wSfe *? /CAl SEVW^> BS2418 .F841 Fraser, Donald, 1826-1892. Metaphors in the gospels : a series of short studies. METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. A SERIES OF SHORT STUDIES. DONALD FRASER, D.D. AUTHOR OF SYNOPTICAL LECTURES ON THE BOOKS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. "THE SPEECHES OF THE HOLY APOSTLES," ETC. NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 530 BROADWAY. 188;. CONTENTS. PREFACE .... I. SALT .... II. LIGHT III. TREASDRE . IV. THE CHIP AND THE BEAM V. THE DOGS AND THE SWINE VI. TWO GATES AND TWO WAYS VII. TREES AND THEIR FRUIT . VIIL THE WISE BUILDER AND THE FOOLISH IX. THE PHYSICIAN AND HIS PATIENTS X. GARMENTS AND WINE-SKINS XI. THE HARVEST AND THE LABOURERS XII. SERPENTS AND DOVES XIII. CHILDREN AT PLAY XIV. BAD LEAVEN XV. THE CHURCH ROCK XVI. THE KEYS . XVII. A LITTLE CHILD XVIII. THE EYE OF A NEEDLE PAGE V I 16 28 33 5° 63 76 87 95 106 112 118 127 135 144 152 157 169 CONTENTS. PACE XIX. THE GNAT AND THE CAMEL 1S1 XX. WHITEWASHED TOMBS 191 XXI. "that fox" . . . . " . 202 XXII. THE HEN AND CHICKENS . 209 XXIII. LIGHTNING .... 221 XXIV. VULTURES . . . . 232 XXV. HOUSE-SERVANTS 243 XXVI. THE TEMPLE .... 257 XXVII. THE BREEZE .... 267 XXVIII. LIVING WATER .... 278 XXIX. LIVING BREAD .... 290 XXX. DAY AND NIGHT 305 XXXI. THE DOOR AND THE SHEPHERD 316 XXXII. A GRAIN OP WHEAT . 328 XXXIII. THE BATH AND THE BASON 341 XXXIV. THE TRUE VINE 347 XXXV. TRAVAIL 360 XXXVI. THE GREEN TREE AND THE DRY 37o INDEX OP PASSAGES OP SCRIPTURE 375 PREFACE. Books on the Parables of Christ are many; but we do not know of even one devoted to the exposi- tion of those similitudes, so frequent in the oral teaching of our Saviour, which do not take the narrative form or reach the dimensions of a par- able. Benjamin Keach's " Key to Open Scripture Metaphors " is much more than a key. Going over the whole field of Scripture, it takes up every figure of speech, and draws out lists of parallels, disparities, and inferences on each, with a pious, though sometimes almost grotesque, ingenuity. Not so much the age as the size and plan of this work have made it obsolete. " The Lesser Parables of our Lord," by the late Eev. William Arnot, seemed to promise just what we wanted; but the volume so entitled turns out to be a posthumous compila- tion of sermons, beginning indeed with lesser par- ables, but of these treating only five. Professor A. B. Bruce furnishes a few valuable pages on what vi PREFACE. he calls Parable-germs in his work on the " Para- bolic Teaching of Christ." But no writer, so far as known to us, has yet attempted to deal with these in any sort of complete fashion ; and therefore we hope that our studies will not be regarded as a superfluous addition to expository literature. We have not included in our plan all the metaphors which occur in the four evangelical narratives, but confined ourselves to those which were employed by Jesus Christ. Accordingly, our list does not include " the axe at the root of the tree," "the fan and threshing-floor," or " the Lamb of God," all of which phrases are attributed to John the Baptist. The term " metaphor " we adopt, without any pretence of strict accuracy, simply as the most convenient to cover -all the tropes and similitudes which our Lord employed to illustrate and enforce His meaning. "We do not trouble ourselves about the Grammatical and rhetorical distinction of me- tonymy, metaphor, synecdoche, and allegory. Of those similitudes and comparisons which are on our list, that of the Two Builders may almost rank as a parable ; those of the True Bread and the True Vine may be styled allegories ; while that of the Shepherd is called by St. John a Tlapoifila; and Christ Himself describes many of His sayings to the disciples by this last word. The Eevised PREFACE. vii Version translates the word as "parable" in the ioth chapter of St. John's Gospel, putting "pro- verb " in the margin ; and in the 1 6th chapter of the same book gives " proverbs " in the text and places " parables " in the margin. In this incon- sistency it follows the Authorised Version ; but in truth, neither parable nor proverb is a good render- ing.' The parosmia, as Meyer correctly explains, may mean " any species of expression that deviates from the common course (oimos)." We prefer to use the title " Metaphors in the Gospels," because in all the sayings of Christ treated of in this volume the element of analogy and comparison will be found. The Great Prophet dealt largely in illustration because He spoke to " the common people," who in every country, but especially in the East, must be helped in this way to apprehend generalised truth. Sometimes He gave an enigmatical turn to His speech in order to stimulate thought in His dis- ciples, and at the same time to baffle those by- standers who were anxious to cavil and condemn. He never introduced a metaphor for the mere purpose of decorating His public addresses or gratifying a poetic fancy. Some of His illustra- tions, as well as of His parables, are pathetic and beautiful ; but generally they are very real- istic, and are addressed quite as much to reason and common sense as to imam nation. viii PREFACE. Every religious teacher must use metaphors, and the higher the religion the greater the need of them. The objects and interests spoken of are too great and holy to be adequately contained in didactic and logical forms. They require type, allegory, par- able, word-picture, and suggestive simile in order to reach the human understanding and heart. And of this method of conveying and illuminating reli- gious truth Jesus of Nazareth was the most perfect Master that the world has seen. How naturally His metaphors rose out of the occasion, and appealed to the observation and experience of those who heard Him, we have tried to show again and again in the following pages. It may be proper to mention at the outset that our quotations from the New Testament are almost invariably taken from the Eevised Version. METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. i. SALT. ° Ye are the salt of the earth : "Salt therefore is good: but but if the salt have lost its if even the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is henceforth good for seasoned? It is fit neither for nothing, but to be cast out and the land nor for the dunghill : trodden under foot of men." — men cast it out." — St. Luke xiv. St. Matt. v. 13. 34, 35. It is a mark of genius to see in common things what is not commonplace, and to make familiar words and objects luminous with meaning. Jesus of Nazareth had this power in a quite exceptional degree ; yet one feels that the term " genius " does not quite suit Him, does not adequately express the calm penetration of His mind. What we recognise in Him is a consummate wisdom, piercing in its insight, serene in its temper, A 2 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. powerful in its utterance. As made known to us in the Gospels, He is at once the most profound and the least technical of all re- ligious teachers. He saw the heart of men and things, and drew hidden facts and truths to light ; but even in touching the most difficult matters, used no recondite term or phrase of subtlety. Enough for Him the language of everyday life and the popular proverbs of the time, with such illustrations as the houses, gardens, and fields of Palestine supplied. Of them, indeed, He made such apt and copious use, that one who has read the Gospels carefully cannot see bread, water, wine, oil, or salt, cannot look at the grass, the fruit trees, or the birds of the air, cannot so much as feel the wind play upon his cheek, without a suggestion of truth taught and em- phasised by the Lord Christ. The first metaphor which occurs in St. Matthew's report of our Saviour's words is a very homely one. Common salt is valued for its antiseptic quality. A little fine salt is agreeable to the taste ; but the point of the illustration SALT. 3 rests on the power of salt, coarse or fine, to preserve animal tissues from decay. Christ described His disciples as salt of the earth or of the land. They were not men of much refinement, but they had in them the saline property which would make them morally and spiritually useful to all around. This substance was taken by the ancients as an emblem of wit and piquant wisdom ; but our Lord gave it a larger and deeper meaning. He had described in the Beati- tudes the features and elements of that character which should be formed by His disciples, and would make them useful to other men. It was a type of character which He alone was competent to describe, and which He alone has perfectly exempli- fied. If we may speak of it as of a tree, its root is in the soil of meekness and humi- lity, watered by godly sorrow. Its strong stem is the desire of righteousness, and its fruits are mercifulness, purity of heart, and the love of peace. The Master warned His disciples that possession of such a character would not gain for them the world's favour. 4 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. On the contrary, it would provoke persecu- tion and reproach. But such as had this salt in themselves could never be without a beneficial influence on the society around them. "Wherever they might dwell, they would be the salt of the land. The Latin Church, in its materialistic fashion, employs actual salt in the baptismal service. The priest puts it into the mouth of the person, adult or infant, who is bap- tized.* It is an unauthorised ceremony ; but it is a sort of traditional witness to the obligation lying on all Christians to have in themselves that which salt might symbo- lise. Our Lord requires that all who follow Him shall have that style of character which savours of the kingdom of heaven, and so exert a morally antiseptic influence on others. Noah, as a just man, was salt in the old * " Quum sal in illius os, qui ad baptisinum adducendus est, inseritur, hoc significari perspicuum est, eum fidei doc- trina et gratise demo consecuturum esse ut a peccatorum putridine liberetur, saporemque bonorum operum percipiat, et divinre sapiential pabulo dilectetur." — Cat. Cone. Trid., q. 65. SALT. 5 world, but he was not enough to save man- kind when "all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." Lot was as salt among the dwellers in Sodom, when "in seeing and hearing he vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their lawless deeds ; " but it was more than he could do to stay that terrible corruption. Ten righteous men might have saved the city, but not one. The Lord Jesus, purposing to effect a vast and permanent moral change, not only in the land of Judea, but in the corrupt Gentile world, set Himself to provide a sufficient quantity of salt. He would not send forth a multitude of ill-trained adherents. More good was to be done by a much smaller number of disciples well pre- pared and thoroughly imbued with His Spirit ; and yet not too few. They must be numerous enough not to be crushed into obscurity ; and they must teach and train others to join them, and to succeed them as the saviours of society and the salt of many lands. A candid view of the influence of Chris- tianity on that wicked world into which Apostles and Evangelists pushed their way, 6 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. and in which the primitive Churches were planted, must lead any one to the conclu- sion that a species of moral " salt " was then applied to a society Otherwise hastening to decay ; and it is important to remember that this influence was exerted not by the diffu- sion of a literature, or by the performance of prodigies, or by the hand of authority, but simply by the individual and social life of men and women — a few of high degree, but far more in humble station, and not a few of them slaves — who had some new element of wisdom and goodness in their minds and hearts — who, in fact, had salt in themselves. If there is much ineffective Christianity in the present age, it is due to the lack of salt. Christian literature has become immense in bulk, and sermons are innumerable, but these cannot of themselves subdue the corruption which is in the world. Signs and wonders, even if we could command them, would not suit the case. The hand of authority cannot produce conviction or faith ; and no one thinks of invoking it. What the world needs SALT. 7 is the influence, passive and active, of Chris- tian men and women, who have grown into " the Beatitudes," and therefore must be salt of the land whereon they dwell ; must be felt, and felt for good. One may often meet with a man who avows himself quite incredulous of miracles and very sceptical about certain parts of the Bible, and yet admits that the moral effect produced by Christianity on the ancient Boman world says much for its Divine origin. But he not un- reasonably asks that a similar moral energy should be exhibited now. And here lies the weakness of much of our modern argumenta- tion on the evidences of Christianity. It is not sufficiently sustained by those who profess and call themselves Christians. So far as scholarship and dialectic skill can prove our faith Divine, we are exceedingly well served. But we want more proof in deeds as well as words. The multitudes in Christendom who are doubtful or indifferent need to see the true Christians who are among them living to better purpose, and to feel by daily contact with them that they have "salt in themselves." 8 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. To be salt of the land, then, is to be in the highest sense useful to our fellow-men. I. Usefulness is a duty. It is the end which the Lord has in view in calling us to be His disciples. He teaches us that we may teach others ; blesses us that we may bless others. This method may be traced through all history. Israel received a holy calling as a nation, not for its own sake, but in order to be as salt among the nations of the earth, maintaining a witness for the true God and His law of righteousness. Then within that chosen nation prophets and holy men were especially taught and favoured in order that they might be as salt to their own country- men, and preserve them from apostasy. On the same principle the Church was made as salt to the world, and the pious in the Church as salt to the Christian community itself, to save it from decay. Long and severe was the struggle between the Christian salt and the corruption of the Roman world, and many grew weary of the SALT. 9 process and withdrew. They fled to the deserts and to lonely caves in order to save their own souls, as they supposed, and to preserve their piety in seclusion. Thus arose the Cenobite and monastic system, which committed the error of separating the salt from the substance which it was meant to cure, ultimately setting up "religious houses" with closed doors and barred windows, instead of religious house- holds in the midst of society, shedding a bright and healthy influence on every side. The result of this mistake was that the earth again became corrupt, and the salt itself lost much of its strength and savour. Protestantism has abolished monastic estab- lishments, but it has, as yet, failed to impress Christian people, in anything like a sufficient degree, with the obligation of usefulness, or to train them for the discharge of such an oblio-a- tion. All that seems to be thought needful by many a Protestant Christian is to secure the salvation of his own soul, to ascribe this boon to the grace of God, and to contribute some money for the support of preachers and missionaries that they may do good. There is io METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. no sufficient persuasion of the grand fact that all who are blessed in Christ are intended to bless others ; that all His disciples, in private as well as official life, are seasoned with salt in order that they may exert a wholesome influence on all whom they reach in daily, or even in occasional intercourse. II. The great secret of usefulness is goodness. It is a favourite saying that " knowledge is power ; " and in many directions it is true. But when we refer to the energy which dif- fuses moral health and resists corruption, the better aphorism is that " goodness is power." He is a benefactor of his kind who does right- eousness, shows mercy, and makes peace. Not a word here of ritual. Jesus Christ laid no stress on ceremonial, and made no allusion to mystic prerogatives to be vested in a priestly order. He simply taught that His followers, as subjects of the kingdom of heaven, ought to have a righteousness exceeding that which was vaunted by the Scribes and Phari- sees. He enumerated the chief properties of a Christian character or soul of goodness, and SALT. ii proclaimed that all who through grace acquire such a character are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. The emphasis is laid not on saying, or even on doing, but on being. The first rule for Christian usefulness is to be out and out a good Christian. It is possible for one to talk admirably yet fail to persuade, and to do many things about the Church and charitable institutions, or, as the modern fashion is, sit on many committees, and yet accomplish very little good, because his own spiritual life is weak and uncertain. He has not enough of salt in himself, and nothing can compensate for the deficiency in that pungent element. But, on the other hand, the way of usefulness lies open to every man, woman, or child that acquires, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, that type of intrinsic character which our Lord delineated in the seven Beatitudes. Such salt is good, and he who has it cannot pass through life useless or insignificant. III. The faculty for usefulness may decay. Our Saviour warned the disciples against losing the savour of salt. 12 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. Those who heard Him could be at no loss to understand the phrase. They were aware that the salt of Syria, when long exposed to sun and air and rain, became quite insipid. Various travellers have reported on this in modern times. And such spoilt salt is good for nothing. It must not be thrown on land, for it would blight its fertility. Nothing can be done with it, but to lay it as a sort of rough gravel on the roads, where it is trodden under foot. So useless are those Christians who lose the savour of goodness and wisdom from on high, having a form of o-odliness with- out the power. For Churches, relapse is no imaginary danger. History tells too sad a tale to the contrary. What did Christ-refusing Judaism become on the earth but salt without savour, which the stern besom of the Eoman army swept out into the street or world's thoroughfare to be trodden down ? What was the future of those congregations, formed of Jews and Gentiles, which are addressed in the Epistles of St. Paul, and those in the province of Asia to which seven messages are directed in the SALT. 13 Book of Eevelation % They lost their savour by admitting corruptions of faith and life, and letting their first love wane ; so that they were rejected, and some of them were swept out by the ruthless besom of the Moslem, as so much spoilt, insipid salt. Three hundred years ago, the Reformed Churches were a wholesome and pungent salt in the West, but in nearly all of them defection followed. Some have tended to unbelief, others to superstition, and in these the power of goodness has decayed. It is a question whether they retain enough, or can regain enough, of savour through God's mercy to fulfil the chief end of their existence, or whether other and more faithful Churches must be formed to save the nations from the ungodliness, selfishness, secularism, and anarchy which seriously threaten them. The danger which is so evident on the laro-e scale is a real one for individual Christians too. These may bless a whole community by their quiet influence and unobtrusive example of virtue in the fear of God. But, alas ! if their salt lose its saltness ! And what is this but that men once wise grow foolish ; once devout, H METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. grow negligent of prayer ; once zealous, grow lukewarm ; once generous, grow stingy ; once humble, grow vain ; once gentle, grow harsh and arrogant ? Can any one say that such declension never occurs ? And if the case does occur, what can be more useless than such a Christian ? He is less profitable to God and man than the most raw and ignorant beginner, who, if he blunder ever so much, is at all events fresh and sincere. And for the unfaithful disciple himself, how dark the pros- pect ! Backsliding, it is true, may be healed, and a heart that has cooled towards Christ may be warmed again ; but, while a sudden fall under strong temptation is often promptly remedied by Divine grace to the penitent, nothing is more difficult than the permanent recovery of those who have gradually and wilfully fallen away and lost savour. We do not say that even this is impossible with God;, but it is so precarious a thing that every one should beware of the first symptoms of moral and spiritual declension, lest they bring him to shame, as so much spoilt salt, fit for nothing but to be trodden under foot. SALT. 15 We may depend on it that the Lord would not have spoken superfluous warnings. A wise disciple, hearing the caution against salt losing its savour, will not cry, " ]S T o fear of this ever being true of me ! " but rather ask softly, " Lord, is it I ? " He will not assert, " I shall never fail in my Christian love and earnest- ness!" but rather make his lowly request, " Grant, Lord, I never may ! " ( i6 ) II. LIGHT. . " Ye are the light of the world. "Again therefore Jesus spake A city set on a hill cannot be unto them, saying, I am the light hid. Neither do men light a f the world : he that fulioweth lamp, and put it under the me shaU not walk in the dark . bushel, but on the stand ; and it ness> but shall have the ljght of shineth unto all that are in the life> .