed a correct judgment regarding it; still his condemnation remains the same; it is not the part of one sinner to judge and condemn another.

"I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess,"--all that I acquire; it is not capital but income. It is a picture of mere self-righteousness. His judgment was wrong from the root; he knew neither his own heart nor God's law. Pharisee as he was, he might have learned from the prophet Isaiah the true state of the case, "We are all as an unclean thing; and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags."[99]

[99] He obtained this self-confidence by comparing himself not with the law of God, but with others who seemed worse than himself. When a man compares himself with robbers and adulterers, for whom the sword and the prison are prepared, he may easily seem to himself like an angel.--_Arndt_.

"The publican standing afar off," &c. The difference does not lie in that this was a good man while the other was bad. This is a sinner too; but he has come to know it, and therein lies the distinction between him and the Pharisee. His judgment of himself accords with his actual state and character; he knows and owns the truth regarding his own sinfulness. There is no merit in this discovery, and in itself it cannot save. If two men should both take poison, and one of them should become aware of the fact ere the poison had time to operate; the one who knows the truth is more miserable than the one who is ignorant, but not more safe. If there be a physician within reach who can cure, the knowledge of his danger will send one man to the source of help, while the ignorance of the other will keep him lingering where he is, till it is too late to flee. But even in that case it was not the man's knowledge of his danger that saved him. Another saved him; his knowledge of his own need only led him to a deliverer.

It is so here. There is no merit and no salvation in the publican's conviction and confession; although he confesses his sin, he is still a sinner. His own tears are not the fountain in which his guilt can be washed away. If there were no Saviour, his penitence would do him no good; if Christ had not come to save the lost, the lost, though alarmed, would not have been saved.

If we take care to notice that there was neither merit nor safety in the man's confession, we may profitably listen to the confession, and learn what it was.

"He stood afar off." Here we begin to observe external marks of an inward penitence; he judged and condemned himself. He had the same right with other worshippers to come near; but a consciousness of his uncleanness before God compelled him to take the lowest place even among men. Such was the tenderness of his spirit, that he thought everybody better than himself. Humility is the exact opposite of pride; as the one man counted himself better than all, the other counted himself worse than all. When he obtained a sight of his own vileness before God, his feeling was that even his brother would be polluted by his presence. As love of God, when we have tasted his grace, carries love to men after it, like a shadow; so shame before God, because of sin in his sight, diffuses humility and modesty through the spirit and conduct in the ordinary intercourse of life.

He was unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven. He looked down to the earth; but his heart was rising up to heaven the while. His eyes could not bear at that moment to look, as it were, on the light of the great white throne; but his soul ascended, and pressed with violence on the gate of the kingdom. Against that strait gate his spirit is now striving; the King of glory from within feels the pressure well pleased, and opens to let the agonizer in. "Smote upon his breast;" it is like other signs of grace, precious if it is true, worthless when it is false. A worshipper will not be heard for his much beating, any more than for his much speaking: but when it is the true external symptom of a broken heart within, the knocking on his own breast is reckoned a knocking at the gate of heaven. To him that knocketh at this lower gate, the highest will be opened.

His prayer was short and suitable; "God be merciful to me, the sinner" ([Greek: tô hamartôlô]). The contrast continues to the last; as the Pharisee had compared himself with all mankind, and concluded that he alone was good; so the Publican in the depth of his shame seems to count himself the only sinner.

The steps are few and simple by which a sinner finds or misses the way into eternal life. Not perceiving his own sin, a Pharisee comes to God, as one who deserves favour; he seeks to enter heaven where the wall of righteousness frowns in his face, and is cast away. The publican, conscious of his unworthiness, counting himself altogether evil, flees from his own sin to God's provided mercy; he tries where the door is open, and passes in a moment through. I tell you, "This man went down to his house justified," &c.; he, but not the other.[100] The Pharisee forgave himself; who is this that forgiveth sin? and who is this whose sins he forgives? He asked no forgiveness from God, and got none. He departed from the temple as full and satisfied, or rather as empty and poor, as he entered it. For aught that we learn to the contrary, he went on, tithing his mint, anise, and cummin,--went on blindfold till he stumbled on the judgment-seat.

[100] He brought with him, what the Pharisee left at home, the book of his own guilt, and exhibited all that stood against him there.--_Arndt_.

