NO MILLENNIUM TILL CHRIST COMES. - PART 8

(12). In the thirteenth chapter of Matthew we have a series of parables which seem to be conclusive upon the subject now under consideration. They mark a distinct period and peculiar feature in our Lord’s teachings, and if we would understand their import, they must be studied, as all parts of Scripture should be studied, in the light of their surroundings and connections. At the beginning of the chapter we are told that “The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side. And great multitudes were gathered unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. And he spake many things unto them in parables.”

In order, then, to know what day it was when He began to teach in parables, we are thrown back into the preceding chapter, where He pronounces the solemn doom of Israel for their rejection of Himself as the promised Messiah. “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.” Then announcing that He no longer recognized natural relationships, as of mother and brethren, because they had lost their charm for the rejected One, He stretched forth His hand with a longing gesture to His disciples, exclaiming, Behold my mother and my brethren! The same day He went out of the house, as an act significant in itself of His departure from unbelieving Israel, and sat by the sea side, and commenced to teach in parables.

The disciples came to Him to inquire why He spoke to the people in parables, for they had never heard this form of teaching before. “He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know' the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosover hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith. By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: for this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.”

The phrase “the kingdom of heaven” is found thirty-two times in the gospel now before us, and it occurs nowhere else In the New Testament. This is in accordance with the design of Matthew, who was led by the Holy Ghost to present our Lord, even in the opening verse of his gospel, as “the Son of David, the son of Abraham,” and, therefore, as the promised King of Israel, while it was reserved for Mark to describe Him as the faithful Servant predicted in the Old Testament; and for Luke to speak of Him as the Son of Man; and for John to set Him forth as the Son of God. Hence the absurdity of all attempted Harmonies, as they are called, of the four gospels. Four biographies of George Washington might be written; one with special reference to his career as Commander-in-chief of the American army; another having chiefly in view his character and conduct as President; another mainly occupied with his actions as a citizen and planter; and another portraying him in domestic life in the bosom of his family. While there would be harmony, in one sense, in these four biographies, if they all uttered the truth, it would be foolish to regard them as precisely parallel or synonymous. So it is with the four gospels, and unless we keep this in mind, there will be little comfort or profit derived from their perusal.

It must not be forgotten, then, that it was the purpose of the Holy Ghost in Matthew to reveal Christ as legally the son of Joseph, a lineal descendant of the house of Solomon; thus establishing His legal right to sit upon the throne of David, and then confirming this right in the proof adduced that He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, by tracing His lineage directly to Abraham, where the Evangelist stops. One of the most acute and critical of Bible students remarks, “That the Spirit of God, when inspiring Matthew, had in view the aspirations and wants of the Jews, the evidence of the Messiahship of Jesus, and the consequences of His rejection both for them and the Gentiles, is a truth which has forced itself on most Christians who have examined the gospel with any discriminating care. So large and varied are the internal proofs of such a design, that the only wonder is how an intelligent mind could dispute the facts or the inference.” Among the internal proofs might be mentioned the inquiry of the wise men from the east, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews (Matt, ii: 2); the preaching of John the Baptist, “Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” (Matt, iii: 2); the preaching of our Lord Himself, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” (Matt, iv: 17); the preaching of the twelve disciples, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand,” (Matt, x: 7); besides frequent mention of Old Testament Scriptures fulfilled in Him as David’s royal Son.

In this character He presented Himself to Israel, and was rejected. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not,” (John i: ii). The king being disowned, the kingdom was in abeyance, which is defined by Blackstone as follows: “When there is no person in existence in whom an inheritance can vest, it is said to be in abeyance, that is, in expectation; the law considering it as always potentially existing, and ready to vest whenever a proper owner appears.” Our Lord did not relinquish His claim, nor surrender His right, but from that time He began to teach in parables and to speak of the mysteries of the kingdom. In due time He will be recognized and proclaimed as King on the very spot where He was despised and put to death, but meanwhile in adorable grace He is gathering out of the nations a vast multitude to be associated with Him in the giory and blessedness of His manifested kingdom. “The kingdom of heaven,” therefore, is a phrase which implies the rule of heaven having its sphere on the earth; and in the form in which it now exists and will exist until the king’s return, being in abeyance, or continuing in mystery, or hidden from human observation, it is equivalent to the present Christian dispensation. That it contains the bad as well as the good, false professors as well as the true children of God, is made abundantly evident from quite a number of our Lord’s parables.