>_g T> JoHN viii> I2> house. Even so let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." — St. Matt. v. 14-16. That the followers of Christ are " the' salt of the earth" suggests intrinsic qualities of wisdom and goodness. That they are "the lio-ht of the world" suowsts their extrinsic bearing and conduct. The reference is to the openness and visibility of their religious life. It may be a question how far the human mind of Jesus Christ was aware of the extent of the world. There is no doubt that His hearers had a very inadequate conception of its size and population. But the Spirit of LIGHT. 17 wisdom .whereby all His words were guided had no such limitation ; and such expressions as " light of the world," " God so loved the world," were expressly intended to lead forth the disciples into wide fields of thought and sympathy, and to prepare the Church for a range of usefulness far beyond what it had entered into the minds of Jews or Galileans to conceive. I. Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. It was in sore need of light when He came. The sages and moralists of the most advanced nations had not so much lit up the world as sent out sparks which made its darkness visible. In Judea lamps had been lit from heaven, but they were growing very dim. Fed with unholy oil by Pharisees and Sad- ducees, they were going out. In contrast with these, John the Baptist was a lamp that burned and shone. Yet he was not the light of life, but only a herald and a witness. "When Jesus appeared the True Light shone. Now " that which makes manifest is licrbt : " and so Jesus Christ discovered to mankind B 1 8 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. moral truths and objects of which the world was ignorant or regardless. He revealed with a heavenly power of demonstration the father- hood of God, the hitter fountain of sin in the human heart, the freeness of grace, the beauty of humility, and the righteousness of the king- dom of heaven. Into the consideration of such a metaphor as this we are not to import those conceptions of the nature and laws of light which recent scientific discoveries have supplied. Our Lord spoke to the men of His own time and country so that they might understand Him, using popular language in a popular sense. Enough that the sun is to mankind the grand source and centre of lisrht. So is Jesus Christ no mere lamp, as an ordinary sage or prophet might be, but the sun, the source and centre of that light of life and truth which is beiug diffused wherever Christ is known and Chris- tians dwell. II. Christians the light of the world. This is because Christ lives in them, and " the life is the li^ht of men." It is because LIGHT. 19 they learn of Him, derive from Him, and reflect His way of thought and feeling. This expression -has been illustrated by reference to the face of Moses, which shone after his converse with Jehovah, or to the reflection of light from burnished mirrors flashing in the sun. But the reference made by our Lord to the house-lamps, so familiar to all His audience, yields a better and simj^ler explanation. Only it must be borne in mind that the fire is caught from a heavenly fire, the light from a heavenly light. And then the lamp sheds its quiet lustre on all that are in the house — i.e., the Christian shows some- thing of Christ to the family and social circle around. He must do so. When the lamp is lit, it must shine. When a city is set on a hill, it has no option as to visibility. Christians are under a sort of moral compulsion to shine as lights in the world. Yet it is necessary to have the conscience exercised and the will directed by the Lord's command. Let your lisjhfc shine. In every, even the poorest, house in Galilee, 20 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. a lamp was set on a stand which rested on the floor, and was lit when the sun went down. It sufficed for all the household. There was also in every house a corn measure, called in the English New Testament " the bushel," though it was in size nearer an English peck. Every one therefore caught the idea when Jesus pointed out how perverse and absurd it would be to set the lamp under the corn measure. Its place was on the stand. And such is the place assigned by God to the disciples of Jesus. It is He who lights every lamp, i.e., who enlightens every indivi- dual Christian ; and so it is His prerogative to place the lamp where it will give most light, i.e., to appoint to the individual Christian a post and sphere of usefulness. If any one tries to contravene this appointment, pre- ferring to keep such light as he has for his own comfort within his breast, he resists the revealed will of God. If he persists in this selfishness, his penalty is sure. The light that is in him will wax dim and incur great risk of going out, because it is shut up, and not set to burn on the lamp-stand, LIGHT. 21 where the fresh air may reach and feed the flame. In the early Christian centuries there was strong temptation to hide the light : and for such an ordeal Christ fortified His disciples in the words, " Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you and persecute you." But it must have required no small faith and fortitude to confess the name of Christ in the face of the world's hatred and contempt. It demanded the same type of holy courage as nerved the soul of Daniel when he knew that the decree was signed dooming every man of prayer to the lions' den, and yet at his open window " kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime;" or as enabled " Peter and John," when arraigned before the Council which had condemned their Master, to pro- claim His name before those "rulers of the people and elders of Israel." But God gave such courage to thousands of martyrs, so that the light was never extinguished even in the days of heaviest persecution. And He will o-ive it in the future as He has given it in 22 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. the past ; for -we have not yet arrived at the end of pitiless persecution for the name of Christ. Even in communities that ring with boasts of freedom and praises of charity, earnest Christianity is still maltreated and reviled. Men are laughed at and stigmatised as pre- tentious hypocrites if they raise ever so modest a testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is nothing to the ordeal through which many of the martyrs passed ; and yet it is no slight trial to endure ridicule and misjudg- meut from one's equals and neighbours, and that for doing what the Lord has commanded — letting the light shine. Among cultivated people especially there is a singular dread of anything which may be called very pronounced in religion. Persons who are not averse to make all the show they can in social life are wonderfully sensitive about any disclosure of spiritual conviction or feeling, object to go beyond a carefully measured form of words in religion, and would rather be taken for hesitating than for un- hesitating and earnest Christians. Now there LIGHT. 23 never was a religious teacher who inveighed more strongly than Jesus Christ did against the temper of ostentation and the plague of unreal professions of godliness ; but while He denounced the pretentious Scribes and Pharisees, and Himself wore no phylactery, was content to have the blue ed^e of His dress of the ordinary width, and preferred praying apart on a mountain to praying in all men's sight at the corners of the streets, He was the most open and fearless witness for God in all the land. So should His fol- lowers be, whatever their worldly rank or station ; no Pharisees, no seekers of religious notoriety for themselves, but frank, natural, courageous, avowed witnesses to and servants of the Lord Jesus. The figure of the House-lamp suggests do- mestic Christianity ; that of the conspicuous city the more public and collective duty of Christians. Domestic Christianity ! Home religion ! Is there anything more needed ? It is a mere mockery of this to have a house full of vanity and discord, but with a daily 24 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. routine of family prayer. In two of his most profound and eloquent epistles, St. Paul, proceeding from doctrine to practice, exhorts to family religion ; and his direc- tions are these : " Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them." " "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord." "Parents, bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." " Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." "Masters, give to your servants that which is just and equal." " Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh." In such unostentatious performance of mutual duties does the house-lamp for Christ most brightly shine ; and in such a household of love and justice there is sweet concord. Darkness and tempest go together; so do light and peace. The city on a hill, where it catches the strong sunshine, is seen far and wide over the plains ; and this suggests the collective testimony of Christians. The Church which they form has this for its lofty ideal, — LIGHT. 25 a city which has the glory of God and shines afar. Would that every particular Church were found thus telling on the surrounding popula- tion, and lighting up a whole region with a heavenly sheen ! It may be the invisible Church as respects the secret of its life, power, and endurance in God ; but it should be visible in its influence on society and its benevolent activities — " a city that cannot be hid." "VVe have seen that God places every lamp which He lights on some stand that it may shine to good purpose. It is, therefore, a sin against God to let cowardice or fastidi- ousness cover, or even half conceal, what was meant for manifestation. Add to this the positive statement of our Saviour to the effect that through the shining of Chris- tians in the world their Father in heaven is glorified. He would have all those who, receiving the adoption of sons, become His brethren, to live, as He did, with this chief end in view — to glorify the Father ; not only to please Him, but to draw the admiring and adoring thoughts of men to 26 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. that Heavenly Father who is light, and in whom there is no darkness at all. No glory to the lamp ! All praise and honour to Him who has lightened our darkness, and deigns to use us to lighten the darkness of the world ! The "good works" which our Lord expects and requires of all the children of the light are not laborious efforts of self-righteous men to secure their own salvation, but the works of faith and labours of love which proceed from men whom grace has saved — the appropriate manifestations of a renewed heart in temper, word, and action. They indicate the whole course of conduct which becomes the sons of God, and by which they shed abroad the light of goodness and truth. They are not to do good in order to be seen and commended by their fellow-men, but they are to do good that may be seen, that cannot but be seen, in order that their Father in heaven may be glorified. Wanted, much wanted, bright Christians ! Wanted for the glory of God, for the convic- tion of the world and silencing of gainsayers, who allege that Christianity has grown dim LIGHT. 27 and feeble ! Wanted more frequent and in- disputable examples of life actuated by high motives and lustrous with the heavenly light of faith and love ! ( 23 ) III. TREA SURE, "Sell that ye have, and give alms ; make for yourselves purses which wax not old, a treasuro in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief draweth near, neither moth destroyeth. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." — ST. Luke xii. 33, 34. "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust doth consume, aud where thieves break through and steal : but lay up for your- selves treasures iu heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth con- sume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal : for where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also." — St. Matt. vi. 19-21. Treasures on earth and treasures in heaven. The Lord's reference to the former is not metaphorical ; they are actual, visible, and taugible objects of desire. No doubt, under the general term treasures, may be embraced earthly fame, rank, influence, and popularity, on all of which men are prone to set too high a value ; but the language of Christ points directly to riches, which an Oriental was apt to invest in stores of costly raiment, or to TREASURE. 29 hoard in the form of gold and jewels and precious vessels hidden in his house or under ground. " Treasure not such treasures," He said to His disciples. " Sell that ye have and give alms." This was new doctrine, for the Phari- sees, the most prominently religious men in the country, were covetous, and seemed to find no difficulty in serving both God and mammon. Here is no condemnation of money or cen- sure of those who grow rich. Christ lays on His followers no vow of poverty, nor may His great name be cited in support of communistic plans for compelling a distribution of wealth. What He has condemned is the treasuring of earthly possessions as if they were the only true riches and the highest good. They are not so, because they are earthly, and meet only temporal wants. They cannot be so, because they are uncertain and perishable. A little moth might eat away the costly silks and em- broideries of the opulent Jew. A thief might break through the clay wall of the house, or dig down to the hiding-place, and make away with all the vessels of curious workmanship 30 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. and the bags full of precious stones and metals. Modern Western modes of keeping and in- vesting money are different, but losses and disappointments are not prevented. Reverses of fortune are as common now as in any past age of the world. Nothing is easier than to let the desire of high interest and rapid accu- mulation tempt one into an investment which cannot be called a security except in irony; or, after acquiring a sum of money by patient industry, to put it in unsafe hands and lose it all at once through the fraud or default of others. Alas for those who " trust in uncer- tain riches ! " In this life how are their hearts choked with cares of this world ! And at death, how poor they are ! They carry nothing with them. We mark our contempt for a man who is infatuated about the possession of money by calling him miser ; i.e., wretch. Pope says — " Pale Mammon pines amidst his store." * Spenser represents him as an "uncouth wight," "sitting in secret shade " — * Mo al Essays, iii. TREASURE. 3I " And in his lap a mass of coin he told And turned upside down, to feed his eye And covetous desire with his huge treasury.'-"* Iii one of the best of his essays Montaigne tells how a passion for hoarding money pos- sessed him at one period of his life, and plunged him in continual solicitude. " After you have once set your heart upon your heap it is no more at your service ; you cannot find in your heart to break it ; 'tis a building that you fancy must of necessity all tumble down to ruin if you stir but the least pebble."! As to the blindness of the money-lover to spiritual concerns, how graphic is the picture of a miser in the second part of the " Pil- grim's Progress!" The Interpreter showed to Christiana and her company a man who " could look no way but downwards," with a muck-rake in his hand. "There stood also one over his head with a celestial crown in his hand, and proffered him that crown for his muck-rake ; but this man did neither look up nor regard, but raked to himself the straws, small sticks, and dust of the floor." The In- * Faerie Queene, cant. vii. f Essays, chap. rL 32 , METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. terpreter explained — " Earthly things, when they are with power upon men's minds, quite carry their hearts away from God. Then said Christiana, ' Oh deliver me from this muck-rake ! ' " * It is very difficult to cure a man on whom the passion for earthly treasure has taken hold. He will listen to ever so many demon- strations of the folly and evil of covetousness, culled from literature and from observation of the world, but he will not depart from it. In fact, nothing will accomplish the cure of covetousness but the expulsive power of a new affection. A man who is risen with Christ has such an affection, and seeks those things which are above. According to our Lord's metaphor, His fol- lowers are to treasure up treasures in heaven. This cannot mean to wish for high seats in heaven, with great lustre and distinction for themselves, for such desires' may indicate no- thing more than a new form of selfishness. The treasure must be of a more spiritual char- acter, and such as a lowly heart may crave. * Pilgrim's Progress, part ii.. TREASURE. 