The penitent Publican went down to his house a justified man; he sat in the circle of his family, retired to rest at night, rose in the morning to his labour, at peace with God. On the morrow he looked on the sun-light without being in terror of the mighty One whose word had made it shine; he walked abroad on the fields, in conscious, loving companionship with Him who spread them out and covered them with green; he looked from the mountain-side on the great sea when "it wrought and was tempestuous," the confiding child of Him who holds its waters in the hollow of his hand; and when again he laid his head upon the pillow for rest to his wearied body, he laid his soul on the love of his Saviour, as an infant leans on a mother's breast. When the hand that led him through the wilderness leads him at length down the dark sides of the swelling Jordan, he looks up with languid eye, but bright, burning spirit, and whispers to his guide, "I will not fear, for Thou art with me;" when the judgment is set and the books are opened, he stands before the Judge in white clothing, accepted in the Beloved; the voice of the Eternal, tenderly human, yet clothed with divine authority, utters the welcome,--"Come, thou blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom."

XXX.

THE SERVANTS AND THE POUNDS.

"And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear. He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come. But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds. And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities. And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds. And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities. And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin: for I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow: wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury? And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds. (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.) For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given: and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him. But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."--LUKE xix. 11-27.

It is necessary at the outset to indicate the relation which subsists between this parable and that of the talents, (Matt. xxv). Although in many of their features they are the same, in others there is a decisive difference. Both show that the Lord bestows privileges on his servants, and demands faithfulness in return; and both show that the diligent are rewarded and the unprofitable condemned. But the one supposes a case, in which all the servants receive equal privileges, and shows that even those of them who are faithful, may be unequal as to the amount of their success; the other supposes a case in which unequal privileges are bestowed upon the servants, and shows that when unequal gifts are employed with equal diligence, the approval is equal in the day of account. Both alike exhibit the grand cardinal distinction between the faithful and the faithless; but in pointing out also the diversities that obtain among true disciples, they view the subject from opposite sides, each presenting that aspect of it which the other omits. The parable of the talents teaches that Christians differ from each other in the amount of gifts which they receive; and the parable of the pounds teaches that they differ from each other in the diligence which they display.[101]

[101] The man who cannot perceive, or will not own that these are two distinct cases, charged with different, though cognate lessons, is not fit to be an expositor of any writing, either sacred or profane. Enough for the critics who persist in the theory, that these two parables are different, and consequently incorrect, reports of one discourse spoken only once by the Lord; the conceit is not worthy of more minute refutation.

The incident connected with Zaccheus, although it occurred on the spot and at the moment, did not, I think, supply the occasion of this parable, and does not contain the key of its meaning. The Lord's interview with that interesting and earnest tax-farmer in the neighbourhood of Jericho rather constituted an episodical interruption to the continuity of his thought and the narrative of his journey. He had passed through Jericho on his way to Jerusalem for the last time. An expectation, intense in character though vague in outline, was spreading through the neighbourhood, that great events would emerge on his arrival at the capital. It was the crowd already on this account assembled that gave prominence to the case of Zaccheus. It is not from that episode that the parable springs; rather, when the interruption which it caused was over, the current of thought, displaced for a moment, returns to its former channel, and flows as it had flowed before. The crowd had assembled before the conversation with Zaccheus took place, and the cause of the excitement was the expectation that "the kingdom of God should immediately appear." It was on account of this expectation that the parable was spoken. The purpose of the Lord was to correct the popular impression in as far as it was erroneous, and to turn it to account in as far as it contained a basis of truth. They expected that Jesus was about to proclaim himself king, and occupy David's throne at Jerusalem: he teaches them by the parable that his kingdom is not of this world--that he, the king, will depart from their sight for a while, and that it behoves his subjects to occupy their talents and opportunities till he return.

"A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return." His errand when he went abroad was not to seek a kingdom in another quarter of the world, but to obtain from a foreign power nomination to the sovereignty of his native land. In the first place, it is not probable that, after having become king of another country, he would return to reside where he was only a subject; but a much more decisive indication is given by the message which his fellow-citizens sent after him, "We will not have this man to reign over us." They do not interfere with his prospects in a foreign country; it is his sovereignty over themselves that they dread and deprecate. This outspoken repudiation of his government by his fellow-citizens makes it both certain and manifest that, though he sought investiture abroad, the kingdom which he expected to receive was in his own native land, and over his former fellow-citizens.