With these preliminary remarks let us glance at the group contained in the chapter under examination. The first is as follows: “Behold, a sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprang up, because they had no deepness of earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: but other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundred fold, some sixty fold, some thirty fold.”

Happily we have our Lord’s own interpretation of the parable, and therefore need not err in seeking to know its precise meaning. “When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side. But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for awhile: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundred fold, some sixty, some thirty.”

It only remains to notice whether the Saviour referred to a particular period during the continuance of the kingdom in its mysterious or hidden state, or whether He had in view the entire dispensation including the whole time between His first and second coming. If the former is correct He certainly would have made some allusion to the fact, but He gives no hint that the relative proportion of those who hear the word with profit will ever be reversed during the age in which we live. There is nothing in the parable itself by which we are led to suppose that he designed to limit its application to the first preaching of the word, but every thing in the context, and in subsequent history to prove that He was traversing the future to the close of the kingdom in mystery, and to the appearing of the kingdom in manifested power at His return. Hence expositors of every class seem to be agreed in giving it this wider scope.

Trench says, “I can not doubt that the Lord intended to set Himself forth as the chief sower of the word, not, of course, to the exclusion of the apostles and their successors.” Wordsworth (High Church) says, “This chapter may be described as containing a Divine Treatise on the Church Militant here on earth. . . . It is observable, that all these Parables of our Lord, concerning the Kingdom of Heaven, are declaratory rather of the condition of the Church in its present mixed and imperfect state on the earth, than of its future condition in heaven.” Ryle (Low Church) says, “It is being continually verified under our own eyes. Whenever the word of God is preached or expounded, and people are assembled to hear it, the sayings of our Lord in this parable are found to be true. It describes what goes on, as a general rule, in all congregations.” Alford says, “The sower is first the Son of Man, then His ministers and servants to the end.” Dr. J. Addison Alexander says, it “shows the various receptions which the word or doctrine of the kingdom would meet with in the hearts of men.” Barnes says, “The seed represents the word of God communicated in any manner to the minds of men, by the Scriptures, by preaching, by acts of providence, or by the direct influence of the Holy Spirit.” Olshausen says, “Our Lord draws a parallel between the four kinds of fields, and the four kinds of disposition of heart in those who receive the word of God, scattered abroad.” Lange says, “To the Jews and to mere nominal Christians, this parable conveys the solemn truth that only part of the soil which is sown bears fruit. Of course, anything like an arithmetical calculation of the fourth part is out of the question; still, it implies that the number of God’s people is small.” Stier says, “Christ here comprises in three principal classes really all, one might almost say, the thousand fold kinds and mixtures of the soil that yield no fruit unto the harvest.”

Without quoting from other writers to the same effect, it seems that we can not, except by doing violence to the parable, limit its application to the times of Christ or of His Apostles. But if extended through the present dispensation, where is there the slightest intimation that, previous to the coming of our Lord, all, or nearly all the soil will become good ground, and all, or nearly all the seed will become fruitful.? The Saviour evidently designed to show what results would follow the sowing of the seed, or the preaching of the word, during the existence of the kingdom in mystery or concealment; and if He knew that the gospel would gain universal sway before His second advent, most certainly He would have encouraged the sowers to toil on, in the joyful expectation that in due time their labors should be crowned with abundant success, and bring forth a plentiful harvest to beautify every land.

Instead of this, He warns His ministers and followers, if they had ears to hear, not to look {pr the triumphant progress of His cause and the universal reception of His gospel; for He tells them that the truth falling upon one class will be like seed quickly caught up and* devoured by fowls, or birds, as the word is rendered in the same chapter; and that these birds represent the wicked one, or as it is translated in Mark, Satan, or as Luke has it, the devil. Another class will exhibit but a transient interest in the precious testimonies of grace; another class will find the springing germ of divine truth stifled with the care of this world, or with the deceitfulness of riches; while only a small proportion will abound in the fruits of the Spirit, and of these there will be various degrees of increase, some an hundred fold, some sixty, some thirty.

