HOW TO READ THE METAPHORS OF JESUS.

BY THE REV. J. RAWSON LUMBY, B.D., FELLOW OF ST. CATHARINE'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

II.-EARS TO HEAR.

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the thoughtful reader of the Gospels | this opening parable of the gospel series. there is much to reflect upon in the He is the sower, and the ground over which manner, as well as in the matter, of our His seed is to be scattered is of varied chaLord's discourses. When He had once racter-some hard and impenetrable, some drawn attention to His mission, His teaching shallow and thin, some choked with all kinds was very largely communicated in parables, of over-growth, and with the rest some, reinsomuch that He Himself says (Mark iv. presented by the minds of His disciples and 11) concerning His lessons: "Unto them more intimate companions, prepared in such that are without" (that is, who are not wise that the seed falling thereon would among the few whom He called to be His have good chance of bringing forth fruit disciples) "all these things are done in par- unto perfection. But with a full sense of all ables." We have known the meaning of the this, knowing thoroughly that the larger Lord's parables from our earliest youth, and part of His hearers were to be likened to therefore we readily fancy that the compre- ground ill-prepared, and unsuitable for the hension of them was as perfect in those who sower's pains, He yet, like the sower of whom first heard them as it is in ourselves. And He speaks, goes on scattering His seed besides this, because there happen to be a broadcast on the hard trodden surface or in few parables in the Old Testament Scrip- among the thorns, as if He took no heed of tures, some of us consider that teaching by where the grain was falling. parables was a common method of giving instruction in our Lord's day, and that the hearers, from much experience, could easily divine the hidden meaning which was concealed by such narratives. But a little reflection will show us that this was not so. Both St. Matthew and St. Mark open their account of our Lord's parables with the parable of the sower; one which would now appear likely to occasion very little difficulty to those who knew already that the Teacher to whom they were listening had commenced His mission with a proclamation that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. But yet both evangelists have recorded that the explanation of this simple story was not patent even to those who had been most with Jesus. And when He was alone," writes St. Mark (iv. 10), "they that were about Him with the twelve asked Him of the parable.” And, indeed, the words with which Christ closes this, the same with which He concludes so many of His parables, prove that He Himself was aware that a special preparation was required before men could grasp the meaning of His instruction. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," shows us that there were likely, in the Lord's opinion, to be many who were at present unable to hear His words in their true sense; nay, more, that from the circumstances of the times there were some to whom He did not wish all their meaning to be at once apparent, His manner seems very well set before us in

Had he com

I. If, however, wè study the state of the times when Christ came forward as a teacher, and the object which He aimed at accomplishing before His crucifixion, we can readily discover one reason for the form in which His teaching was couched. He came before the Jewish world in a time when all vitality had died out of their religious services, and instead thereof had grown up a slavish round of ceremonial, which elevated the letter of the Mosaic law with a superstitious reverence, but ignored and frustrated the spirit thereof. They taught for doctrines the commandments of men, and nothing more. At the root of this corrupt system Christ desired to strike a fatal blow. How did His wisdom see best to attempt this? menced a direct onslaught on the whole system at the first, He would, without doubt, have failed to obtain a hearing. Had He conveyed to them in so many words the lessons that they had rejected the prophets, and were soon about to put Him to death, which are conveyed indirectly, but yet so that some of them could feel their drift, in such parables as the vineyard let out to husbandmen, not only would the instructors and guides of the Jewish people have been up in arms against him from the first, but the multitude would have shrunk from a teacher who was taking from them at a stroke all that made up such religious life as they possessed. They were constantly taught that the traditional observances which were

while striving to pull down by slow degrees, yet was strengthening and edifying the whole religious thought and practice of His countrymen, and so proving the truth of His own words that He had not come to destroy the law of Moses, but to fulfil it. He did not desire to make a desert in the minds of men, and to call that peace. He knew what was in man, and that for his soul to be a blank, to have no object to venerate, begets not comfort, but despair.

multiplied around them were of the same authority as the written word of the law, and these traditions occupied so much larger a share of their attention than did the true Mosaic code, that if the one were suddenly taken from them the other would almost certainly fail to be preserved. In casting off tradition at once, there would have been serious risk that all that was rightly ascribed to Moses would have been cast off at the same time. And to guard against this it was that our Lord chose to frame his admonitions in the II. He had also another reason for speakfashion of parable; thus, in mercy, letting it ing to men in parables. He desired that in be true that in seeing they should see, and some sort they should win their way to the not perceive; and in hearing they should kingdom of heaven. He would have them hear, but not understand. It was, so to roused to a sense of the worth of what He speak, dealing with them as with children, set before them, that thus they might be before whom much instruction is set forth, brought to labour for it. He would make but who are not expected to gather all the them think over His words, that they might drift of what is told them, though not seldom duly value the truths which they contained. the words will remain in which the teaching For this end He puts before them the words was conveyed, having been fixed by their of a parable, and leaves them without one striking form upon the tablets of the mind, single hint of explanation. St. Matthew has, and in after years the full significance will in the thirteenth chapter of his Gospel, dawn on the more mature understanding, a grouped together a collection of seven parsignificance which could not have been con-ables; but this is only done in the spirit of veyed to it when the teaching was first imparted. So from Christ's schooling by parables the Jews went away only partly enlightened, but yet with thoughts awakened by this objectlesson in religion, and in the breasts of many the first movement was made that should prepare them to cast off that yoke which neither they nor their fathers had been able | to bear; but while escaping from such a bondage their minds, through the gradual working out of half-learnt lessons, might come to discern between the "necessary things" and the merely human elaborations, and when they were able to bear emancipation, their liberty might become the true freedom of the children of God, and not the license of those who have thrown away all law, and become, in an evil sense, a law unto themselves. They would be like mariners who, in a dangerous voyage, had cast over all that was likely to be harmful to their sailing or perilous to their craft, but had still kept both rudder and compass, and so could make with confidence for the haven where they would be. In this way does Christ by His action enter a protest against such reform in spiritual things as begins with negations and simple demolition. A religious system is an integral part of every nation's life, and cannot be safely removed without due preparation, that its place may be supplied by something higher. A mere negative course has no sanction from Christ's action, who,