33 It must be riches towards God and in God. It must mean the satisfaction of longino-s of the human spirit which the world cannot meet. It must be treasure of a calm conscience and a holy mind, resting in the love of God and sustained by the fellowship of the Spirit. The portion of the wise deserves to be called treasure because it is (i.) so precious, (2.) in such safe keeping, and (3.) capable of indefinite increase. 1. Precious is this treasure, as meeting not the fancy of a day or even the wants of the passing years, but the most profound require- ments of the human soul, and that, too, when Divine regenerating grace has made it capable of eternal life and joy. 2. Secure is this treasure, as laid up in heaven above the risk of loss. And there the inheritance is not only uncorrupted, but in- corruptible; not only bright, but unfading; not only settled, but inalienable. 3. Capable of indefinite increase is this treasure. St. Paul has spoken of infatuated men, "who, after their hardness and impeni- tence, treasure up for themselves wrath in the 34 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." That woeful treasure, that evil portion, is capable of increase. Opposite to these, however, the Apostle places men who " by patience in well-doing seek for glory, honour, and incorruption." These are the heirs of eternal life.* And according to the measure of patience and w r ell-doing is the ac- cumulation of treasure in heaven. Are we then, after all, to earn our own salvation ? What has become of the doctrine of free grace ? The answer is, that when our Lord spoke of laying up treasure, He was not treating of the justification of the ungodly, or the entrance on a state of salvation which is entirely of grace and not of works, lest any man should boast. He spoke of the amount of blesseduess and degree of glory which men who are saved by grace are to obtain in heaven, and such amount or degree will be the reward of faithful service, the treasure accumu- lated by patient well-doing. It is a gracious reward, but it is a reward, and proportioned to the earthly obedience. So among men, who * Homans ii. 5-7. TREASURE. 35 are alike saved by grace, there will be inequali- ties hereafter, as there are here and now. One has a smaller, another a greater treasure in heaven. Alas ! how little is heaven in the thoughts of men ! how little in their hearts I Yet almost every one seems to thiuk that, if there be a future state, he will somehow go to heaven. Heaven without a heavenward-tend- ing miud ! The prize of the high calling with- out running for it, or denying one's self in anything to obtain it ! A vain confidence ! When a man's heart is keen for earthly suc- cess or covered with the dust of worldly care, what treasure can he have in heaven ? Where the treasure is, the heart is also ; and where the heart is, there the treasure, if there be any, will be found. In the year 1699, Dr. South preached on this theme before the University of Oxford. The sermon appears in his works under the title, " No man ever went to heaven whose heart was not there before," and is worth reading. It ends with a lamentation over 36 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. " the extreme vanity of most men's professions of religion." " We may with great boldness affirm that if men would be at half the pains to provide themselves treasures in heaven which they are generally at to get estates here on earth, it were impossible for any to be damned. But, when we come to earthly matters, we do ; when to heavenly, we only discourse. Heaven has our tongue's talk, but the earth our whole man besides." It may be a safe and prudent prayer in regard to temporal things, " Give me neither poverty nor riches," * but in things spiritual we may pray, " Give me both poverty and riches." Let me have poverty of spirit, and, at the call of God, buy the wine and milk of the gospel " without money and without price." So let me be rich in the love of Christ which passes knowledge. " The Lord is my portion, saith my soul ; " and heaven is my treasure-house. The disappointments of this present time and place have their compensa- tion there. Works of faith and deeds of mercy * Proverbs xxx. 8. TREASURE. 37 have their recompense there. Self-denial has its hundred-fold reward ; and afflictions for the cause of Christ and of righteousness meet not consolation only, but " an eternal weight of glory." ( 3§ ) IV. THE CHIP AND THE BEAM. " And why behol Jest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye ; and lo, the beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye ; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. : ' —St. Matt. vii. 3-5. " And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how canst thou say to thy brother. Brother, let me cast out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye ? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote that is in thy brother's eye." — St. Luke vi. 41, 42. The Lord Jesus exposed the prevailing faults of the Scribes and Pharisees, and showed His disciples that they should be quite otherwise minded. They should not be covetous of earthly gain, but lay up treasure in heaven. They should not be ostentatious, but pray secretly and give alms modestly. They should not be censorious, but be just and charitable in their estimate of others. THE CHIP AND THE BEAM. 39 On this last point the Heavenly Teacher was earnest and explicit. We sometimes hear harsh judgments justified on the ground that those who form and express them know human nature well, and the unvarnished realities of life. But here speaks One who had the most absolute knowledge of what is in man, and could judge unerringly of actions and their motives, and His counsel is to beware of magnifying the faults of our neighbours, or indulging in harsh and hasty censures. To impress this lesson He used an illustration so apt that it has become one of the household phrases of Christendom. Indeed, many use it who scarcely know w r hence it is derived. No one disputes that men who love right- eousness must take note of unrighteous con- duct, and must regard it with pain and dis- approval. No one disputes, every one holds, that good men ought to take cognisance of the evil which is in the world, in order to track it to its sources and endeavour to apply correctives and remedies. The question now raised is about the temper in which this ought to be done, the clearness of the moral vision 40 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. and the integrity and kindness of the moral purpose. Jesus insisted on clearness of moral percep- tion when He described the eye as " the lamp of the body," and laid emphasis on its single- ness. Covetousness and all unbelieving anxiety f about things temporal were to be shunned, because such feelings confused the eye of the mind. The same thins: is true of a censorious disposition. It usually implies, and always fosters, self-ignorance and self-conceit. And the Lord so illustrated this as to bring out the unreasonable and even ludicrous aspect of Pharisaic censures. Two men meet, the one of whom has his eye almost closed by a large fragment of wood, here called the beam, while the other has got a small chip of wood in his eye. The word " mote" is well enough as in- dicating a very small size, but suggests dust, whereas it belongs to the aptness of the illus- tration that the obstruction to vision is of the same material in both men, but in the one very large, in the other comparatively trifling. Yet he who is scarcely able to see anything accurately because of the wood in his eye, THE CHIP AND THE BEAM. 41 beholds or stares at the eye of his brother, and proposes to remove that little chip — an operation on a most sensitive organ of the body, which would require clear vision and a steady hand. The thing would be absurd ; those who heard our Saviour put the case in this way must have been moved as we are when we hear some blatant assumption pierced by a delicate sarcasm. The case lias only to be stated in order to carry the inference that he who has the large obstruction in his eye should first get rid of it, so that he may be fit to operate on his brother's eye. In other words, a man should have his own errors and faults corrected, in order that he may be able first to see clearly, and then to correct firmly and wisely the errors and faults of others. I. It is a delicate operation to correct the faults of other men. It may be like u eel to the feat of taking a chip of wood, a hair, or an insect's wing out of an inflamed eye. A clumsy operator may easily make things worse. So may a clumsy or unkind 42 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. censor offend his brother, and do no good, but rather harm. All the greater is the delicacy if one undertakes the task as a volunteer. One may accept reproof from a person whom he regards as having; a right to advise and even to rebuke, such as a parent in a family or a pastor in a Christian flock ; or he may take it well from a private friend with whom he is on confidential terms, and whose counsel he has often sought ; and yet he may not be at all willing; to have his faults indicated and handled by any one who thinks proper to assume the function, and to constitute him- self a fault-finder and fault-mender to society. It is only under an imperative sense of duty, and even then w T ith the greatest diffidence, that a wise and humble man will venture this operation on one who, though a brother in the faith, is personally a stranger to him ; for, even in the most favourable instance, the moral function which is attempted is a diffi- cult one, and calls not only for a fine tact, but also for much self-knowledge in the operator, and much charity. Something might be said here of the risk THE CHIP AND THE BEAM. 43 tli at attends all human judgment of the con- duct of other men. It is not often that one knows accurately and completely the outward facts, and one never quite knows the temp- tation resisted or yielded to, and the inward motive, or the commanding and determiuins; one among a group of motives, which in- fluenced the action under review. Considera- tions of this sort ought to be remembered as a corrective to severe judgment on the one hand, and to blind admiration on the other. But this is not the point before us. The case supposed is one of visible and undeniable fault. Still it is a delicate task to judge of it ; it is a difficult operation to correct or re- move it. It is of no use to gaze at it with- out trying to put it away ; and he who would make such a trial needs to be himself £ood and wise. His eye must be clear, his con- science clean, his moral vision pure, who would see how to mend a brother's fault or take a mote out of a brother's eye. II. Self -ignorance and self-conceit incapa- citate one for performing this operation. 44 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. It cannot be said that faultiness in one's own character disables him as a critic of other men's morality. On the contrary, most ac- curate and pungent moral strictures may pro- ceed from men who are quite aware that their own lives will not bear close inspection. There are men of broken character and bad habits who, writing anonymously for the press, show a keen, perception of ethical dis- tinctions, and lash the vices of the age with much vigour and effect. Nay more, men of the worst stamp are often found to have a wonderfully sharp eye for delinquencies on the part of their Christian neighbours, and are loud in condemnation of their shameful inconsistency. Such persons, it is true, care little for the correction of faults, but they see them clearly enough in the con- duct of others, and exult in the thought that good people are not so good as they seem. The case indicated by our Lord is that of one who is insensible of his own faultiuess, yet presumes to deal with the faultiness of others ; and He addresses such a person by THE CHIP AND THE BEAM. 45 the strong term of disapproval, " hypocrite," which He often applied to the Scribes and Pharisees. Literally, it would be impossible for one who had even a small chip of wood in his eye to be unaware of it. The delicacy . of the organ would produce acute annoyance. But, alas 1 one may so destroy the delicacy of conscience as to go about with a great fault obvious to every one, and yet forget it, and suppose that no one else can see it. " Thou considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye." Such is the self-ignorance, begotten of pride, or rather of self-conceit, refusing to acknowledge what is disagreeable or discreditable — a foolish complacency which deceives no one. If one thus blind to his own faults assumes to be a censor and corrector of morals, he plays the hypocrite in this sense, that he affects to be zealous for righteousness and impatient of evil, while all the while he excuses evil in himself, and condemns it only in others. It is a false zeal which flies at extraneous evil and spares that which is in our own homes, our own hearts and lives. First examine 46 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. and arraign and amend thyself! First cast out the beam from thine own eye ! In the Canonical Book of Buddha there is a passage which exposes the same self-excusing habit that our Lord condemns. " The faults of others are easily perceived, but one's own faults it is difficult to perceive. A man win- nows his neighbour's faults like chaff, but his own faults he hides, as a cheat hides the bad dice from the gambler." # III. An honest Christian reserves his stric- test judgment for himself. Self-love will surest excuses, and even tempt a man to ignore his own faults, or, at all events, to change their names ; but a supreme love of righteousness, such as ought to pos- sess the Christian mind, keeps conscience at work, and enjoins self-judgment and self-cor- rection. Then, as to the comparative seriousness of faults, there is a strong tendency to regard one's own misconduct with leniency, though * Quoted in Bishop Titcomh's " Short Chapters on Bud- dhism," p. 1 66. THE CHIP AND THE BEAM. 47 meting out a bard censure to similar delin- quency in others. Ours is the mote or chip, and our neighbour's is the beam. But when the spirit of Christ enters into us, all this is changed. Ours is the beam ; our iniquity is great ; our fault is heinous. We know what checks and warnings we have had to keep us from it, what remonstrances of conscience, and what impulses and examples to counteract the evil temptation. And yet we are at fault. Nay, we have persisted in what we know to be wrong till it has acquired the force of a habit, neutralising good, and unfitting us to exert a healthy moral and religious influence on others. The beam is in our own eye. It is our neighbour who has the mote or chip. So at least it should appear to us in the judgment of charity. By this is not at all meant that we are to make light of evil, or out of good nature affect not to see what is censurable. It is not charity, but a morbid feebleness of the moral nature, which cannot bear to condemn anything but strictness, and glibly excuses or lightly tolerates conduct that is vicious or dishonest. Nothing in our Lord's 4 3 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. teaching may or can be construed into a sanc- tion of that species of leniency which makes all its allowance on the dangerous side. On the contrary, it is required by our loyalty to Him and to the best interests of society that we en- deavour to maintain in ourselves and promote in others a moral tone that is brisk and vigor- ous, honouring the virtues of truth, justice, and purity, and reprobating the opposite vices. But there is no reason why this tone of rigorous discrimination between good and evil should not be combined with a gentle and charitable judgment of the character and motives of our neighbours and fellow r Christians. We are not competent to weigh their actions, for the reason already given, that our information is almost always partial, and also because our censure is very apt to be unduly aggravated if we happen to be ourselves in an uncomfortable mood, or if we have a feeling of personal dislike to those whose conduct is impugned. Nay, more, when a particular point of behaviour or line of con- duct is under censure, and is confessedly inde- fensible, it is not easy for us to fix the degree of condemnation which it deserves, because we THE CHIP AND THE BEAM. 49 cannot say how much is due to wickedness, and how much to weakness, silliness, or mis- guidance. Sometimes behaviour that wears a most objectionable aspect proceeds from an ungracious manner, or a giddy mood, or bad taste, rather than bad intention. To a severe temper that may appear a huge beam which a kinder heart and more considerate judgment will be content to regard as a mote or small chip, which love and patience may remove. " Have fervent charity among yourselves, for charity covereth a multitude of sins." '" Such was the rule for the early Christians, and it is as much in force as ever. There is no religion that goes so deep as ours into the exposure of human sin and consequent misery, or has a moral tone so firm and vigorous : but at the same time there is none that is so per- vaded with the spirit of kindness and hopeful- ness. It charges us to forbear and forgive, and above all things, to " put on love, which is the bond of perfectness." t * 1 Peter iv. 8. t Coloss. iii. 13, 14. D ( 50 ) V. THE DOGS AND THE SWINE. " Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before the swine, lest haply they trample them under their feet, and turn and rend you." — St. Matt. vii. 6. It is not an easy thing to be morally and spiritually useful to other men. It requires much more than holy talk. In our last chapter we have seen that it needs self- knowledge and charity — a recognition and removal of 'our own faults in order to dis- cern and correct the faults of others. Now follows another lesson, to the effect that Christian usefulness requires careful discrimi- nation of what is fitting or unfitting, and a power of reserve as well as a faculty of speech. Perhaps it strikes some readers of the New Testament that the language used by our Lord in the text at the head of this chapter THE DOGS AND THE SWINE. 