Thus it has been for more than eighteen hundred years, and thus it is now. Have we any reason to suppose that it will be otherwise in the time to come, unless we have a clear and explicit promise of God’s word? But such a promise can not be found, for it would be in direct conflict with our Lord’s testimony here and elsewhere, as already shown. Can any one point to a single state, county, city, or village on the face of the earth where all the inhabitants are true Christians, bringing forth fruit even thirty fold? Without entering upon “a mathematical calculation of the fourth part,” as Lange calls it, all will admit that not one-fourth of those who hear the gospel are converted; and accurate observation would surely reveal the humiliating fact that not one-fourth who profess to be converted manifest in their lives any real separation from the world, or bear fruit in sustained personal work for the glory of our Saviour’s name. But may we not expect a permanent change for the better in this respect, long before Christ shall come? The Parable of the Sower answers, no.

(13). The correctness of this conclusion is rendered still more certain by an examination of the next parable, in which our Lord says, “The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him. Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares.?* He said unto them an enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.”

Of this parable also we have a divine interpretation, and can not, therefore, fall into error with regard to its teaching, if we are subject to the authority of our Lord’s word, without any preconceived opinions and prejudices. After Jesus had sent the multitude away. He entered into the house, and His disciples came unto Him, saying, “Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them. He that soweth the good seed is the Son of Man: the field is the world, [that is, the world in the ordinary sense as implying the ordered and habitable globe]; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one: the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world [literally, the age, an entirely different word from that just before translated the world]; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of the world [age]. The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

It is plainly revealed in this solemn passage, not only that there will be many from whose hearts, as stated in the former parable, the wicked one catcheth away the word; but that by the agency of the same wicked one, the bad seed of error and evil would soon be mingled with the good seed of truth and righteousness, and thus the special sphere for the exercise of the rule of heaven during its continuance in mystery would speedily become corrupted. It is just as clearly revealed that the tares once introduced into the field will continue to grow until the harvest; or that the visible organizations for carrying on the work of the Lord, once corrupted, will remain corrupt until the end of the age or dispensation; when, as all admit, Christ will personally return to the earth. There is not the slightest hint that those represented by the tares are to be converted, but it is said, “The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire.” Nor is there any allusion to those who are not in His kingdom, but simply to what is called the kingdom of heaven in its present state, including the bad and the good, and which, it is distinctly declared, will not be purified until the angels shall be sent forth, who, we know, attend the personal coming of the Son of Man. Dr. David Brown labors hard to break the tremendous force of the testimony in favor of the pre-millennial advent found in this parable, which our Lord Himself explains, and at last glides over it with the strange assertion that it was designed “to set forth the mixed character of the visible Church till Christ come: all are agreed in this. But the Millennium is as truly, though not in the same degree a mixed state of the visible Church as this.”

Such is his remarkable mode of meeting the difficulty, in the face of his own testimony as formerly quoted, that the Millennium “will be characterized by the universal diffusion of revealed truth” and “will be marked by the universal reception of the true religion, and unlimited subjection to the sceptre of Christ.” How it can be marked by the universal reception of the true religion, and unlimited subjection to the sceptre of Christ, and at the same time be marked by the presence in the Church itself of the children of the wicked one, to say nothing of those who will not even profess to be the children of the kingdom. Dr. Brown does not attempt to explain. Least of all does he attempt to explain how this mixed state of the visible Church during the Millennium can be made to harmonize with such scriptures as the following, which post- millennialists are fond of quoting: “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea,” (Isa. xi: 9); “and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying. Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more,” (Jer. xxxi: 34).