In those days both the Jews and other nations subject to the supremacy of Rome were familiar with the transaction which forms the basis of this parable. After the nobleman's departure, his countrymen, aware of his design, endeavoured to thwart it. With this view they sent a message, or rather an embassy ([Greek: presbeian]) after him; they commissioned some of their own number to appear along with him before the power paramount, and oppose his claim. It is a mistake to suppose that the protest of these citizens was addressed to the nobleman who sought to become their king; the deputies are instructed to address themselves not to him, but to the foreign power from whom he intends to seek investiture. They will appear at court along with him when his petition is presented, and plead that it may be rejected. Such debates were in point of fact held before the republican and imperial tribunals of Rome.[102]

[102] Herod and his son Archelaus had both in succession repaired personally to Rome to obtain their authority. Precisely similar scenes are enacted between the British government and the protected potentates of India; the agents for rival princes contend for regal rights in London, where the government of India is in the last resort controlled.

Before setting out on his journey "he called his ten servants," &c. These men were his servants or slaves. In different countries, and at different times, the bond of servitude has been indefinitely varied both in stringency and duration. In all probability these servants were the bondsmen of the nobleman, although law and practice might not accord to the owner a power so absolute as that with which we are too familiar in modern slavery. But the more nearly that the master's rights approached the point of absolute ownership of property, the more suitable becomes the picture to represent the relation that subsists between the redeeming Lord and his ransomed people.[103]

[103] It is altogether a mistake to conclude from the allusions made here and elsewhere in the Scriptures to the actually existing servitude of the times and places, that any modern system of slavery may claim the sanction of divine approval. It was the custom of Jesus to seize existing facts on the right and on the left as they lay around, and employ them as vehicles for conveying his meaning. Sometimes he so employed a good thing, and sometimes a bad thing, but by the mere fact of using a human act or habit as a metaphor, he pronounced no judgment regarding its moral character. It was enough for him that the thing was well known, and that it served as a letter with which he might indicate his mind. Printers make their types of any material that may be most suitable for the purpose, and most readily obtained; and with these types they multiply the Scriptures. They use a cheap mixture of lead and tin; and this base alloy serves their purpose better than more precious metals. Their only question in determining the choice of material is, Will it print our meaning clearly? Thus the Lord Jesus dealt with the habits which he found in society, and the events that were passing at the time. He selected and employed them with a regard not to their own intrinsic moral worth but to their fitness for expressing the idea which he meant to convey. No matter whether it be lead or gold; what he wanted was material suitable for types. A steward has no Scriptural warrant for cheating his master, because the trick of an astute agent is employed to print one of the parables; neither have men-stealers, men-sellers, and men-buyers any authority from the Bible to treat their fellow-men like cattle, because the relation of master and slave was employed by the Lord to express a conception in the course of his teaching.

This nobleman, desiring that no part of his property or capital should lie unproductive during his absence, made the best arrangement, of which the circumstances admitted, before he left the country. His method was the same as that which appears in the cognate parable, the entrusted talents, with the exception that in this case the master made all his servants equal. A mina, in value equal to about £2, 3s. 6d., was entrusted to each man, with the intimation that, according to his diligence and faithfulness in the management of this capital, would be his reward when the owner should return.[104]

[104] For fuller notice of the methods adopted, see the exposition of the corresponding parable No. XIV.

Such is the arrangement which this nobleman made with those who are described as "his own servants," on the eve of his departure; but with his neighbours, who were free and independent, he had either neglected to seek, or failed to obtain, an understanding. Aware of his object, they sent after him a deputation of their own number, instructed to appear along with him at the imperial court, and oppose his request. They were not willing to become his subjects, and therefore endeavoured to prevent him from obtaining a regal title and despotic power.

Their opposition, however, had no other effect than to betray their enmity, and so expose them to the King's displeasure. His first act after he returned with supreme authority was to call his servants into his presence, and reward them according to their merits; and his second, to issue an order for the punishment of those who had opposed his elevation. The remaining portion of the scene is so similar to the corresponding parts of the cognate parable already expounded, that it is unnecessary to trace the narrative further; rather let us hasten now to ascertain and enforce the spiritual lesson from the whole.

While the Master was setting his face towards Jerusalem for the last time, a dim presentiment of coming change occupied his disciples. In their minds, the expectation of his kingdom had taken a wrong direction, and tended to put them off their guard. To correct their error, and bind them to patient watchfulness, he spoke this parable. Because they imagined he was about to assume kingly power, and give them places of temporal dignity on his right hand and on his left, he taught them by this similitude, that he must go away, and that they must remain behind, working and watching.