51 is scarcely worthy of such a teacher. They may urge that it was neither kind nor dignified to call men, however ungodly, dogs and swine. Is it not a duty to honour all men ? But here lies a mistake. Our Saviour did not call men by opprobrious names. It is one thing, and not a very respectful thing, to call a man a sheep; quite another thing to illustrate the wandering of a sinful man from God by the straying of a sheep from the shepherd's care. So it would indeed be a harsh mode of speak- ing to stigmatise men as dogs and swine, as vile and stupid animals; but it is quite an- other thing to introduce such creatures in order to give point to an illustration of what would be unbecoming and unsuitable in the delivery of sacred truth to profane persons. It would be as incongruous and improper as to cast the sacrificial flesh from the altar to a street dog, or to throw pearls before a savage boar. The first case supposed is that of a priest or Levite, who on leaving the temple observed one of the ever-hungry dogs that prowled about the city of Jerusalem, but were never admitted 52 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. within the gates of the sanctuary. Forget- ting all considerations of manners and pro- priety, he returned into the court, took a portion of flesh which had been on the altar of burnt-offering, and threw it to the dog. Such an action would violate the Divine law which assigned the flesh of the offerings to the priests, and it would indicate gross disrespect and a want of the sense of fitness. The fault found is not with the dog, which could know no better than snap up the piece of flesh. It was with the thoughtless or presumptuous priest. The other case supposed is that of a lavish rich man, who, for some whim, or intending a practical joke, threw pearls, as if they were seeds, before a herd of swine. The swine in Palestine never were tame creatures, as with us. Though in some parts of the country they were kept in herds, they w r ere by the Jewish law unclean animals, and disallowed as food for man. Accordingly they were at the most only half-tamed ; and the genuine wild boar has always haunted the valley of the Jordan. Now, if one should cast pearls THE DOGS AND THE SWINE. 53 in the way supposed before those animals, they might rush for what seemed to be grain, since they are always voracious, but, quickly discovering the hoax, would trample on the pearls, as pigs commonly put their feet into and upon their food ; and, not improbably, an enraged boar w T ould rend the foolish man who had played this dangerous game by a side upward stroke of his tusk, as the manner of such creatures is. This turning and rending- Horace refers to in one of his odes, where he alludes to the boar " obliquum meditantis ictum" — meditating a side-long thrust.* What need, it may be asked, to warn respectable people against conduct like this, so profane, or so senseless and foolhardy ? The answer is that extreme instances are chosen in order to put a much-needed lesson in a strong light, just as the warning against the self-complacency of a censorious man is given by supposing the case of one who had a large splinter of wood in his eye yet thought that he could see well enough to perform a delicate operation on the eye of his brother ; * Carm. iii. 22. 54 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. or as the case of a cruel father, who gives his child a serpent for a fish, is used to enhance by contrast the fatherly goodness of God. But what is the lesson ? It cannot be that Christians are never to press the Gospel on an indifferent, unsympathetic, or even hostile audience. In that case it would contradict all those counsels and charges which require a fearless and even an aggressive testimony to the name of Jesus; and it would be at variance with the example of our Lord and His apostles, who preached the Word in the face of angry opposition. Christ did not reserve Himself for well-disposed hearers, nor did His disciples. Did not St. Peter, with his friend St. John by his side, preach Jesus as the Christ to the Council at Jerusalem which had condemned Jesus within a few weeks, and had arrested the two apostles for the offence of speaking to the people in that name 1 Did not St. Paul, with similar intrepidit} r , preach to the mocking Athenians, and to the angry crowd at Jerusa- lem, from whose clutches he had just been rescued by the Eoman soldiers ? And since those days, how many brave witnesses for THE DOGS AND THE SWINE. 55 Christ have proclaimed repentance and salva- tion to men who hated them and hooted at their testimony ! It cannot be that those are condemned by any saying of their Lord. He never can have intended to pluck heroism and martyrdom out of Christian service. On the contrary, the courageous and heroic temper is in full harmony with the spirit of Jesus Christ and His gospel. There can scarcely be too much boldness in making known the love and the will of God. If opponents have not merely neglected the gospel, but met it with the violence of persecution ; if they have turned and rent as with a w T ild boar's tusk those who sought to do them good, the Lord does not censure, but will certainly reward those who suffered for His name, perhaps lost their lives for His sake, and that of His gospel. The positive lesson conveyed in this meta- phorical saying of Jesus is one of reverence and discretion. We understand it thus : — I. As to the preaching of the gospel. While the preacher is not to evade difficulty or shrink from opposition or personal danger, 56 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. be is to consult decorum and opportunity so far as not to expose. names and things that are sacred to open and egregious contempt. Ou this principle one is not to address religious truth to a drunkard in his cups, or to him who sits in the scorn er's chair. It is true that cases have been known in which the truth wonderfully sobered the drunkard or silenced the scoffer ; but no such rare instances justify an unseemly subjection of the name and Word of God to an overwhelming risk of jibe and blasphemy. Open-air preaching, too, requires very especially to be placed under this rule of Christ. If conducted at fit places and times, it is not merely an allowable, but a highly commendable practice ; but the question of fitness is of far more importance than in- experienced preachers are aware. To our thinking, it does not well consist with the precept of Christ now under our considera- tion for one to enter into a sort of shouting competition with hucksters at the corner of a busy street, or to pray and preach in the throng and hubbub of a race-course. Can it be reconciled with any proper feeling of THE DOGS AXD THE SWINE. 57 reverence that ears which are filled with the cry of some seller of cheap wares by the side- walk, or the voice of a singer of ribald ballads, or with the roar of men offering bets, or the coarse jokes and hideous swearing of " roughs," should in the midst of all this hear a rival vociferation of such names as Jesus and the Holy Ghost, with ever so many well-meant appeals for repentance and faith ? We do not deny that in an occasional, very occasional, instance, good has been done by such ven- turesome preaching ; but no one can tell on the other side how much harm has been done by breaking down the sense of reverence, and exposing what is more holy and precious than the best men are able to conceive to the open scorn, or, what may be even worse, the unchastened familiarity, of the foolish and the profane. II. As to statements of spiritual experience. In this matter Christian men are apt to fall into one or other of two opposite extremes. Many pass through life with hardly a word, even to their pastors or their nearest friends, 58 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. which indicates that they have received any spiritual benefit or have any inward experi- ence of the grace of God. This is the one extreme of unreasonable reticence. On the other hand, a good many talk too much about themselves, and will even volunteer before indiscriminate assemblies an account of their conversion, and of their great peace and joy in believing. This is the opposite, the ego- tistical extreme ; and none the less egotistical that the statement is accompanied with many exclamations of " Glory to God ! " Between these extremes the wise and humble Christian ought to steer his course. He must consider his company and his oppor- tunity. If he be among those who fear God and have some personal acquaintance with the spiritual life, he may " tell what God has done for his soul," so as to strengthen his brethren and stir them up to love and praise. If he be in a mixed company, he will probably be more reserved. If he be among persons unfit to estimate holy and precious things, he will not cast religious experience before them, to be misconstrued and possibly trampled THE DOGS AND THE SWINE. 59 under foot. The work of the Holy Spirit in us is to be submitted only to spiritual men, and even to them should always be disclosed with lowliness and modesty. III. As to the admission to sacred privi- leges and functions in the Church. It is a degradation and misuse of holy ordi- nances to press them on persons of unjust or impure lives. True that in our modern Chris- tendom it is not possible for Church-rulers to draw an absolute line of separation between the holy and the profane. There must be broad margins of forbearance, and charity hopes all things : but it would be a disastrous error to surrender the great principle of Church sepa- ration and discipline, that holy things are for the holy. Such is the principle on which St. Paul proceeded when he charged the Corin- thian Christians not to retain in fellowship " a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner." * " Be ye not unequally yoked with unbe- lievers." t * 1 Cor. v. 11. t 2 Cor. vi. 14. 60 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. The Reformed Churches in the sixteenth cen- tury were honourably distinguished by their revival of Church discipline. They required, with the reformation of faith and worship, also a reform of manners and morals. In the Book of Common Order of the Church of Scot- land (a.d. 1560) occurs this weighty para- graph : — " There are three causes, chiefly, which move the Church of God to the execut- ing of discipline: — (1.) That men of evil conversation be not numbered among God's children, to their Father's reproach, as if the Church of God were a sanctuary for naughty and vile persons. (2.) That the good be not infected by the evil, which thing St. Paul fore- saw when he commanded the Corinthians to banish from among them the incestuous adul- terer, saying, ' A little leaven maketh sour the whole lump of dough.' (3.) That a man thus corrected or excommunicated might be ashamed of his fault, and so through repen- tance come to amendment." The confusion into which Christian society has fallen makes it difficult for the most THE DOGS AND THE SWINE. 61 faithful Churches to apply the sound prin- ciple of the separation of the holy from the unclean. Churches that have lost or surren- dered the power of self-discipline enfeeble dis- cipline in other Churches also. But none the less does it remain a sacred duty to warn from the Lord's table the carnally-minded and such as do not discern the Lord's body, and never knowingly to admit to Church privilege or office any who are of impure or intemperate habits. Such persons there were in the first ages, naming the name of the Lord, and then turning back "from the holy commandment." St. Peter refers to such in terms which recall an ancient proverb," but also have an unques- tionable reminiscence of the saying of Jesus about the dogs and swine, which the Apostle, having once heard, could never forget — " The dog turning to his own vomit again, and the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire.'"' t The Lord make clean our hearts within us, and then " give us His own flesh to eat ! " It is meat indeed, for it is the flesh of the Sacri- * Prov. xxvi. II. f - Peter ii. 22. 62 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. fice once offered for us. Then will the pearls of sacred truth be recognised by us as pre- cious. We know of one pearl of great price, and gladly sell all that we have in order to possess that pearl. ( 63 ) VI. TWO GATES AND TWO WAYS. " Enter ye in by the narrow gate : for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many be they that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few be they that find it." — St. Matt. vii. 13, 14. In all times and all languages human life has been likened to a journey. The Bible has many examples. Enoch walked with God. Jacob described the years of his life as the years of his pilgrimage. St. Paul referred to men who " walked according to the course of the world," denounced " walking after the flesh," and commended " walking in the Spirit." It is a common usage to speak of a way of life or a course of conduct ; and so there is no difficulty in understanding that when Jesus Christ employed in His teaching the illustration of two gates and two roads, He meant to indicate two modes and tenden- 64 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. cies of human life. In fact, He put vividly before His audience the same alternative which a great painter put on the canvas in the rival persuasions of Minerva and Venus — Wisdom and Pleasure — appealing from op- posite sides to inexperienced and impulsive youth. It is a bold and comprehensive generali- sation. As they appear to us, the paths of human conduct are very various. We cannot reduce them to two, or pronounce confidently that this man is on the sure road to heaven, and that man on the sure way to hell ; but under all the moral shades and circumstantial diversities of human life our Lord saw two opposite lines of tendency, and only two. The one is the way of the unjust, the other the path of the just. The one is the way of the flesh, and the other the path of the Spirit. I. A wide gate lying open invites your entrance, and a broad smooth avenue gives promise of leading you to some mansion, castle, or pleasure-ground. Such is the gate and such is the way of self-indulgence — at the outset of life easy to the feet, pleasant to the TWO GATES AND TWO WAYS. 65 eye, seductive to the senses and the imagina- tion. The pleasure, indeed, is only for a season. The way becomes rough, and for one who continues on it smiling to the last, you may find seven grumbling and out of humour. The road of pleasure is infested with stinging nettles of pain. Wounded pride, satiated ap- petite, foiled ambitions, disappointed plans, gnawing jealousies, spoil everything this world can furnish. " Vanity of vanities : all is vanity." Still men go on in the broad way. Their choice has been made, their habits are formed ; they must just get as much as they can out of their lives on the line which they have adopted. If they feel, as sometimes they must, that they are by no means making the best thing possible out of their life and oppor- tunities, they try to console themselves by the thought that they are not singular in this. They are as good as most of their neighbours, and live as people of their rank are wont to do. If life, as it proceeds, disappoints their hopes, they suffer only the common lot. It is one of the inducements to men to E 66 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. enter the wide gate, that "many go in thereat." Men are very gregarious, and the crowd always draws a greater crowd. It is comparatively rare to find a man act strictly from individual convictions and think out his line of conduct from his own reason and conscience. Most men copy one another. So, because the broad way has been the popular way, it becomes more and more popular. A new generation throng the gate, following the steps of their fathers, as their fathers followed their predecessors, each generation finding, as they finish the course, and it is too late to alter it, to what a woeful termination the broad way has conducted them. " Leadeth to destruction." So said the Faithful and True Witness. He did not set Himself to prove the statement, or enter into any argument to show that such is the neces- sary conclusion to a life of self-seeking and self-indulgence. He was not a reasoner, but a revealer. He saw the end from the beginniug, and declared it with the calm authority of one who had complete cognisance of the issues of life in good and evil, in weal and woe. He, TWO GATES AND TWO WAYS. 67 knew, and therefore gave warning, that the "broad way" leads to no sweet home or celestial palace, but to a beetling precipice and sore destruction. From this there is a possibility of escape ; but at the beginning, not at the end. One must turn away from the inviting gate and dare to dissent from the multitude ; or, if he has unhappily entered the gate and proceeded on the way, he must, at the warning of Christ, be converted ; he must turn, retrace his steps in repentance, and come out through the gate, reversing the very principle of his life, that he may enter on a new course before it is too late. II. A narrow gate is overlooked by the crowd, or is avoided because it opens on a mere footpath closely hedged or walled in on either side. The presumption is that it leads to a poor man's cottage or a cattle-shed. True that over the gate indicated by Christ those who believe His Word may see an in- scription, " To the Palace of the King." But the heedless multitude do not see this inscrip- tion, or, if their attention is called to it, make 68 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. light of it, persuading themselves that there must be much easier and more conspicuous avenues to the palace. There is a passage in the Second Book of Esdras which resembles the saying of Jesus Christ now under our consideration, but the date of that book being quite uncertain, we cannot even put it as a conjecture that our Lord may have had the words of Esdras in His mind. The inheritance of God's people is likened to " a city set upon a broad field, and full of all good things, but the entrance is narrow and set in a dangerous place, as if there were a fire on the right hand, and on the left a deep water, and only one path between these, so small that but one man at once could go there." Then follows the ques- tion, " If this city were given unto a man for an inheritance, if he never shall pass through the danger set before it, how shall he receive this inheritance ? " # It is not danger that our Lord's language suggests so much as the need of humility, self-denial, and non-conformity to the world. * 2 Esdras vii. TWO GATES AND TWO WAYS. 69 One must repent and humble himself as a little child in order to pass through the gate and enter on the way. Thereafter, too, he must maintain a high purpose and a firm self- control in order to advance on the wav, on no account deviating from the path of righteous- ness, however tempting the "bypath meadows" may be. After all, those soft meadows of ease and compromise are more mischievous than the ditches, into which if a man fall he is defiled, or the fire and water on either side, which compel vigilance. Mark the entire frankness with which Jesus Christ proclaimed the difficulty of being one of His disciples and walking in the way of His steps. Evidently He was conscious of a right to command the alle- giance of men at whatever cost, and of a power to recompense those who might suffer for His name and "for righteousness' sake." The way which He set before His followers might be arduous, but there were and would always be ample compensations for all the difficulties and temporal losses which it might entail. No lion or ravenous beast goes up on 70 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. that way of holiness.