These passages, and many more like them, when studied in the light of the parable at which we have glanced, forces upon us one of two conclusions: either Christ will come in person before the Millennium, or there will be no Millennium at all; and in the one case or the other, the expectation of those who are looking for the speedy and complete triumph of the visible Church, and hence are closing their eyes to the increasing perils gathering about them, is worse than an idle dream. The tares will grow with the wheat until the harvest, and not a few here and there, but so numerous that the plucking up of the former would endanger the latter; the harvest is the end of the age or dispensation; and the reapers are the angels who, we are repeatedly told in the word of God, will attend the advent of our Lord. Thus the statement in the parable is in precise accordance with the testimony of the Holy Ghost in another portion of the Scriptures, previously noticed, where we are are taught that the mystery of iniquity already at work in the Apostle’s day will continue and culminate in the Antichrist, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth, and destroy with the epiphany of His personal presence.

(14). “Another parable put he forth unto them, saying. The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.” Arnot says this represents “the progress of the kingdom under the idea of a living growth’’; and while there can be no objection to this view, our Lord does not intimate that the tree would cover the earth, nor yet that it would tower in peerless majesty, unhindered by the plots of the same cunning and implacable enemy of whom He had so plainly spoken. Trench well remarks in his treatise On the Interpretation of Parables, “that when our Lord himself interpreted the two first which he delivered, those of the Sower, and of the Tares, it is more than probable that he intended to furnish us with a key for the interpretation of all. These explanations therefore are most important, not merely for their own sakes, but as laying down the principles and canons of interpretation to be applied throughout.”

To this it may be added as obviously true, that no interpretation of the parable of the Mustard Seed, or of any subsequent parable, can be sound, which makes our Lord utter a flat contradiction to His own testimony as given in the two first parables which He Himself explained. There He announced that the word scattered abroad, like seed, will not bring all men to the exercise of faith, and to the possession of eternal life; but only one part out of four will exhibit real fruitfulness, and this of various degrees. There too He declared that the tares sowed by the devil while men slept, whether there is or is not an allusion in this to the carelessness of the watchmen and workmen, will continue to grow among the wheat until the end of the age, when He will come from heaven with His holy angels. While, therefore, it may be readily admitted that the parable of the Mustard Seed represents “the progress of the kingdom under the idea of a living growth,” it can not possibly teach a doctrine the opposite of that clearly unfolded in the preceding parables.

But what do the post-millennialists make of the birds of the air that came and lodged in the branches of the tree? Many of them pass it over entirely, although our Lord, who never uttered a word in vain, surely had some object in introducing this remarkable feature into the brief parable. Dr. Alexander simply says, the birds “resort to it by choice as a convenient resting place.” Stier and Trench think, to adopt the language of the latter, that “we are to recognize a prophecy of the refuge and defence that should be for all men in the Church.” If they mean by this that the Church will be the refuge and defence of unconverted men, or that unconverted men will come into it, certainly such a condition of the Church would make anything but a Millennium of holiness and peace, for it need not be said that unconverted men would utterly corrupt and destroy the cause of Christ. But if they mean that all men shall be converted, and then brought into the Church, the statement is equally absurd, for it presents a strange jumble of ideas and metaphors, of which no ordinary writer would be guilty, much less our blessed Lord. It is supposed that the Church is represented by the tree, and whoever heard of a tree growing by birds flying into it, and lodging in its branches? Nothing can be more unlike than a tree and a bird, and if by the growth of the tree we are to understand the expansion of the Church from a small beginning, that of itself implies conversion without the addition of something entirely foreign to it. The Church grows in no other way than by the conversion of men, and if this is all that is meant, by the introduction of the birds, the mention of them only confuses the mind, and mars a symbol which is already complete.

Unquestionably it is much more natural and reasonable to suppose that in a connected discourse where the Saviour employs the same figure of speech twice, He does not intend to teach two totally different things. Now in the parable of the Sower He tells us that the fowls represent the wicked one, or as Mark and Luke say, Satan and the devil. Let it be remembered that the word translated “fowls” in the parable of the Sower is in the Greek precisely the same word which is translated “birds” in the parable of the Mustard Seed, and we can have no difficulty in understanding our Lord’s meaning. If a public speaker should use a certain metaphor in our presence whose precise meaning he himself explained, and then almost immediately afterwards should use the very same metaphor without explanation, surely we would properly infer that he wished us to attach to it the same sense. When therefore the Master told His disciples what the birds represented, and in the same discourse again mentioned the birds, they certainly understood Him as meaning the same thing. If this is not a fixed principle of interpretation, there is an end of knowing what the Bible teaches on any subject. By this principle of interpretation, also, we bring the parable into perfect consistency with those that precede it. The devil who catches away the word dropped on the callous heart, and who sows tares in the midst of the wheat, here sees the wonderful growth of the kingdom of heaven from its feeble commencement, and as it is shooting into a great tree, seeks and obtains a place in it, to defeat if possible the loving purpose and gracious work of our divine Redeemer. Such then in another form is shown to be the mixed condition of good and evil, of saving mercy and Satanic hate, manifested during the continuance of the kingdom in mystery; and hence we again reach the conclusion that there can be no Millennium till Christ comes.