that evangelist, whose aim seems always to
have been to preserve characteristic features
of the teaching of Christ, whence comes that
curious expression used by Papias of St.
Matthew's Gospel, where he calls the records
of this evangelist λóyıa, oracles. After this
fashion he has recorded the Sermon on the
Mount with great fulness, and with the like
object has put together, in one continuous
order, several parables which no doubt were
spoken on different occasions; for to pour
forth without explanation a multitude of such
teachings would be to confuse rather than
to instruct, and instruction was the object of
Jesus in His parables. We cannot doubt
that in St. Mark we have a nearer repre-
sentation of what took place on these occa-
sions. The parable was spoken, and all
that the Master saw fit to add was,
"He
that hath ears to hear let him hear." Then
the multitude departed, some forgetting all,
others carrying the story to their homes,
conferring with one another, and propound-
ing each to the other his idea of what had
been the purport of the lesson they had
heard. And when He was alone, St. Mark
tells us His disciples came to Him and in-
quired about the meaning of what had per-
plexed them as well as the less familiar
multitude. Have we not here our Lord
working out in His practice what He has
just been teaching in His parable? The
seed has been cast forth broadcast over the

face of the field, on hard ground, on thorny ground, and on good ground alike; but in no case can seed untended bring fruit to perfection; and in the spiritual sowing as in the natural sowing, those only shall reap in the end who give to the field the needful care and attention, the requisite clearing and softening which is perpetually required while the crop is in its growth. "Let him hear" means let him seek to find out the true and full teaching of what I have just told him; let him carry the words away, and as the homely story recurs again and again to his memory, let him question his heart what meaning the words have for him; and thus shall he learn that he is a part of the field of God's sowing, and shall be helped to discover under which kind he may be accounted. Such a process would be of the nature which is described in that other parable which in this chapter is so closely connected with the first. Such a man would truly have been called into the kingdom of God, however lowly his position there might be; and the seed having taken root would be sure to grow, for the awakened mind would deepen the soil of the soul, and pluck up the thorns of the world's allurements; and though the operations should all be gradual and peaceful-yea, those of a growing peace, so that he should sleep and rise night and day-yet the seed should grow, he would not know how, but in the end the fruit should be brought forth, and the harvest-time should come. That such an awakening and such a quiet progress might be promoted in those who heard Him, by the work of the Spirit on the souls of those who received His veiled words, and wished to search out all the teachings which they contained, was another reason for which Christ used the parable as a great vehicle of His divine instructions.

it shall come to no perfection. Unless the ground be cleansed and irrigated, the same sunshine which ministers fertility to the good ground shall harden the neglected plot into permanent barrenness. This Christ declares to be the law of His spiritual sowing (Mark iv. 11): "Unto them that are without," says He in His explanation to His disciples, "all these things are done in parables; that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them." These words clearly can only apply to a portion of those to whom Jesus had spoken; for by His exhortation to those who had ears to hear that they should hear, He shows that there were some to whom He felt that His lessons would not be given in vain. But yet he knew that some would turn away unheeding from his figurative speech-would give no heed to the warnings which He set before them; and to such He declares that His message is one that is hid, and hid because they will give no labour of their own to its discovery.

We have but to turn to the prophetic career of Isaiah to see that God has dealt thus with his people in former ages, has required works as the signs of faith, and, where no such work was bestowed, has in the end confirmed the state of self-elected darkness. Isaiah came to a people with whom God was sorely displeased, and in tones of the most earnest appeal called heaven and earth to witness the grave neglect to which the Almighty had been subjected by His chosen people. "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me." They are worse than the brute beasts in their perverse way. "For the ox knoweth his owner III. But there follows a third reason why and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth Christ spake in parables, which, had we not know, my people doth not consider." only been able to deduce it by reasoning, Yet after a solemn denunciation of the forwe should not at first have divined, though mality of their worship, such as our Lord a consideration of the Scriptures of the Old might well have constantly made while enCovenant-words out of which Christ chose | gaged in His mission, He urges on the people to convey the lesson of which we speak true signs of repentance. Bring no more would have taught us this part also of the vain oblations, but wash you, make you Divine method of dealing with mankind. clean; put away the evil of your doings from We have used the imagery of the sown field before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to to illustrate the former case; we may con- do well." But when at last the message has | tinue the same figure still. The seed may been wholly disregarded, and Isaiah is to be be sown-nay, we see in Christ's lively pic-sent forth in more solemn wise to the rebelture of His own and all future Christian lious people (Is. vi.), the words of the Lord teaching that it is to be sown unsparingly are the words which Jesus now employs. yet without pains bestowed after the sowing "Go, make the heart of this people fat, and

"WHOSO dwelleth under the defence of three children in the burning fiery furnace,