* Angels encamp round about it, and the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, leads all those who walk thereon. Add to this, that the narrow way is brightened by the promise and hope of eternal life which we have in Christ Jesus. It will not end, like the broad way, in a precipice hanging over the pit of death. Nor is the issue of it in a mere vague futurity, like that of the woodland path to which an American poet compares human life — " On a trackless beach, With a boundless sea before." t The narrowed way broadens into a sure and glorious issue. It leads to life. Of ordinary human existence, we say that it leads to, it ends in, death ; but the life of faith and new obedience passes into a fuller and higher vitality — the life everlasting. No mention here of deathbeds or graves, because these come to men, or men come to them, in a natural order apart altogether from Christ. Life in Him is not interrupted by the de- * Isa. xxxv. 9. t Bryant's Later Poems, The Unknown Way. TWO GATES AND TWO WAYS. 71 cease and dissolution of the body, nor is there any interception of its progress toward its heavenly expansion and fulness in the presence of the King. Yet what mournful words are these that follow !— " Few there be that find it." There are two mistakes, opposite to eacli other, to be avoided : — 1. They misconstrue the Scriptures who infer from the expression just quoted that the saved of the Lord in every generation must be few. Christ stated a melancholy fact in regard to His own generation, who "received Him not," but did not predict that the same state of matters would last through- out all generations. After the same manner He addressed His followers as a "little flock ; " but did not therein imply that His Hock would always be small. William Cow- per, however, had evidently been taught so-; and, accordingly, in one of his hymns, the Saviour of a multitude that no man can number is addressed as — " Dear Shepherd of Thy chosen few." 72 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. A similar misuse is often made of St. Paul's observation, that not many of the mighty, the noble, or the wise in the heathen world were amonrr " the called." or in Chris- tian fellowship,* and that the Church re- ceived her reinforcements more frequently from those classes of society which had less repute and influence. He stated this as a fact of the time, and one which the Corin- thians to whom he wrote might see for them- selves ; but he did not lay it down as a principle or standing law of Christianity for all time coming. Yet this inference seems often to be drawn ; and a false impression is conveyed that our religion has an anti- pathy to culture, and that it is more adapted to the ignorant than to men of education and refinement. In the instance before us, our Lord pointed out that few in His time chose the way of righteousness ; but whether in the end only a few would be saved, He said not. When the question was put to Him, He declined to answer it, but told the questioners to look * i Cor. i. 26. TWO GATES AND TWO WAYS. 73 well to themselves, lest they should miss the entrance. " Strive ye to enter in." # 2. They err on the other side who think it due to charity to suppose that all or nearly all men are to he saved. It is from Holy Scripture only that sound knowledge on such a point can be derived ; and Scripture throughout gives us to understand that not all mankind, but a people taken from out the mass of mankind, are and are to be saved. No teacher within all the bounds of Holy Writ is more clear to this effect than the Master Himself. We can make nothing; of the solemn alternatives laid down by Him if it is to be held that those who love the world and follow the common course of self-pleasing, shutting God out of their thoughts, are never- theless in a state of safety and in the path to life. It is weak, and worse than weak, to refrain from warning men against incurring perdition, lest we be thought uncharitable. The matter is not one to be settled by our dispositions or wishes. The Judge of all the earth will * St. Luke xiii. 23, 24. 74 ' METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. do right. We have to hold and proclaim, not what we desire, but what He has told us. It is right to be charitable, but no one needs be more charitable than Jesus Christ. It is well to be liberal, but with one's own things, not those of another. It is a cheap and hollow liberality that is always ready to give way on the truths of God's Word, and to yield the claims of His righteousness. Charity and liberality of mind teach us to put the kindest construction on the motives of our fellow-men, and to hope the best that is credible concerning them, but do not authorise us to contradict the Bible, or con- fuse moral and spiritual distinctions that in- volve inevitably opposite issues. Both the express words and the warning tone of Jesus and His apostles announce to us a real danger of perdition, and bid us and all strive to enter in at the gate, and abide in the way of salvation. However plainly the alternative is put, some will "halt between two opinions." They demur to being put in such a dilemma, and urged to a firm and prompt decision. There TWO GATES AND TWO WAYS. 75 seems to be a vague hope afloat that this clever and advanced generation may manage to combine the broad way and the narrow, or strike out a third path which will unite all advantages while obviating discomfort and singularity. It will be worldliness made safe and godliness made easy. But all this is folly. The two gates and two ways de- scribed with unerring wisdom by our Lord are incapable of combination or compromise. If a man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. If a man lead the life of a sinner, he cannot die the death or gain the inheritance of a saint. ( 7* ) VII. TREES AND THEIR FRUIT. "For there is no good tree that bringeth forth corrupt fruit ; nor again a corrupt tree that bringeth forth good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes."— St. Luke vi. 43, 44. " Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit : but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a cor- rupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them." — St. Matt. vii. 15-20. The comparison of men to fruit-trees is a very obvious one, and of frequent occurrence in the Bible. Every tree brings forth after its kind. Every man acts according to his prevailing disposition and will. Thus from the fruit you can tell the nature of the tree TREES AND THEIR FRUIT. yy which has produced it; and from his course of conduct you may tell the kind of man you have to deal with. He is a good tree, a tree planted by the rivers of water, a fruitful olive- tree, a flourishing palm-tree, a tree of right- eousness ; or he is a corrupt tree, a withered tree, a dry tree. One of the chief dangers which beset primi- tive Christianity was the intrusion of false prophets. There were men who affected to bear a message from God, while He had not sent them ; but in those days of inexperi- ence and open testimony, they found the ear of Christian congregations, and " crept into houses, beguiling unstable souls." They were without the knowledge and experience of the truth, but made their way by plausible pro- testations and flattering words. The Epistles are full of allusions to such men, as mislead- ing the Churches. The delusive professions of the false pro- phets and teachers were only so much " sheep's clothing " worn for a purpose. Christ's servants in a hostile world were as sheep in the midst of wolves ; but those de- 78 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. ceivers were wolves in the midst of tlie sheep, serving themselves of the flock, not obedient to the Heavenly Shepherd. In this they showed what nature they were of. Clothe a wolf in sheep-skins, still he will ravin. Call a tree by what name you choose, it will bring forth fruit after its own kind. They are not grapes, but bitter black berries that grow on the buckthorn, and thistles yield no figs. The early Churches were required to protect themselves from the false teachers. Apostles could not be everywhere to test every one who claimed to address the Christian assem- blies. So the brethren were to exercise a wise and necessary caution, and not hearken to every teacher or believe every spirit. St. Paul wrote to the Galatians that they ought to have rejected any one, even though he were of an angelic attractiveness, who preached a gospel at variance with that which had been delivered to them. St. John exhorted Chris- tians at the end of the first century to " prove the spirits whether they are of God," and espe- cially to watch the doctrine concerning Jesus Christ as " come in the flesh." TREES AND THEIR FRUIT. 79 The development of doctrine Lad not pro- ceeded so far when our Lord taught on the Mount, and His reference to the fruit-trees indicates a practical and not a dogmatic test. See how it applies — I. To the teachers of religion. We do not admit that there were no doctrinal tests in the apostolic times. The references we have just made to the writings of two of the chief apostles prove the contrary. But the moral test was a primary one, and could be ap- plied by any man with a correct sense of right and wrong, even though he might not be much versed in theology. And the apostles followed their Master in urging on the Churches the application of this moral test. St. Paul often referred to the selfish motives and immoral lives of those unauthorised and perverse teachers who tried to undermine his influence, at the same time reminding the Churches of his per- sonal conduct and example among them. St. Peter denounced the licentiousness and covet- ousuess of the same class of men. St. John, in his significant manner, wrote, " He that So METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. doeth evil hath not seen God." St. Jude pointed with severe reprobation to " ungodly men" who were troubling the Churches — " walking after their lusts, and their mouth speaketh great swelling words." It is true that a bad man may speak good words, having learned them from books or from other men ; but he is not, therefore, to be accepted as a religious teacher. Every one who does righteousness is begotten of God. He who does it not, is not of God, and has no claim to speak for God. However unex- ceptionable his doctrine, his influence cannot be safe or healthy. In fact, he brings dishonour to the doctrine and injury to the Church which listens to him. The corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. II. To religious systems. Religion, however taught, must stand or fall according to the moral effect it produces on those who embrace and obey it. On this prin- ciple Christianity may boldly invite compari- son with any form of heathenism, with Moham- medanism, or with the negation of religion TREES AND THEIR FRUIT. Si in Materialism and Secularism. Imperfectly as it has been reduced to practice, it has led to a standard of private and public morals, an estimate of domestic virtue, an appreciation of righteousness, and a temper of mercy far beyond what can be shown under any other system. Indeed, the imperfection with which Christianity has been illustrated and obeyed by its own adherents may be cited as one of the proofs of its lofty origin. It is compara- tively easy to be a thorough exponent and example of heathenism or Mohammedanism ; but where can you find a perfect Christian ? There is a consummate Christ: there are no consummate Christians. But in so far as men follow Christ and are imbued with His Spirit, they are good, virtuous, righteous. On the other hand, you cannot say that the more thoroughly heathen a man is, or the more in- tensely Mohammedan, or the more decidedly materialistic and secularistic in his convictions, the more sure he is to be good, virtuous, righteous. Judged by the fruit it produces where it flourishes, Christianity is the good tree. F 82 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. The same test will lead to just conclusions regarding the rival forms of Christianity, pro- vided always that a sufficiently large induc- tion of instances be taken, and that time enough has been given for the working out of genuine results. It is not difficult to show that what may be called the sacerdotal form of Christianity bears this test badly. It has trained its votaries to devout practices and ecclesiastical submission ; but its moral dis- cipline, through the confessional and the im- position of penance, has wrought on the fear of penalty rather than on the healthy sense of right and wrong, while the casuistry applied to actions and the weighing and measuring of sins by the priests have tended to lower and confuse rather than to educate and strengthen conscience. The fruit is notorious in the unsatisfactory criminal statistics of a Eoman Catholic as contrasted with a Protestant popu- lation. The tree is known by its fruit. Let it be confessed that Protestant Chris- tianity, even in its most earnest and evan- gelical form, leaves still much to be desired in the production of practical righteousness ; TREES AND THEIR FRUIT. S3 but at all events it is the right kind of tree. The gospel which is its glory is the doctrine according to godliness. The saving grace of God which it holds fast and holds forth is that which leads men to " live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." A high moral influence is sometimes claimed for what may be called Unitarian and national- istic Christianity ; and it should be freely ac- knowledged that this has been the religion of some most amiable, benevolent, and virtu- ous men. But the fruit or sure result of a system of belief and worship is to be estimated on a long issue and a large scale ; and the history of the system now indicated shows its tendency to weaken the grasp of revealed re- ligion on the human soul, and to leave with men nothing but a code of virtue and the praise of charity. Therefore it is powerless to rescue the perishing, to elevate the masses to comfort the poor, or to restrain the rich from a refined but selfish luxury. III. To all men. In this sense the saying is often applied, 84 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. and Las become a sort of moral adage — " The tree is known by its fruit." Application of such a text to our fellow- men must of course be with caution and charity. Great injury is done every day through a rash habit of judging on deficient or erroneous information, or through miscon- ception springing from personal or party anti- pathies. First let us be sure of our facts ; then, if it is our duty to judge at all, let us proceed on those facts as the evidences of character. Let us look not at leaves, but at fruit. And let us not be too severe on youthful faults. Trees sometimes yield poor and even bitter fruit when they are young which give sweet and finely flavoured fruit when they come to maturity. Some estimate of our fellow-men we must form in order to guide our own behaviour to- wards them, and to warrant our trust or dis- trust. Then let our estimate depend not on professions, words, or appearances, all of which may be deceptive, but on solid actions and the sustained tenor of life. Let us mark what a man does or refuses to do, how he TREES AND THEIR FRUIT. 85 stands with those who must know him best, and what is the kind of influence he habitually exerts. We cannot go wrong in judging the tree by its fruit. The same test may be used in self-judg- ment. No doubt a man may take himself to account in a way which he cannot apply to his neighbour. He may sift his own secret motives and. scrutinise his most hidden thoughts and desires. He ought to know himself better than he can know any one else. Yet an honest man, trying to prove and judge himself, may be perplexed. It is hard to know the predominant motive or to detect the relative strength of desires that have twined together in the mind. Then comes in well this practical test, What, on the whole, is the bent of the character and will ? What are the ends for which one lives day after day ? Is right doing regarded as the imperative thing, or is the obligation practically modified by considerations of ease, of pleasure, or of immediate profit ? A wise man will bring the question to the proof, recognising that only good fruit can authenti- 86 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. cate a good fruit-tree. A good man, in so far as he can stand this great test, will humbly and heartily disown all merit, and ascribe all that is morally and spiritually right in him to the renewing and sanctifying power of the Holy Ghost. Nothing but a good tree can produce good fruit. It is impossible to manufacture it. Sometimes the doctrine of regeneration is represented as fanatical and impossible ; but it is sound philosophy to begin at the root. Interior disposition must determine exterior conduct and action. It is the glory and triumph of our religion that it provides for this. God is able to " make the tree good ; " and then the good tree is known by its spontaneous fruit. ( 87 ) VIII. THE WISE BUILDER AND THE FOOLISH. " Every one therefore which heareth these words of miue, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, which built his house upon the rock : and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell not : for it was founded upon the rock. And every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand : and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house ; and it fell : and great was the fall thereof. And it came to pass, when Jesus ended these words, the multitudes were astonished at His teaching : for He taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes." — ST. Matt. vii. 24-29. "Everyone that cometh unto me, and heareth my words, and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like : he is like a man building a house, who digged and went deep, and laid a foun- dation upon the rock : and when a flood arose, the stream brake against that house, and could not shake it : because it had been well builded. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that built a house upon the earth without a foundation ; against which the stream brake, and straightway it fell in ; and the ruin of that house was great." —St. Luke vi. 47-49. Moses descended a terrible mountain in the wilderness, bringing the law for Israel inscribed 88 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. on tablets of stone. The Prophet " like unto Moses " sat on a mountain of Palestine in the sunshine, with His disciples and the multi- tude listening while He opened His mouth in blessings, and then proceeded to indicate the deeper meanings of the Divine law, and to explain the righteousness which belongs to the Divine kingdom among men. Sore punishments were denounced against those "who despised Moses's law." A grave responsibility fell on those who heard Christ's teaching on the Mount. So in closing His discourse, He warned His hearers not to think it enough to pay an outward respect to His instruction. They should be doers of the Word, and not hearers only. The admonition is for all who read His words, as much as for those who originally heard them. It is much needed ; for scarcely any part of Scripture has been more praised and less obeyed than the Sermon on the Mount. " Was it," one has well asked, " with the depressing foresight how much patronising admiration and barren praise would be ex- pended on this sermon by men who shall never THE WISE BUILDER AND THE FOOLISH. 