(15). “Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.” The common view taken of these important words makes the leaven the type of gospel truth or righteousness penetrating and permeating the entire mass of mankind, and gradually converting the whole world to Jesus Christ.

But in the first place, it will be conceded that it has not leavened to any great extent so far, inasmuch as the number of Christians now on the earth is relatively as small or perhaps smaller than at the death of the last of the Apostles. Saint Paul wrote to the Colossians that the word of the truth of the gospel had come unto them, “as it is in all the world,” (Col. i: 6); and that it “was preached to every creature which is under heaven,” (vs. 23); and although some may deem this “a noble hyperbole,” as Ellicott and Eadie call it, yet taken in connection with many other passages of the New Testament, it certainly indicates the rapid spread of the good news of salvation in that day, as well as the divine intention to have the gospel preached to every creature. Justin Martyr, not much more than a hundred years after the crucifixion of Christ, reminds the Jew “there are some countries in which none of his nation ever dwelt; but tliere is not so much as one nation of men, whether Greek or barbarian, Scythian or Arabian, amongst whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered up to the Father through the name of Jesus crucified.” But in all the vast region where churches once flourished, founded by the Apostles, and some of them addressed in inspired epistles, there is scarcely a vestige of Christianity left; while Christendom itself is flooded with infidelity and vice, and not even the smallest community has been wholly brought under the saving power of redeeming love. Truly the leaven has been working slowly.

In the second place the ordinary view of the parable seems to regard humanity as a lump, overlooking the fact that the grace of God has to deal with each succeeding generation, and with every soul of each succeeding generation, as dead in trespasses and sins. There is a constant stream of nonsense poured forth on our platforms and in our pulpits about the progress of the age; but admitting all that is claimed, no real Christian needs to be informed that all the babes, born in the present year, are as truly the children of wrath, as were the babes born in the days of Nero, 01 in the days of Noah. A tiger now is precisely what a tiger was more than four thousand years ago, and man now is precisely what man was after that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, entered into the Garden of Eden, and our first parents totally lost the spiritual life imparted to them at their creation. Even while granting, therefore, the increase of knowledge in some respects, and the achievements of science in ameliorating to some extent the temporal condition of mankind, it is only a very shallow thinker who will say that, during all the boasted march of civilization, human nature has improved in the slightest degree. Each member of the race comes into the world just as ignorant, just as helpless, just as depraved, just as dead in sins, as were the children of the Sodomites; and hence there is no possible sense in which the leaven, as generally understood, can leaven the mass, except by working more thoroughly, in individual souls, and by spreading more rapidly from soul to soul. But whether this is to be must be determined by the testimony of other Scriptures.

In the third place, the soundness of the principle, already advanced, will not be controverted, that the parable must be interpreted in such way as to avoid conflict with the preceding parables, two of which our Lord explained. If we are at liberty to take detached statements, here and there, in the word of God, and deal with them out of their connection, the Bible may be wrested to prove nearly anything which the prejudices or whims of men may desire. Now in the parable of the Sower, our Lord had unmasked the cunning and malice of Satan in catching away the word, and had shown that only a small proportion of the seed would be fruitful during the existence of the kingdom in mystery. In the parable of the Tares, He had spoken of the devil sowing darnel, as some render it, or as Greswell calls it, zizan, “a bastard, degenerate sort of wheat” which could not be distinguished from the true until the time of producing fruit, and continuing up to the harvest at the end of the age. In the parable of the Mustard Seed, He had unfolded the plots of the same malignant adversary to carry on his nefarious work of corruption and ruin in the branches of the great tree. Can it be that in the parable of the Leaven, the Saviour designed to teach a doctrine directly opposed to that which He had announced a moment before Surely not. Whatever, therefore. may be the proper exposition of the passage now before us, it must be made to harmonize with the truth previously taught.