The nobleman represents the Lord himself. While he prosecuted his ministry on earth, he had not fully attained possession of the kingdom. The departure of the nobleman represents the exodus which the Lord soon afterwards accomplished at Jerusalem, comprising his death, resurrection, and ascension. In the parable, the power paramount who could withhold or bestow a kingdom is not named: it is intimated only that this transaction took place out of sight in a far country. When the Son of God ascended after his mediatorial work on earth was complete, all power was given to him in heaven and on earth. Beyond his disciples' sight he received the kingdom from the Father. Now he has right to rule supreme over that world, on which before he had not where to lay his head. He will come to this world again as its King, with power and great glory.

Two classes of persons are mentioned as having remained in the country while the prince was absent:--these are his servants and his adversaries. In the material scene, there might be many who neither served nor opposed him; but these are not mentioned in the parable, because there are none to correspond with them on the spiritual side. There only two classes exist,--those who serve Christ as the Lord that bought them, and those who, being at enmity with God, refuse to obey the Gospel of his Son.

The parable has not much to do with them that are without. At the beginning, it shortly indicates their rebellion, and at the close as shortly predicts their doom; but the circumstances, the character, the life, and the reward of the Lord's disciples are more expressly and more fully declared.

The master who owns them places some of his treasures at their disposal, and with the general injunction, "Occupy," goes out of their sight. The servants are those who, at least in profession, are the disciples of Christ, and the pounds are the faculties which they possess, and the opportunities which they enjoy. The place and age in which our lot has been cast, our early education, our bodily members and mental powers, our station in society and the circle of our homes, our money and our health, and, in addition, the graces of the Spirit, in whatever measure they may have been conferred,--all that we are and have belongs to God. He is the owner, and we are tenants at will.

While a general law has been laid down to determine, in the main, the direction of our course, the details are left to our own discretion. One man may invest his master's capital in land, and another in merchandise, and both may be equally faithful, equally successful: so in various lines of effort, different disciples may, in diverse manners, but with equal faithfulness, serve the Lord. There is freedom in the choice of departments, provided always there be loyalty to the King.

In the relation between Christ and Christians, opposites meet without hostile collision. His ownership is absolute, and yet there is freedom in full. His lordship does not limit their liberty; their liberty does not infringe his rights. What a glorious liberty this earth-ball enjoys! How it careers along through space, threading its way through thronging worlds, and giving each a safe wide berth in the ocean of the infinite! Yet the sun holds the earth all the while in absolute and entire control. Like that glory in the visible heavens is the glory of the Everlasting Covenant. The largest liberty conceded to the sons of God consists with sovereignty complete and constant exercised over them by the Redeemer, who bought them with his blood. He is their owner, and yet they are free. The union of opposites is possible with God: "He is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working."

The sons serve; and yet they are sons. Ransomed men are instruments of a higher order, than other agencies through which the reign of Providence is administered. Although the Lord requires of his regenerated people as complete submission to his law, as he demands and obtains from the elements of nature and the brutes that perish, he does not require from them an equally uniform and mechanical routine. The streams that course over continents, and the tides that swell upon their shores, must render the same service every day; but these sons of God are not held to labour by a bridle so short and rigid. They are endowed with reason and will; they are set at liberty, and permitted to expatiate over a wider field. Their master goes out of sight, and trusts to a renewed, loving heart for the diligent outlay and faithful return of all the talents. The Gospel requires and generates not a legal, but an evangelical obedience.

When the king returns, or the servants are summoned one by one through death to meet their master, they are tried as to faithfulness and diligence in laying out their talents. Although ten were mentioned at the beginning, it is not necessary to report on more than three at the close. These are sufficient to show that some were diligent, and some slothful; and that among the diligent there were different measures of effort, success, and reward.

What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Occupy; occupy all, and occupy it all the time till the Giver come to claim his own. All that God gives us is given for use. There is much evil, moral and material, in the world. He who made it and saw it fall by sin, has its restoration and renewal much at heart. When he has gotten some of the fallen restored to favour and renewed in spirit, he endows them with various riches from his own treasury, that the capital wisely invested may yield a large return at his coming. Let each according to his means and opportunity lay himself and his talents out to leave the world better than he found it;--to diminish the amount of sin and suffering, to feed hungry mouths, and cover naked backs, to enlighten dark minds and save perishing souls. It is a high calling to be fellow-workers with God, to be instruments of righteousness in his hands.