89 see the kingdom of God, that He was moved to close with darkening face in words like these, ' Every one that heareth these words of mine, anddoeth them not, shall be likened to a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand' ? " The peroration, of the sermon employs a double illustration, which must have told with graphic power on an audience accustomed to the sudden tempests and sweepiug floods of the climate of Judea. I. The two builders. A wise man, or one who acts prudently, is described as building a house. He looks well to the foundation, chooses one that will not sink and cannot be washed away. In such a country as Palestine it was the best policy to build upon a bed of solid rock. In contrast to the wise builder is the foolish man, who gives no heed to the choice of a foundation, but goes to work on a loose and treacherous sand. He may erect an imposing mansion ; but what is the value of show with- out safety ? 1. To the former of these "shall be likened" 9o METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. the obedient hearer of the words of Christ. To some this mode of describing a Christian appears to be scarcely evangelical. It seems to lay stress on doing, and not on believing. But in reality to "do the words" and to believe on Him who uttered them are not different actions of the mind, but essentially one and the same. It should be observed that the Sermon on the Mount was delivered at an early stage of our Lord's career, when He showed Himself in Galilee as a prophet. In that capacity He spoke, and the proper mode in which to express faith in Him was to hearken to His sayings and keep them. When He came to be more fully revealed in His saving purpose and jDower, more emphasis was laid on faith in Him. Those who follow Him are disciples, as He is their Teacher ; believers, as He is their Saviour. In fact, it is the adherence of the whole heart and mind to the Lord Jesus that is essential and fundamental. This is to base the house upon the rock. All the edifice of Christian life and consolation is thus made to rest on the ever-faithful Christ, whose words THE WISE BUILDER AND THE FOOLISH. 91 are treasured and obeyed, and whose redeem- ing grace gives to conscience both peace and liberty. It is one rock for all who are wise. Whatever the diversities in the houses of those who hear and do, all have the same foundation. The illustrious and the obscure, the learned and the unlearned, the courageous and the timid, the wise of every nation and every tribe, build on the same rock, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 2. To the latter — the foolish builder — "shall be likened" the disobedient hearer of the words of Christ. He listens and seems to honour and approve, yet does not keep or do the Word — is no true disciple. Alas ! how frequent are such builders in every Church ! They hear, but do not. They say " Lord, Lord," but give to the Lord neither faith nor obedience. They persist in building up a religious hope and what they take for a reli- gious character, but all the while they are on an uncertain sand, not on the immovable rock. II. The day of trial. In fair weather the two houses described 92 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. may look equally safe, but a day of storm soon tells the difference. The rains descend, soak- ing both houses from above. The floods come sidelong, washing away the surrounding earth. The winds beat on the naked walls. Then the one house, carefully and strongly founded, bears the strain ; but the other, being " with- out a foundation," has no grip of the ground, and falls. Now there are many critical hours in life that test to some extent our spiritual character and hope ; but the day of judgment indicated for the two houses is properly that day of which our Lord had spoken in which doers of His Father's will will be received into the kingdom of heaven, and workers of iniquity, however they may cry " Lord, Lord," will be shut out. Then will all hollow discipleship be exposed, and great will be the fall thereof. Perhaps the germ of the whole illustration lies in the ancient proverb, " The wicked are over- thrown, and are not, but the house of the righteous shall stand." * The higher and larger the foolish builder's * Proverbs xii. 7. THE WISE BUILDER AND THE FOOLISH. 93 house, the greater the ruin into which it falls. Disappointment of vain hopes con- fidently cherished enhances the misery of perdition. Alas ! how many such catastrophes there are, and others preparing every hour ! It is melancholy enough to survey the desola- tions that time and war have made upon the earth, broken temples and mouldering palaces, and mere heaps of rubbish where, once stood cities powerful and proud. But what is the fall of brick walls or stone columns to the ruined houses of vain hope in human history ? Think of men hearing the Word of Christ, and yet through folly and disobedience losing the kingdom of heaven ! How great the fall ! How piteous the ruin ! "With these sad words, " Great was the fall of it," ended the Sermon on the Mount. A mournful cadence truly, which, sinking into the ears and hearts of the audience, surely kept them from trifling with the words of Jesus. Indeed we know that the people were awe-stricken. He taught them as one havino- authority, and not as the Scribes. And He calmly divided men into two classes, the wise 94 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. and the foolish, according to their treatment of Him and His Word — the very distinction made in the ancient Psalms and Proverbs between those who feared Jehovah and those who feared Him not. The parable of the wise and foolish virgins afterwards spoken pro- ceeded on the same lines, and indicated that Jesus claimed to be not a prophet only, but more than a prophet. ( 95 ) IX. THE PHYSICIAN AND HIS PATIENTS. "But when He "And when Jesus "And Jesus answer- heard it, He said, heard it, He saith ing said unto them, They that are whole unto them, They that They that are whole have no need of a are whole have no have no need of a physician, hut they need of a physician, physician, but they that are sick." — St. but they that are sick, that are sick." — St. Matt. ix. 12. I came not to call the Luke v. 31. righteous, but sin- ners."— St. Mark ii. 17. It strikes us as a strange tliino- that Jesus Christ should have been openly blamed for His kindness to those who were degraded and despised. We have learned to admire such consideration on the part of good and religious men. We deem them well occupied in trying to raise the fallen and to recover those who have few to care for them. But this way of thinking- has come to us through Christianity. The old world into which our Saviour was born knew hardly anything of that tender pity 96 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. and philanthropy which nowadays we think so becoming. The Pharisees, who were par excellence the religious party in Judea, gave alms publicly for their own credit, but had no real compassion. Though the Old Testament might well have taught them to pity the dis- tressed and consider the case of the poor, they were proud and covetous, and centred all their thoughts on themselves and their ceremonial righteousness. It was a fixed notion with them that a righteous man should visit none but righteous men ; and so they did not scruple to regard it as a sign of low tastes and sympathies in Jesus of Nazareth that He received publicans and sinners and sat at table with them. The answer given by our Lord to the Phari- sees took the form of metaphor. lb was at once a defence of His own conduct and a direction to His followers in all time coming. I. A defence, complete and unanswerable. Our Saviour did not dispute the very un- favourable character imputed to the publicans and sinners. Let them be quite as bad as the THE PHYSICIAN AND HIS PATIENTS. 97 Pharisees thought them, yet this formed no reason for His avoiding them. On the con- trary, it was an argument for His visiting them, and expending much of His time and ministry upon them ; for He was a Physician. His very name, Jesus, came from the verb to heal. Now this was a view of the Lord's character and occupation which had not occurred to the Pharisees. Always intent on building up their own repute for righteousness by means of scrupulous observances, they assumed that the Nazarene also made it His object to pass for a prophet and a righteous man. As they judged, no one could so pass who mingled with publicans and sinners. The association indicated tastes and sympathies which were unworthy of a righteous man. But here was a new idea which changed the whole aspect of the case. He was a Physician ; and whither should a physiciau go but to the houses of the sick ? Nay, if there be cases of peculiarly severe and dangerous illness, there is all the stronger reason for his visits. To go to houses that other men G 98 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. shun is the honourable mark of his profes- sion. There could be no misunderstanding of the Lord's answer. The Pharisees knew that He did not refer to bodily treatment, and that the publicans and sinners were not " on beds of languishing." There were physicians in the land, some of them Pharisees ; but Jesus did not practise like them. He did, indeed, heal many sick folk with a word ; and He did much for the medical skill of future genera- tions by breathing into the hearts of men that temper of pity and consideration which is of the moral essence of the healing art. But the defence of Jesus before the Pharisees was evidently that the publicans and sinners were morally and spiritually in an evil case, and that He, being a Physician for the inner man, was not only justified in going to them, but bound to visit them that He might save them from death. Instead of being reproached, He ought to be praised. And He will be praised for ever and ever by those whom He has healed. Oh! kind and thoughtful Saviour! who came not as a Jewish Rabbi, nor as a THE PHYSICIAN AND HIS PATIENTS. 99 Greek philosopher, despising the people, but as a Healer of the sick and Eestorer of the faint, and drawing near even to most sinful men, as a physician goes near to his patients to examine each case with patience and apply the necessary cure ! " Thy kind but searching glance can scan The very wounds that shame would hide." II. A direction to His followers. While our Lord answered the Pharisees, He meant that His disciples should listen and learn. As He was, so should they become in His service. His Church was to be a pro- longed expression and an active exponent of healing skill and mercy. Indeed, in the early Church the care and cure of sick folk formed a recognised part of the duty of Church-officers. Nowadays the physical treatment is assigned to trained phy- sicians and nurses. But whatever be the division of labour, the truth remains that the ministry of healing is eminently Christian, and is part of God's great dispensation of restor- ing mercy. Still, as with Christ, so with the ioo METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. Church, the higher ministry is that of moral and spiritual healing ; and this is to be taken kindly and freely to the chief of sinners. i. Christianity is remedial. — This consider- ation should powerfully influence preaching and teaching. To expatiate on the lofty idealism of Christianity, its serene philosophy, and its moral beauty, may be proper in itself and help- ful to some minds, but it is not what men at large need most to hear. Before all, let preachers make known its Divine remedy for the fallen, the broken, the perishing. True that Christ is a great Teacher and a great Example ; true also that He is the great Ee- vealer of the Father ; but what men most urgently require at His hand, and what men troubled in conscience and sore at heart want to learn, is the healing power and saving grace of Christ, the Son and the Messenger of God. They must have their wounds probed, their inward ailment treated, and must be told of Him who " came to seek and to save that which was lost." This view of Christianity excludes fastidi- ousness. - It may be all very well for men to THE PHYSICIAN AND HIS PATIENTS. ioi whom religion i s nothing but self-righteous- ness to keep aloof from sinners for fear of moral contamination ; but as a physician is bound to enter chambers of infectious disease in order to heal the body, so must Chris- tianity be taken even into the haunts of vice in order to heal the soul, and bring back the life of conscience and of pure affec- tions. Our religion is not too dainty to " step down into the gutter " and visit great sinners, or so disdainful as to shrink from recognising those men and women whom society disowns. " Its proper vocation is to find the lost, to lift the low, to teach the ignorant, to set free those in bonds, to wash the unclean, to heal the sick ; and it must go where it can discover the proper subjects of its art, remembering that the whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." * Christian Pharisees do not understand this. They wish for churches well appointed and services well performed, in which they and others of similar good repute may go through their devotions at proper times and con- * Dr. A. B. Bruce, Galilean Gospel, p. So. 102 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. venient seasons; but with aggression on the dominion of evil and the rescue of the perishing they have no real sympathy. They still have need to learn the meaning of that word of God, " I will have mercy and not sacrifice." Indeed, there are very few, if any, Christians who do not need to revolve that saying in their hearts, and more perfectly learn its lesson. It ought to be their most congenial occupation to show to men the Divine mercy, and their unselfish joy to find that the most heinous sinners obtain mercy, that the most vile " are washed and sancti- fied and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." 2. Christianity is hopeful. — It has derived this temper from Christ Himself. Hopefulness on the part of a physician is not worth much if he is careless in his diagnosis, and makes only a hasty and superficial examination of his patient's case. It shows only a sanguine mood. Neither is it of much value when it is only assumed in order to keep up the spirits of the patient. But there is nothing of this sort in what THE PHYSICIAN AND HIS PATIENTS. 103 we call the hopefulness of Christ and Chris- tianity. Our Good Physician makes a most serious and accurate diagnosis of every case. He knew the sinfulness of those to whom He ministered far more thoroughly than the Pharisees did. Yet, while they gave up the publicans and sinners as incurable, He treated them hopefully, because He knew that grace could save the very worst of them. He actually asserted that publicans and harlots, repenting under the faithful preaching of John the Baptist, went into the kingdom of God before the Scribes and Pharisees. In the like spirit of hopefulness should the Church look upon mankind, and despair of none. She knows of a sovereign healing balm for even those who are " full of wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores." The power of the Holy Ghost can change the hearts and lives of the most heinous sinners. The blood of Christ can wash all their stains away. If the Pharisees had thought it of any use to try to elevate the people, they would io4 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. have attempted the task by insisting on their keeping the law and the traditions of the elders ; and they would have failed, because law and tradition have no healing or re- newing power. Some of the more austere religious men, as the Essenes, would have enjoined ascetic practices, and would have effected nothing, because imposed austerities do not purify the heart. Christ had a more excellent way, and the secret of it He has transmitted to His Church. It is the way of much love, much hope, much sympathy. He spoke, and His Church should speak, to sinful men of Divine absolution and release from the guilty past ; should inspire them with new desires and start them on a new career. Shall our physicians go about the streets visiting the sick, and sparing no pains and no ingenuity to heal them ; and shall the Church of God let moral ruin go on unchecked, and men and women grow more and more sick unto death in their souls without an effort to restore them? It must not be. The sin and misery in the world call loudly for the enthusiasm and in- THE PHYSICIAN AND HIS PATIENTS. 105 genuity of Christian hope and love ; and they please the Heavenly Physician best who carry the gospel of His salvation to those whom the successors of the Pharisees despair of or disdain. A physician once told us that he kept himself in health by going to see patients. "Whenever he discontinued this, and insisted on patients coming to him, or when he tried to go out of practice altogether, he fell into lethargy, and lost both physical and mental power ; but so soon as he resumed active efforts to heal others, his own health returned. Let servants and handmaids of Christ take the hint. He who desires a sound, strong, spiritual life and health in himself should go and try to heal others, showing patience, sympathy, and hopefulness. This is to walk as Christ walked. And wherever one suc- ceeds, under the blessing of Christ, in con- verting a sinner from the error of his ways, he " saves a soul from death and hides a multitude of sins." ( io6 ) X. GARMENTS AND WINESKINS. " And no man put- "No man seweth "And He spake also teth a piece of un- a piece of undressed a parable unto them ; dressed cloth upon an cloth on an old gar- No man rendeth a old garment ; for that ment : else that which piece from a new gar- which should fill it up should fill it up taketh ment and putteth it taketh from the gar- from it, the new from upon an old garment ; ment, and a worse rent the old, and a worse else he will rend the is made. Neither do rent is made. And no new, and also the piece men put new wine into man putteth new wine from the new will not old wine-skins : else into old wine-skins ; agree with the old. the skins burst, and else the wine will burst And no man putteth the wine is spilled, the skins, and the wine new wine into old and the skins perish : perisheth, and the wine-skins ; else the but they put new wine skins : but they put new wine will burst into fresh wine-skins, new wine into fresh the skins, and itself and both are pre- wine -skins." — St. will be spilled, and the served." — St. Matt. Mark ii. 21, 22. skins will perish. But ix. 16, 17. new wine must be put into fresh wine-skins. And no man having drunk old wine desir- eth new : for he saith , The old is good." — St. Luke v. 36-39. By these illustrations our Lord conveyed a lesson on the charm of naturalness and the GARMENTS AND WINE-SKINS. 