In the fourth place, the figure which our Lord employs implies that which is sour and putrifying. Even the definitions of the word leaven given in our English Dictionaries do not sustain the common view of the parable, although the Lexicographers were of course familiar with the use of the word, constantly made by Expositors and Ministers of the gospel. Worcester says of leaven in its substantive form that it is “1. A substance which causes fermentation in that with which it IS mixed;—particularly, yeast or sour dough”; and “2. Anything which mixes with a mass, and changes it to its own nature;—commonly used of something which depraves that with which it is mixed.” The word in its verbal form he defines as meaning, “1. To induce fermentation in; 2. To imbue; to taint; to infect; to vitiate.” With these definitions Webster agrees; and it is a singular fact that if our Lord, who always used words with divine accuracy, intended to represent something good. He deliberately employed a figure which in its very nature is the appropriate symbol of evil. Nor does the objection, often urged, possess any force, that according to this interpretation, Ho likens the kingdom of heaven to that which is evil. The objection arises from a misconception of the kingdom of heaven as set forth in the parables. It is plainly not the same as the kingdom will be when the redeemed shall be gathered home; nor is it equivalent to the visible Church, because, in that case, all discipline would be forbidden, contrary to the instructions of our Lord and of the Holy Ghost elsewhere given. In the parable of the Tares and in other parables it is made apparent that a vast amount of evil will be found in the kingdom while it exists in mystery, and therefore, we need not be shocked to find it likened unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal.

In the fifth place, it is the uniform scriptural use of leaven to represent by it that which is evil, and not that which is good. In the Old Testament the words leaven and leavened occur twenty times; in the New Testament thirteen times; and they are invariably employed to denote the power or progress of conniption. It will scarcely be denied, therefore, that the natural and most obvious interpretation of the parable requires us to see in the leaven a symbol of error or of unrighteousness; and in favour of this explanation. Dr. J. A. Alexander says “is the very strong fact, that leaven always in the Scriptures elsewhere (except Lev. xxiii: 17), is a figure of corruption, either in doctrine or affection. This usage, probably arising from the physical fact that fermentation is incipient putrefaction, may be traced in the exclusion of all leaven from the passover and other sacrificial rites of the Mosaic law, as well as in its figurative application both by Christ and Paul. The usage is indeed so uniform and easily accounted for from rational considerations, that nothing can outweigh it but the equally uniform judgment of interpreters and readers in all ages that this is an exception to the general rule, and that leaven, in this one place and its parallel, (Luke xiii; 21), denotes the spreading or diffusive quality of truth and of the true religion.”

Whether the uniform judgment of uninspired interpreters and readers ought to outweigh the inspired testimony concerning the proper symbolical import of leaven, each must determine for himself; but at all events, the solitary exception to the scriptural usage of the word, mentioned by Dr. Alexander, turns out on a careful examination of the passage he cites, to be no exception whatever. Leaven was carefully excluded from all offerings under the law that typified Christ; and in the instance adduced it was required, because sin was in the worshipper’s nature, and God wished him to recognize this humiliating fact in drawing near to the Majesty on high. When, therefore, the Israelites were commanded to bring out of their habitations two wave loaves, baken with leaven, it was a significant and solemn proclamation of the truth, that in them, that is, in their flesh dwelt no good thing. As Macintosh well says upon the passage in Leviticus directing the offering of the leavened loaves, “Why was this? Because they were intended to foreshadow those who, though filled with the Holy Ghost, and adorned with His gifts and graces, had, nevertheless, evil dwelling in them. The Assembly, on the day of Pentecost, stood in the full value of the blood of Christ, was crowned with the gifts of the Holy Ghost; but there was leaven there also. No power of the Spirit could do away with the fact, that there was evil dwelling in the people of God. It might be suppressed and kept out of view; but it was there. This fact is foreshadowed in the type, by the leaven in the two loaves; and it is set forth in the actual history of the Church; for, albeit God the Holy Ghost was present in the assembly, the flesh was there likewise to lie unto Him. Flesh is flesh, nor can it ever be made aught else than flesh.”

