Continued from The Virgin’s Espousals.

THE TESTIMONIES OF SCRIPTURE RELIED UPON FOR THE DEFENCE

Some texts of Scripture have been conjured into the service of the Romanist view concerning the Virgin Mary. It is only by twisting and distorting them that those passages could be wrested into the support of their doctrine. The first is Genesis iii. 15: “I will put enmity between thee [the serpent] and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it [He] shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel.” The Romanist version is: “She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel”; or, according to De Saci: “She shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt try to bite her heel.”

The note in the Romanist version is: “Ipsa, the woman… Others read it Ipsum, viz. the seed. The sense is the same, for it is by her seed, Jesus Christ, that the woman crushes the serpent’s head.” The Hebrew is הוא תְּשׁוּפְךָ רֹאשׁ. The LXX. translated this by the word avroc. The Chaldee has the masculine, He, agreeing with Seed (which is masculine). Even some versions of the Vulgate have the masculine. The Romanists substituted the word “she,” in order to inculcate the notion that Mary was to crush the devil, using Christ as her instrument. Thus Cardinal Gousett: “These prophetic words announce with great clearness that Mary should not be touched by the venomous sting of the serpent; that she should not for one moment be under the domination of the devil, or contract the sin of Adam and Eve. For had she contracted original sin, how could the perpetual enmity between her and the serpent be verified? The tempting spirit strove in vain to touch her. In spite of his cunning, he was conquered by her, who bruised his head,” etc.

Pope Leo I. however (Sermo ii., De Nativitate Dom.) understood by the above passage that the seed of the woman, a male seed, and not a woman at all, was to bruise the serpent’s head. So also Jerome, in his Questions upon Genesis, gave the same testimony. But this view did not suit well with the Mariolatry of the later Roman Church, which has been clearly expounded by the Jesuit Salmeron (Opera, vol. x., tract. xli., p. 933): “Christ called His mother to come ‘from afar’ close up to His cross, in order that His mother might offer her Son, in sacrifice for the whole world, to the eternal Father; just as Abraham wished, in obedience to God’s command, to offer up his son Isaac.” As if it were Mary that gave her Son for the sins of the whole world, and not God, who showed His infinite love by giving His only-begotten Son for the sins of the world! As if it were Mary that made the sacrifice of Jesus, and not Jesus that sacrificed Himself! As if Mary were the sacrificing high priest, instead of Jesus, who is our High Priest, and “who, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God”!

The next passage is in the prophecy of Isaiah (vii. 14): “The Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall He eat, that He may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.” Doubtless this prophecy had a fulfilment in distant times by the birth of our Lord of a Jewish woman who was then a virgin. But it was also accomplished in Isaiah’s own time. It was given as a sign to Ahaz that (v. 8) “within threescore and five years” the “two smoking firebrands,” Rezin king of Syria and Pekah king of Israel, who had made an offensive alliance against Judah, should be no more, and that their people should be broken. As this was given as a sign to reassure the king of Judah concerning a future event, it must have happened in his own time (v. 16): “Before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou [Ahaz] abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.” It was a sign which was to be speedily given; and therefore we read (viii. 2): “And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah. And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the Lord unto me, Call his name (מַהֵר שָׁלָל חָשׁ בַּז) Maher-shalal-hash-baz” (meaning, “hasten to spoil, hurry to plunder”; or, “before the king of Assyria shall take away the spoil”). “For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.” Nor let the Roman Catholics say that it was an impossibility that “the prophetess” should have been a virgin when her son was born. They have foreclosed the objection against themselves. Saint Antoninus of Forciglione, for example (Summa, vol. iv., tit. iv., cap. viii. § 4, De voluntaria), discoursing of the modes of loss of virginity, gives a passage more befitting a doctor’s medical lecture than a sainted archbishop’s Sum of Theology.¹

1 “Secundo modo, per seminis virilis voluntariam susceptionem; quia si ita reciperet, salvó claustrō… nihilominus virgo non esset; quia sic posset concipere; puta si quis cognosceret virginem voluntariam in hoc circa claustra pudoris, et semen ad matricem attraheretur; prægnantem enim per naturam nullus diceret ‘virginem’; et tamen mulieres aliquæ concipiunt quæ non seminant.”