107 law of congruity in religion. Times of trans- ition are critical. The disciples of John the Baptist were anxious to know whether Jesus meant only to reform the old Judaism, or to break away from it and introduce a new faith, with new rules and usages. On the question of fasting, for instance, they agreed with the Pharisees, and were concerned to find that the disciples of Jesus differed. Then the Lord answered them with heavenly metaphors which clothed a grave lesson with a veil of kindly humour. As old cloth and new cloth are one in being cloth, old wine and new are one in being wine ; so the religion before Christ and that which He introduced are essentially one in kind, if not in quality. But it would not answer any good purpose to limit the new by the conditions of the old, or to place the Christian faith and life under the rules of the Pharisees, or even of the disciples of John. So Jesus put it very plainly that He had not come to patch up Pharisaism, or garnish Eabbinism, or to pour His doctrine and all its vital force into the rigid forms of the later Judaism. 108 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. Some of the disciples of John had become followers of Jesus. Those who had not, but continued to be known under the former title as a separate party, evidently were suspicious of the new influence. They were anxious for a conservatism which at such a time would have hindered and marred the whole mission of our Saviour. From Him was to date a new era. Under His name and His Spirit was to come a new dispensation of grace and truth. And it would serve no good purpose to attach this to forms or to limit it by restric- tions which were incongruous with the genius and liberty of the gospel. The effect of a forced junction of the old and the new would be injurious to both. This is shown by throwing the illustration of the old garment patched with undressed cloth into two forms. St. Matthew and St. Mark report the Lord as indicating the damage to the old, whilst St. Luke reports Him as point- ing out the injury to the new. The first and second Evangelists have it that the undressed cloth would tear away from the old garment, and so make its condition worse than before. GARMENTS AND WINE-SKINS. 109 The third Evangelist has it that to take a patch from a new garment and put it on an old one would not make the old one fit to wear, for the one cloth would not agree with the other, while it would incurably spoil the new garment by mangling it. In either case, it will be observed, the disruptive force is in the new. So to make Christianity a mere addendum to Rabbinical Judaism would only spoil the former, and would not preserve the latter. The old should be allowed to become antiquated, and the new should be permitted to form its own career. The second metaphor is to the same effect. To insist on the disciples of Jesus fasting because the Pharisees and the disciples of John fasted by rule, was to repress their joy at a time when they had a right to rejoice, and this was as unwise as to pour new wine into old wine-skins and shut it up. • The result would be that the wine, which still needed to work itself clear, would burst the stiff old skins and be spilt. Thus again the Lord taught that a forced amalgamation of the old and the new dispensation would be disas- no METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. trous to both. Let the law of congruity be observed. Let the new wine be poured into new skins that would yield and not burst ; so would both form and substance be pre- served. As for the old wine, our Lord gave no opinion of its value ; but with a kindly con- cession to those whose prejudices He and His disciples had offended, He recoguised their preference for the old style of things. Just as on other occasions He conceded to the Pharisees that they were whole, and righteous, and needed no repentance, and then answered them on their own assumption, so here, ac- cording to St. Luke's report, He admitted that those who drink the old wine prefer it. It is a difficult thing for minds attached to use and wont to do justice to new movements, especially at the beginning of such move- ments, when they are like new wine, which still has to outgrow its crudeness, work itself clear of sediment, and acquire its proper flavour. But the Christian life, with its joy and elasticity, could only be understood if taken as a new wine, and therefore it needed GA RMENTS A ND WINE-SKINS. 1 i 1 its own forms of development, and was not to be restricted by the precisianism of the Pharisees and the disciples of John. "What 'sweet reasonableness' in the say- ing of Jesus concerning the old wine and the new ! . . . What clear insight into the signi- ficance of His own position and vocation ; what confidence in His own cause ; what resolute determination to maintain His inde- pendence and to decline all stultifying com- promises ; and yet withal, what patience and tolerance towards all honest, earnest men who in matters of religion cannot see with His eyes ! " * * Dr. A. Bruce, Parabolic Teaching of Christ, p. 308. ( 112 ) XL THE HARVEST AND THE LABOURERS. " Then saith He unto His disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send forth labourers into His harvest." —St. Matt. be. 37, 38. " Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest ? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white already unto harvest. He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal ; that he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. For herein is the saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye have not laboured : others have laboured, and ye are entered into their labour." — St. John iv. 35-38. On the occasion mentioned by St. Matthew, there were fields of ripe corn within sight. "We so judge because the time indicated is that of the constituting of the apostolate ; and immediately before that event the dis- ciples going through the corn-fields plucked "rubbinsr them in their ears and ate them, THE HARVEST AND THE LABOURERS. 113 hands.* The corn therefore was ripe. The words reported by St. John were spoken four months earlier, when the fields were comparatively bare. The Lord, therefore, in speakiDg of a spiritual harvest, pointed to the fields around, in the one instance for a similitude, in the other for a contrast. In Samaria Jesus recognised, and bade His disciples recognise, fields already white to har- vest. He meant that the people were ready to hear if only the gospel were delivered to them. He saw the country opening to His Word, and crowds prepared by their very misery to welcome good tidings of health and peace. But there was risk of letting the favourable opportunity slip for want of preachers. Now, what can be more vexatious to a farmer than to see a bountiful crop ripe in the fields wast- ing and spoiling for lack of hands to secure it in season ? So grievous was it to Christ to see the leaders of the nation indifferent or hostile to His heavenly message, and better teachers very scarce — the harvest great and the labourers few. * St. Luke vi. 1, 12, 13. H H4 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. The fields of opportunity are constantly widening, and there is stiJl no small difficulty about an adequate supply of labourers. Home fields are scrambled over, and while there are too many labourers in some corners, other spots are neglected. In foreign fields, labourers are much too far apart, and their strength is often sorely overtaxed. It is easy enough to multiply ecclesiastics, but labourers to- gether with God, workmen that need not be ashamed, have always been too few for the harvest - field. And field-work needs labouring men. Especially when the crop ripens, time is precious, and the . reapers must not spare themselves who would gather the corn in its season. Labourers such as ' Jesus Christ desider- ated are all the better of a training as well as a will to work. In every kind of human activity training tells. Sustained and thorough work of a hisrh class cannot be had without it. And we find that our Lord was at great pains with the training of the twelve. But the first requisite for labourers is that thev be sent to the work THE HARVEST AND THE LABOURERS. 115 by the Lord of the harvest. And the Church must pray continually to have such labourers sent, and that with a certain force of con- viction and pressure of conscience bearing them over scruples and fears, and compel- ling them to preach the gospel. While Jesus was on earth in the form of a servant, the Father in heaven was Lord of the harvest. Therefore He prayed to the Father the whole nidit through before He called and commissioned the twelve ; and we must hope that the disciples, in obedience to His word, also prayed to the Father on that night to send out labourers. In the morning the prayer was answered in the selec- tion and mission of the twelve apostles. Now that Jesus has ascended, and is Lord and Head of the Church, and over all thino-s to the Church, it is right to regard and in- voke Him as Lord of the harvest ; for His is the gift of labourers. " He has given some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers." * * Eph. iv. 11. n6 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. The question, perhaps, suggests itself — " Why are we required to solicit the Lord of the harvest on such a point as this % " The fields are His, and He must know the value of opportunity and the need of labourers far better than we. Surely He will of His own accord provide labourers. But it is a mistake to suppose that prayer is enjoined in order to tell the Lord what He does not know, or to persuade Him to do what He might otherwise neglect. A great object of it is to bring the hearts of His followers into harmony with the will of Christ and of God. So in the matter of harvest-work, our Lord wished His disciples to be in unison w T ith Himself and with the Father in heaven on the great and urgent task of preaching the gospel and saving the people. He would have them desire what He already desired. It is the same thing- still. The Church praying for missionaries is praying according to the will of God. The petition, " Thy kingdom come ! " is well fol- lowed by " Thy will be done ! " " He that reapeth receiveth wages." All THE HARVEST AND THE LABOURERS. 117 honest humble labour in the field shall have gracious reward at the Lord's appearing. "They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever." ( n8 ) XII. SERPENTS AND DOVES. " Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves : be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." — St. Matt. x. 16. The apostles of Christ, wlien persecuted, were not to attempt to meet force by force of the same description. They could no more fight their enemies than sheep can fight a pack of wolves. They were to be defence- less, as their Master was, against the malice of those who hated them. And as He was put to death by cruel men, who compassed Him about as so many wild dogs, so also would some of them be. Yet the result of the conflict was to be in favour of the " little flock." The weak were to confound the mighty ; the sheep were to keep the wolves at bay; for there is a Divine Keeper of the sheep who knows how to lay restraint SERPENTS A ND DO VES. 1 1 9 on enemies of His flock, and to oive the conquest to the weak. The meek endurance of the apostles and other messengers of Christ was to win a signal victory. By a double reference to the serpents and the doves of Palestine, the Lord indicated to His apostles the spirit in which they ought to meet hardship and violence. They should combine the wariness of serpents in respect of danger with the guilelessness of doves. It is a blending of qualities, a balancing and harmonising of apparent op- posites, which no one attains to without pains and prayer. The men of Galilee who were going out under their first apostolic mission were not by any means as yet up to this standard. The Master said to them, "Become ye prudent as the serpents, but unwily as the doves." The servants of Christ should be, on the one hand, wary, but not crafty ; on the other, simple, but not simpletons. I. " Wary as the serpents" The illustration must be confined to the one 120 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. point which is indicated. He who on another occasion stigmatised the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees as " serpents " and " the off- spring of vipers " * was not likely to bid His apostles be "as serpents." He spoke of serpentlike prudence evidently with an ex- clusive reference to the shrewd instinct by which those creatures perceive impending danger and avoid it. His apostles ought not to offer themselves to injury or mar- tyrdom, or involve themselves needlessly in trouble or danger. They were bound to use discretion, and even astuteness, in avoiding mischief and guarding life and liberty. "Beware of men" is the counsel which immediately follows. If the apostles found themselves involved in danger and arraigned " before governors and kings," they were not to fear, but speak out as "the Spirit of the Father" would guide and embolden them to do ; but if they could foresee, and with a good conscience avoid, such peril, self-preser- vation was not to be despised as pusillanimity, but to be attended to as a reasonable duty. * St. Matt, xxiii. 33. SERPENTS AND DOVES. . 121 It may be supposed that men hardly need exhortation to take care of themselves ; but in point of fact men do need such admonition when they are carried away by a strong en- thusiasm. It is a familiar incident in war that young soldiers, ardent and burning for distinction, foolishly and unnecessarily ex- pose themselves, and are with difficulty re- strained. Something like this appeared in the Church of Christ after a generation or two had passed. There arose a fanatical thirst for martyrdom, stimulated by the ex- cessive honour which had come to be paid to the names and relics of the slain con- fessors of Christ. But this was a departure from the example and teaching of the Saviour Himself and of His apostles. He avoided capture by His enemies till the set time appointed by the Father for His being offered up at Jerusalem. He directed His disciples, when they should be persecuted in one city, to flee to another. And instances of the avoidance of danger are obvious in the Acts of the Apostles. When Paul and Barnabas "were ware," or became aware, of an inten- 122 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. tion to assault them at Iconium, they did well to flee to the cities of Lycaonia. When the former of them was at Epbesus, and a great tumult was stirred up in defence of the worship of Diana, the brethren did well who kept him back from gratuitous exposure to danger. They suffered him not to " enter in unto the people." And the Asiarchs who were his judicious friends desired him not to " adventure himself into the theatre." The same Apostle, as brave a spirit as ever lived, repeatedly showed in time of danger his obedience to the Lord's word in favour of wariness. He skilfully hushed an angry mob at Jerusalem by turning from the Greek lan- guage in which he had spoken to the Roman commandant, and addressing the crowd in the Hebrew tongue. With similar astuteness, he cast discord among; his enemies in the Jewish Council, rousing the Pharisees against the Sadducees, till the din brought the guard of soldiers to his rescue. It is enough to indicate the kind of pru- dence which our Lord enjoined. Particular cases in w^ich it should be exercised must be SERPENTS AND DOVES. 123 judged of one by one as they occur. The general principle is that a servant of Christ should not court reproach, invite trouble, or involve himself in suffering or in danger, if he may honourably and conscientiously avoid it. And by inference we get a similar direction for active service. Zeal is good, but if not associated with tact and discretion, it may do harm by provoking irritation against the truth and exposing holy things to contempt. No doubt there is difficulty on either side ; and a good man trying to keep the balance between the extremes of caution and rashness may easily be misconstrued. When he is bold, he may be represented as forward and vain- glorious. When he is guarded, he may be stigmatised as selfish and designing. It is evident that St. Paul was blamed by some for boldness, and by others for duplicity ; and indeed it is no bad sign of any Christian man that he is accused of opposite faults, and from opposite directions. Every servant of the Lord who is of any public use has to run the gauntlet of censure, and have darts thrown at him from opposite sides. If he is valiant 124 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. for the truth, there are always some to call him forward, intolerant, controversial, fussy, perhaps a little crazy. If he is discreet, there are those who put him down at once as a knowing fellow, who plays his cards shrewdly in religion, and studies his own interest. The good man need not be greatly disturbed by such unjust imputations, so long as he has the testimony of a pure conscience. At the same time he mav learn something even from unfair reproach. He may see in what respects his conduct may lie open to question, and his good may be " evil spoken of." He may per- ceive how necessary it is to exercise caution and prudence so as to preclude offence, if that be possible, and raise no obstacles to his own usefulness of a kind that a little forethought and self-control might have obviated. He who becomes wise as the serpent will avoid not only serious dangers, but also those blunders in manner and breaches of temper which hinder much o-ood. IT. " And guileless as the cloves." No doiibt the word " harmless " has an SERPENTS AND DOVES. 125 appropriate meaning, for the apostles were to suffer wrong, not to inflict it. But such is the idea conveyed in the figure of unresisting sheep surrounded by wolves. The character- istic of the dove intended by Christ was evidently meant to balance the knowingness of the serpent. And this is the unwiliness of that bird — the figure of a pure and ingenuous nature. So the apostles of Christ, while be- having themselves prudently, were to ignore wiles and stratagems, and pursue their ministry with a holy frankness and simplicity. They might often seem to throw themselves at the mercy of those who would fly at them as hawks at turtledoves. Yet the innocent cloves would defeat the hawks, as the sheep were to overcome the wolves. Blessed are the meek. The Lord Jesus is the consummate example to illustrate His own teaching. He was always on His guard, and penetrated all the man- oeuvres and plots of those who watched and hated Him. He fell into none of. their snares ; never lost self-possession; never spoke at random ; uttered all His words and conducted all His intercourse with infinite discretion. 