CHAP. XXII.
The scope of the parable. Four sorts of ground, or hearers of the word, in the world, and but one properly in the church; the rest seldom come, or accidentally, to hear the word in the church, which word ought to be fitted for the feeding of the church or flock: preaching for conversion, is properly out of the church.
In the former parable, the Lord Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to the sowing of seed. The true messengers of Christ are the sowers, who cast the seed of the word of the kingdom upon four sorts of ground. Which four sorts of ground, or hearts of men, cannot be supposed to be of the church, nor will it ever be proved that the church consisteth of any more sorts or natures of ground properly but one, to wit, the honest and good ground. And the proper work of the church concerns the flourishing and prosperity of this sort of ground, and not the other unconverted three sorts; who, it may be, seldom or never come near the church, unless they be forced by the civil sword, which the pattern or first sower never used; and being forced, they are put into a way of religion by such a course—if not so, they are forced to live without a religion: for one of the two must necessarily follow, as I shall prove afterward.
In the field of the world, then, are all those sorts of ground: highway hearers, stony and thorny ground hearers, as well as the honest and good ground; and I suppose it will not now be said by the answerer, that those three sorts of bad grounds were hypocrites, or tares, in the church.[111]
The scope of the parable of the tares.
Now after the Lord Jesus had propounded that great leading parable of the sower and the seed, he is pleased to propound this parable of the tares, with admirable coherence and sweet consolation to the honest and good ground; who, with glad and honest hearts, having received the word of the kingdom, may yet seem to be discouraged and troubled with so many anti-christians and false professors of the name of Christ.
The Lord Jesus, therefore, gives direction concerning these tares, that unto the end of the world, successively in all the sorts and generations of them, they must be (not approved or countenanced, but) let alone, or permitted in the world.
The Lord Jesus in this parable of the tares, gives direction and consolation to his servants.
Secondly, he gives to his own good seed this consolation: that those heavenly reapers, the angels, in the harvest, or end of the world, will take an order and course with them, to wit, they shall bind them into bundles, and cast them into the everlasting burnings; and to make the cup of their consolation run over, he adds, ver. 43,Then, then at that time,shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.
The tares proved properly to signify anti-christians.
These tares, then, neither being erroneous doctrines, nor corrupt practices, nor hypocrites, in the true church, intended by the Lord Jesus in this parable, I shall, in the third place, by the help of the same Lord Jesus, evidently prove that these tares can be no other sort of sinners but false worshippers, idolaters, and in particular [and] properly, anti-christians.