CHAP. XIX.
Peace.The place then being of such importance as concerning the truth of God, the blood of thousands, yea, the blood of saints, and of the Lord Jesus in them, I shall request your more diligent search, by the Lord’s holy assistance, into this scripture.
[Truth.] I shall make it evident, that by these tares in this parable are meant persons in respect of their religion and way of worship, open and visible professors, as bad as briars and thorns; not only suspected foxes, but as bad as those greedy wolves which Paul speaks of, Acts xx. [29], who with perverse and evil doctrines labour spiritually to devour the flock, and to draw away disciples after them, whose mouths must be stopped, and yet no carnal force and weapon to be used against them; but their mischief to be resisted with those mighty weapons of the holy armoury of the Lord Jesus, wherein there hangs a thousand shields, Cant. iv. [4.]
That the Lord Jesus intendeth not doctrines, or practices, by the tares in this parable, is clear; for,
First, the Lord Jesus expressly interpreteth the goodseed to be persons, and those the children of the kingdom; and the tares also to signify men, and those the children of the wicked one, ver. 38.[106]
Toleration in Rom. xiv. considered. Toleration of Jewish ceremonies, for a time, upon some grounds in the Jewish church, proves not toleration of popish and anti-christian ceremonies in the Christian church, although in the state.
Secondly, such corrupt doctrines or practices are not to be tolerated now, as those Jewish observations, the Lord’s own ordinances, were for a while to be permitted, Rom. xiv. Nor so long as till the angels, the reapers, come to reap the harvest in the end of the world. For can we think, that because the tender consciences of the Jews were to be tendered in their differences of meats, that therefore persons must now be tolerated in the church (for I speak not of the civil state), and that to the world’s end, in superstitious forbearing and forbidding of flesh in popish Lents, and superstitious Fridays, &c.; and that because they were to be tendered in their observation of Jewish holidays, that therefore until the harvest, or world’s end, persons must now be tolerated (I mean in the church) in the observation of popish Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide, and other superstitious popish festivals?
I willingly acknowledge, that if the members of a church of Christ shall upon some delusion of Satan kneel at the Lord’s supper, keep Christmas, or any other popish observation, great tenderness ought to be used in winning his soul from the error of his way; and yet I see not that persons so practising were fit to be received into the churches of Christ now, as the Jews, weak in the faith, that is, in the liberties of Christ, were to be received, Rom. xiv. 1.And least of all (as before) that the toleration or permission of such ought to continue till doomsday, or the end of the world, as this parable urgeth the toleration:Let them alone until the harvest.