One, by trading with his pound gained ten, before the king returned, and another five. Both are equally approved, but unequally rewarded; each receives as his recompense all that he had won. Two principles which operate in the spiritual kingdom are symbolized here; one, that various degrees of efficiency and success obtain among the faithful disciples of Christ; another that reward in his kingdom springs from work and is proportioned to it.

The parable of the talents recorded by Matthew represented one fact in the history of the kingdom, that different persons receive differing gifts from the sovereign God: this parable, recorded by Luke, represents another fact in the history of the kingdom, that among those who possess equal gifts varieties occur in the skill and success with which the gifts are employed. The practical lesson from the former parable is, If with all your efforts you fall far behind your neighbour in the result of your labour, you need not on that account be cast down, for equal diligence will meet equal approval, whether it be applied to a large capital or a small; the lesson of the latter parable is, If others are obtaining greater results than you, strive to imitate and equal them, lest your opportunity not have having been fully occupied, you should obtain at last only a small reward. The first puts in a spring to keep the truly faithful from sinking into despondency because their talents are few; and the second puts in a spring to keep the indolent from lagging behind. The two together, one on this side and one on that, shut all up to diligence in the work of the Lord.

A glimpse is given here of the method in which rewards are bestowed upon faithful servants; each receives what he has won. The work of the saved in their Master's service measures in some way their recompense at their Master's side. In all cases the wages given, seeing they depend on the merits of the Mediator, must be immeasureably greater than the work done; but it would appear that the differences which shall obtain in heaven will bear some proportion to the productiveness of the service here: the whole continent will be elevated as by the immediate power of God: but certain points will stand out above others in the celestial landscape on account of great talents greatly used. How much a city is greater in value than a pound we cannot calculate exactly, but the difference represents the gain that all the true servants will make at the coming of the king. All the faithful are made great; but the greatest worker is the greatest winner when the accounts are closed. Hold on, disciples; every grace that grows into strength, through bearing and doing your Redeemer's will here, is a seed that will multiply your enjoyment manifold when you come to the inheritance. Nor is this a mercenary motive. A true Christian can never separate his interests from Christ: he serves his Lord in love to-day, and will discover at last that in serving his Lord, he has been enriching himself.

The case of the servant who allowed his pound to lie unused is not different from the corresponding case in the parable of the talents except in one thing; in this parable the pound which the indolent servant had permitted to lie idle is simply taken out of his hands, while, in the other parable, the unprofitable servant is cast into outer darkness.

The lesson, in as far as it is the same in both, is, that not only those who do positive wickedness, but those also who fail to do good, are counted guilty in God's sight. Inasmuch as in this parable no other punishment is inflicted on the indolent servant than the deprivation of his capital, it may possibly be intended to intimate that culpable unfaithfulness in a true believer may sometimes descend so far as to be undistinguishable by human eyes from the entire neglect of the unbelieving. There is, however, in all cases, a dividing line, although we may not be able to trace it--"the Lord knoweth them that are his." Nor does this conception really weaken the motive to diligence; for if any one should slacken in his efforts to serve the Lord on the ground that a great degree of negligence, although it may diminish his reward, does not imperil his safety, this very thing would conclusively prove that he has no part in Christ. It is the nature of the new creature to be forgetting the things behind, and reaching forth to those that are before; when the leaning of a man's heart goes in the opposite direction--that is, when he deliberately endeavours to make matters as pleasant as possible for himself, by escaping from all service to Christ, except as much as is necessary to carry him safe to heaven, he certainly has not yet been born again, and in this state shall not see the kingdom. He who sails along the sea of Christian profession, loving the neighbouring land of worldly indulgence, and therefore hugging the shore as closely as he thinks consistent with safety, will certainly make shipwreck. Ah! the ship that thus seeks the shore is drawn by the unseen power of a magnet-mountain--drawn directly to her doom; he who is truly bound for the better land gives these treacherous headlands a wide berth.

The last lesson is the judgment pronounced and the punishment inflicted on the adversaries. They who will not submit to Christ the crucified will be crushed by Christ the king. Every eye shall see him; they also who pierced him. Meekly now he stands at the door and knocks; then he comes as the lightning comes.

One hope remains,--one door stands wide open yet. His enemies must be slain, either now or then. The enemies of the Lord's reign in the present world are the evil desires that occupy a man's heart, and close it against its rightful sovereign; drag them forth and slay them before him, that he may enter and possess his own. Surrender his enemies into his hands to-day, and you will henceforth be among his friends; if sins be sheltered in the day of grace, the sinners will find no shelter in the day of judgment.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Parables of Our Lord, by William Arnot