It is certain, therefore, that the disciples of our Lord, long habituated, as Jews, to the use of leaven as the unvarying type of evil, would understand Him as referring to the spread of evil; and if they were in error in the conclusion they necessarily drew from His language, it is remarkable that He did not correct the mistake. Shortly after the parable was spoken. He told them to “take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees,” by which they were taught to beware “of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees,” (Matt, xvi: 6-12). On another occasion He said unto them first of all, “Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy,” (Luke xii: 7). Surely it will be admitted as an unquestionable principle of interpretation in reading God’s word, that we must understand a metaphor which is not explained, in the light of the same metaphor where it is explained; and if so there is an end of the controversy concerning the meaning of leaven in the parable. Not only does it have a uniform sense in the Old Testament as the symbol of evil; but so it is employed by our Lord whenever he uses it as a figure; and so it is employed by the Holy Ghost, when He commands the Corinthians to cast out the incestuous person, and thus arrest the spread of evil practice, on the ground that “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump,” (1 Cor. V: 6); and repeats the same words to the Galatians in reminding them of the rapid spread of false doctrine, (Gal. v: 9).

It only remains to add that, even if the common view of the parable is maintained in the face of Scripture, it does not prove the universal diffusion and triumph of Christianity; for the woman hid, or 'covertly introduced, the leaven in three measures of meal, and three is never found in the Bible as the signature of the earth. It is a part taken from the whole, and probably that part in which the kingdom of heaven has specially manifested its rule, or in other words, what is popularly called Christendom. Alford, who, it is proper to say, is stoutly opposed to the interpretation here advocated, says the three measures constituted an ephah; and hence the disciples would at once be reminded of the remarkable visions in Zechariah sweeping onward to the time when Christ shall be a priest upon His throne. In the last of these the prophet saw a woman sitting in an ephah, which is declared to be wickedness; and she was held down by a weight of lead, fit symbol of God’s heavy wrath against the leaven of wickedness, that shall gradually develope the Antichrist under the crushing burden of heartless profession and lifeless formalism. Thus the parable is brought into strict harmony with the teachings of God’s word everywhere, which declare that the present dispensation, like those that preceded it, shall close amid terrific judgments; that the mystery of iniquity already at work during the ministry of Jesus and the Apostles shall increase more and more until it shall gain unhindered sway; and that in the last days perilous times shall come, which will fully justify the sad question of our Lord, “When the Son of Man cometh shall he find faith on the earth

But knowing well how all this would discourage the hearts of His followers, after our Lord had sent the multitude away, and had entered into the house. He led the disciples to see that amid the growing evil, there would be a Church unspeakably precious in His sight. Accordingly He said, “The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in the field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls; who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.” There is not the slightest allusion • in these parables to the sinner seeking salvation, or seeking religion, as it is termed; for in that case they would have been delivered in the presence of the multitude, whom they chiefly concerned; and as the Lord had plainly said a little while before, that “the field is the world,” in no sense is salvation hid in the world; and in no sense does the sinner buy the world in order to be saved; and in no sense does the sinner sell all that he hath to purchase salvation, which is given without money and without price; and in no sense does the sinner hide salvation, but when it is obtained, he is commanded to let his light shine. Here, however, we have different aspects of the Church, under the figures of the treasure and the pearl of great price, hid it is true in the world, but so dear to the Saviour who is represented by the man finding the treasure, and the merchant man seeking goodly pearls, that He gave up, for a time, all He had with the Father, and gave Himself for her, and for her sake bought the field also, as the theatre on which He intends to display her beauty and loveliness, when associated with Him in the glory. While, therefore, appalling judgments are gathering like dark clouds over this evil age, the real Church is as safe as the eternal purpose, the omnipotent power, the unchangeable promise, and the infinite love of the living Christ can’ make her.