126 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. But He formed no counterplots and devised no stratagems. No craft was in His bosom ; no guile was in His mouth. Everywhere He showed that the Spirit which rested upon Him had descended in the form of a dove. So let our wisdom be meekness of wisdom. Be not all serpent, subtle serpent ! Be not all dove, silly dove ! ( 1*7 ) XITI. CHILDREN AT PLAY. "But wkereunto shall I liken this generation ? It is like unto children sitting in the market- places, which call unto their fellows, and say, "We piped unto you, and ye did not dance ; we wailed, and ye did not mourn. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold, a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners ! And wisdom is justified by her works." —St. Matt. xi. 16-19. " Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation, and to what are they like ? They are like unto children that sit in the market-place, and call one to another; which say, We piped unto you, and ye did not dance ; we wailed, and ye did not weep. For John the Baptist is come eatiDg no bread nor drinking wine ; and 3 T e say, He hath a devil. The Son of Man is come eating and drinking ; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, anil a wine-bibber, a friend of publi- cans and sinners ! " — St. Luke vii. 31-34. The difference between John the Baptist and Jesus Christ was laid hold of by unfriendly minds to justify their non-reception of the Saviour : whereupon He showed that their bearing alike toward His forerunner and to- ward Himself had been childish and petulant. The ascetic life of John had offended them 128 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. on the one hand ; the gracious social deport- ment of Jesus offended them on the other. To give point to this statement He intro- duced an illustration "which might never have occurred to a solitary like John, but was quite natural in the lips of Jesus, who had lived in towns, and was accustomed to pass through streets and market-places. With the interest and sympathy that belonged to His genuine human heart, He had observed the sports of children in their noisy glee. So He pictured a group of little children playing at make- believe marriages and funerals. First they acted a marriage procession ; some of them piping as on instruments of music, while the rest were expected to leap and dance. In a perverse mood, however, these last did not respond, but stood still and looked discon- tented. So the little pipers changed their game and proposed a funeral. They began to imitate the loud wailing of Eastern "mourners. But again they were thwarted, for their com- panions refused to chime in with the mourn- ful cry and to beat their breasts. Neither the one y game nor the other suited their CHILDREN AT PLAY. ' 129 petulant spirit. So the disappointed children who had struck up the wedding-march and then changed it for the funeral wail com- plained, " We piped unto you, and ye did not dance ; we wailed, and ye did not mourn." " Nothing pleases you. If you don't want to dance, why don't you mourn ? Or, if you don't like the funeral play, why did you refuse the marriage ? It is plain that you are iu bad humour, and determined not to be pleased." So was it with the generation which sur- rounded our Saviour. They refused John the Baptist because he was too austere, and then refused Jesus under the pretext that He was not austere enough. It was evident that they judged and acted, not on grounds of reason, but on mere caprice and prejudice. It was spoken in pleasant fashion, but it was a sharp rebuke. It is well to be as children in simplicity, but not at all well to be like them in mere petulance and folly. A childish person is one whose moral judgment is worth little, and whose character evolves no moral force. A childish generation must I i3o METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. be in its dotage, and its opinions have no title to respect. The games of the children in this similitude were so selected as to suggest the contrast between the Saviour and the Baptist. But in the history the more severe ministry went first, and that which was genial and gracious followed. First appeared John, a dweller in solitudes, holding himself aloof from the domestic and social life of his countrymen, clothed with the power and animated by the spirit of the prophet Elijah. He was seen in his dress of camel's hair, with sad countenance, inveighing against the evils of the time, and summoning: men of all orders and classes to repentance. At the tables of other men he was not seen. He " came neither eating nor drinking," for he found enough in the desert for his simple wants. Such a man and such a ministry ought to have made a profound impression on a people who gloried in the memory of those prophets of the desert, Moses and Elijah. And for a little while John seemed to have a great success. Multitudes took him* for a prophet, and repaired to him CHILDREN AT PLAY. 131 for baptism. A certain number attached themselves closely to him as his disciples ; but these appear to have been uninfluential Galileans, like the disciples of Jesus. The rulers made some inquiry as to the claim of John to be a prophet, but came to no con- clusion, and never were baptized. Then they began to speak against him, professing to regard his austerity as indicative of a dis- ordered brain or of demonic possession. In all times and countries, self-indulgent people are disposed to set down any one whose manner of life tacitly reproves their own as "a bit of a fanatic," or as more or less crazy. Still, the rulers would, at all events, have been consistent with themselves if they had adhered to the view that austerity is demonic rather than divine. But their behaviour to Jesus of Nazareth showed that they proceeded in their judgment on no consistent principle, but on suggestions of prejudice and malice. The Son of Man entered the houses of men and sat at their tables. Freely He mixed with home life, and was both accessible and svm- 132 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. pathetic. He preached repentance, not in the deserts, but in houses and in the streets. And lo ! the rulers, who had disdained the desert preacher as a demoniac, reviled the street and house preacher as lax and given to pampering the flesh. Xeither tone of cha- racter, neither mode of ministry, could find favour, or even win fair play, from that per- verse generation. This sort of unreason shows itself a^ain and again. Men will find fault with Christ and Christianity, put the matter how you will. The doctrine is too high or not high enough. The precepts are too austere or too indefinite. The gospel is too hard or too easy. Prejudice can always find some objec- tion ; and proud men who do not like John because he preaches repentance, do not like Jesus because He not only preaches repent- ance, but brings gratuitous salvation to the heart and to the home. The attitude of Christians toward society is not seldom made a ground of censure by persons who have a good deal in common with the Pharisees and rulers of the Jews. CHILDREN AT PLAY. 133 They are too unsocial or they are too social. The critics are hard to please. If a Christian be reserved in his habits and a lover of re- tirement, they describe him as narrow and ungenial. If he be frank and accessible, they shake their heads over his worldliness and inordinate love of society. He is never quite right in their eyes. He is too strict or too yielding ; too gloomy or too happy ; too cautious or too bold ; too shrewd or too simple. Let not such judgments of men disconcert or discourage any who with an honest heart endeavour to be true to Christ. The Lord Himself is our Master and our Ex- ample. Therefore we do right to enter the houses and sit at the tables of our friends when they invite us. But there and everv- where we are to bear ourselves as becomes His disciples. How far we may mingle with those who are the modern representatives of '•'the publicans and sinners'" is a question of discretion. What is safe for very decided Christians may be imprudent in those who are less experienced. What carries little risk to those of full a^e mav be verv dan- 134 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. gerous for the young. We may draw near to the classes of persons alluded to (and they are by no means confined to the lowest social ranks), if one can do so after the manner of Christ, not to be partakers of other men's sins or to countenance their excess, but to turn them from their sins and win them back to God. All the while we must be on our guard against the contamination of our own imaginations and hearts, for we have not that perfect inward purity of Christ, which could no more be sullied by proximity to the publicans and sinners than the daylight is soiled by glancing on refuse and corruption. ( 135 ) XIV. BAD LEAVEN. "And Jesus said "And he charged "He hegan to say unto them, Take heed them, saying, Take unto His disciples first and beware of the lea- heed, beware of the of all, Beware ye of ven of the Pharisees leaven of the Phari- the leaven of the Pha- and Sadducees. . . . sees and the leaven of risees, which is hy- Then understood they Herod."— St. Mark, pocrisy."— St. Luke how that he bade them viii. 15. xii. 1. not beware of the lea- ven of bread, but of the teaching of the Phari- sees and Sadducees." — St. Matt. xvi. 6, 12. However hostile to each other, the Pharisees and Sadducees made common cause against Jesus Christ. He encountered them even in remote corners of the land. For example, on the occasion of a visit which He paid to " the borders of Magadan," or parts of Dalma- nutha, members of both these sects accosted Him so soon as He landed from the boat, and called His prophetic mission in question by 136 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. demanding; of Him " a sisfn from heaven." At once He detected the unfriendly and un- reasonable temper which actuated the demand ; so He refused it, and re-embarking, departed out of their coasts. St. Mark adds the graphic and pathetic touch that our Lord " sighed deeply in His spirit." He recrossed the lake, the disciples, as usual, managing the boat. Apparently He was silent on the way, musing in sorrow on the indisposition shown by Pharisees and Sad- ducees even in a rural district far from the headquarters of those sects at Jerusalem. The whole country was pervaded by their influ- ence. At last He broke silence with this charge to His disciples, " Take heed, and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees ! " The apostles were perplexed. Their thoughts had not been running in the same groove with His. If they had been reflecting on what had happened at Dalmanutha, not improbably they had regretted that their Master did not satisfy the demand of those who met Him, and that He so quickly and abruptly turned away. He was sorrowful because those people of BAD LEAVEN. 137 Dalmanutha had craved of Him " a sign from heaven." The disciples were disappointed that He had not shown some celestial sign or prodigy, and so silenced the gainsayers. Thus, at cross purposes with Him, they were not quick to catch His meaning. They fell on a prosaic and almost paltry explanation of His metaphor, supposing that the Master re- ferred to their having omitted to take a sup- ply of bread with them for the little voyage ; and thus they added yet another to the list of blunders and misconceptions with which they tried the patience of the Lord Jesus. To understand the surmise of the disciples, one must bear in mind the scruples of Jewish casuistry regarding the lawfulness of taking leaven from certain parties. Dr. John Light- foot has shown that Rabbinical teachers gravely discussed the question whether leaven for baking bread might be accepted from a heathen, and suggests that the disciples on this occasion supposed their Master to be laying down a regulation against the taking of household baking-leaven from a Pharisee or a Sadducee.* * Horse Hebraicce, in loco. 1 3 8 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. But on the lips of Jesus leaven was a meta- phor. He meant that His disciples should beware of the teaching of these sects. The point of analogy is the self-diffusing power of any doctrine that accords with the self- righteous and self- pleasing tendencies of human nature. Such teaching by the Phari- sees and Sadducees had spread through the community, just as leaven might spread through a mass of dousrh. Let the disci- pies look to it that they themselves should not come under the influence of this evil leaven ! It is important to the interpretation to notice that although, according to the various accounts, our Lord spoke of three sects, He ascribed to them one and the same leaven. From this it is obvious that His reference was not so much to the distinctive tenets of the sects as to a way of thinking and judging which was common to them all, and especially their mode of testing His Divine mission by a demand for signs from heaven. The leaven of the Pharisees was hypocrisy. They were the conventional, traditional, and ritualistic BAD LEAVEN, 139 party. Zealots for the law and the oral tra- ditions, which interpreted and supplemented the law, they were incensed against the un- conventional and heart-searching ministry of Jesus ; and their implied offer to believe in Him, provided that He would work such a prodigy as they demanded, was but a hollow pretext. The Sadducees were the rationalistic party of the period, and were of a worldly and self-pleasing temper. For those cold scep- tics to ask a sign from heaven was an arrant piece of hypocrisy. With them the Herodians seem to be joined, either because the Galilean Sadducees were prominent adherents of the shallow, pleasure-loving Tetrarch, or because Herod himself w r as a Sadducee. The bearing of all those sects towards Jesus of Nazareth was insincere and heartless. They were restive under His word, so pure, so fresh, so divinely simple : so they combined to dispute His claims and resist His growing influence. And this way of thinking and judging spread from them to many who w r ere not of the sects, making the ministry of Jesus increasingly diffi- cult. It worked like leaven ; and the apostles 140 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. themselves were liable to be infected by it if they did not beware. One may see that wherever Jesus Christ goes in this world, the Pharisees and Sad- ducees come forth to meet Him, and do what they can to drive Him away. The tenden- cies which those sects exhibited in Judea and Galilee are in human nature, and re- appear in the religious history of every people. There is always a party of ostentatious strictness, of elaborate regulations and cere- monial rigour. And of the same school, though they may loudly disclaim it, are many vehement anti-ritualists, who are far too conscious of their own superior type of piety, and despise others. All those Phari- sees have a certain hardness and pedantry of judgment, and are quite out of sympathy with the Divine "love to the world." It is a repellant pragmatical style of religious- ness, intensely opposed to the mind of Christ. There is always a party of rationalists, and with them are those who think that BAD LEAVEN. 141 religion ought to be regulated by the State — a sort of modern Herodians. These Saddu- cees do not propose to dispense with faith altogether, but they are always anxious that it should not " go too far." Their idea is to let the supernatural element disperse in thin vapour, and to be content with a moral system elegantly embellished with high sen- timents, and not too severe in its exactions. This way of thinking, working as it does equally with Pharisaism against the gospel, has the same leaven ; and it sjjreads not so much by any argument or intellectual per- suasion, as by a sort of contagion, taking hold of the minds that are naturally predisposed either to self-pleasing rigour or to self-pleasino- laxity. Our Saviour gave place to those sectaries no, not a hair's breadth. He would not gra- tify their demand for a sign, or in any degree diverge from His appointed path to conciliate them. And this is all the more remarkable when we consider how accessible He was to inquirers and petitioners of all ranks, how kind to the populace, and how patient with 142 METAPHORS IN THE GOSPELS. His own blundering and questioning disciples. There was reason for it. The demand for a sign from heaven betrayed a temper of mind which could not and should not be satisfied. It implied that all the proofs of His Divine mission already given by words of truth and works of healing were doubtful or inadequate, and that He might be required to play the magician at every place which He visited in order to convince His opponents that He was a man sent from God. To yield to such a demand would have been to put a premium on obstinate unbelief. Christians ought in this to learn of Christ. There are demands for evidence which should not be heeded. A temper of prejudice and antipathy is not to be humoured. Beware of the bad leaven ! There are evidences enough to satisfy a candid mind. And those who, in sympathy with Jesus, are bent on doing the Father's will, know quite well that His doctrine is from God. It is a significant fact that tlje Pharisees and Sadducees could not let Jesus alone. If the one sect was sure of its le^al righteous- BAD LEAVEN. I43 ness, and the other of its worldly-wise ra- tionalism, surely they might have left the Nazarene and His followers in peace. But they were not so sure as they affected to be ; they were not at rest, and so they were in- quisitive about every symptom of a new re- ligious movement. One sees this in the fact that they went to John's baptism ; on which occasion they heard a startling exclamation from that fearless preacher. " offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come ? " The Saviour felt the same moral repugnance. He had come to abase the proud and exalt the lowly ; and between Him and those upholders of their own rio-ht- eousness and their own wisdom there could be no mutual understanding or concord. And as it was then, so is it still. The Pharisaism and Sadduceeism which so largely leaven society are incompatible with Christ and the gospel. They have a fatal power of driving the Saviour away, and making Him "sigh deeply in His spirit." ( 144 ) XV. THE CHURCH ROCK. " And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church ; and the gates of Hades shall not pre- vail against it."— St. Matt. xvi. 18. " Thou art Petros, and on this petra I will build my Church." The French version of Ostervald loses the play of words by making them identical. " Tu es Pierre, et sur cette pierre," &c. The phrase has been turned over and over in controversy, and made to appear full of difficulty ; but in reality the metaplior is Dot at nil obscure. Take together all those passages of Scrip- ture which refer to the Church as a holy temple, aud to its foundation-stone, and you will find that they fall into two classes. Virtually the same illustration is used in both, but it is differently applied. In one