Another passage of the Holy Scriptures which the Romanists have pressed into their service is Jeremiah xxxi. 22: “How long wilt thou go about, O backsliding daughter? for the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.” Here let us remark that the word translated “man” is גֶּבֶר, gaber, which means “powerful, or almighty [man],” just as גַּבְרִיאֵל, Gabriel, means “the Almighty God,” or “the power of God.” Let us also remark a curious contraposition and paronomasia: שׁוֹבֵבָה, shobeba, “backsliding or rebellious woman”; and תְּסוֹבֵב, tesobeb, “shall encompass.” That is, the woman who rebelled continually against her God shall return and embrace her God. That was “the new thing” which was done; the rebel of many centuries suddenly ran after her God, if haply she might find Him.

The whole chapter of the prophecy is occupied with the still future repentance of Israel, and their promised return to the Holy Land. The house, or Church, of Israel is there termed “Ephraim,” and is thus addressed: “O virgin of Israel! turn again to these thy cities; how long wilt thou wander about, O thou rebellious daughter?” The Roman Church asserts that this is a prophecy of the Virgin Mary and the incarnation of our Lord Jesus. Thus Cornelius à Lapide, for example: “The Lord hath created a new thing; that is, the work of the incarnation and nativity of Christ, sive operâ virilī. A woman shall encompass a man; that is, shall give life to a man.” These words the Jesuit commentator expounds as the conception by the Virgin Mary of our Lord, adding, “for the miracle of the incarnation, which was worked in her, comprises many miracles.” Again: “A woman, that is the blessed Virgin, shall encompass and shut in a man within her womb.” But if the “virgin of Israel” means the Virgin Mary, then was the Virgin Mary “a backsliding or rebellious daughter”? Or, as the Roman version has it, “How long wilt thou be dissolute in deliciousness, O wandering daughter?” With these words the text is in the closest connexion; and without doubt it denotes the conversion of the virgin of Israel, or Church of Israel, to the Lord Jesus Christ, their promised Messiah; then will the Jews take hold of, or embrace, by faith the one perfect Man.

That “fall,” and ultimate “rising again of Israel,” was prophesied also by Simeon, in another passage which has been pressed into their service by the Roman Catholics; viz., Luke ii. 34: “Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary His mother, Behold, this Child is set for the fall and rising again of the many in Israel… Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also.” Yes, the acme or culminating act of the Jews’ rebellion against God was the crucifixion of the Messiah; and Christ’s poverty, humiliation, weakness, the contempt and obloquy which were poured upon Him, and His death as a malefactor, caused the fall of the Virgin Mary also; and that fall brought to her the poignant sword of remorse, which pierced her soul when, at His last gasp, she believed on Him whom she had discarded. Of that, more anon. Simeon blessed them; he blessed both Joseph and Mary, who were united by marriage in “one flesh”; and then he addressed, to Mary alone, those words of solemn warning. “He blessed them.” Now “without contradiction the less is blessed of the better” (Heb. vii. 7). Therefore we conclude, on the authority of Scripture, that Simeon was better than either Joseph or Mary; yea, better than both together.

Now let us turn our attention to the

PARABLE OF THE SOWER

IT is generally acknowledged that our Lord always suited His discourses to the circumstances of His hearers, and their disposition at the time that He was speaking. He never uttered abstract truths. He never spoke as one that strikes the air. Every one of His parables, being expressions of eternal laws underlying the material and ephemeral appearances of the events of this world, had always, for subject, something which was at the moment before the eyes of His audience.

For example: Nicodemus went to Jesus by night, because he was afraid of the Jews, or at least anxious about his good report with them. Our Lord therefore wound up His discourse by this allusion to the fear or vanity of Nicodemus (John iii. 19–21) which caused him to slink in by night: “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be discovered. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.”

At the well of Sychar our Lord pointed to the waters that bubbled up from the bosom of the earth, and turned the sight of them to profit, by the announcement of this eternal truth (John iv. 14): “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

After His miracle of feeding with bread the five thousand in the wilderness, bread was the subject of His discourse (John vi. 51): “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

So the parables were the unfoldings of the eternal truths that were screened behind objects then visible to mortal eyes. The word παραβολή means “a comparison,” and is the equivalent of מָשָׁל, mashal. The evangelist John used παροιμία, a word of similar import, which occurs in Proverbs (xxvi. 7): “The legs of the lame are not equal: so is a parable in the mouth of fools.” In other words, the similitude given by a fool non currit quatuor pedibus, or claudicat, according to the Latin saying. It does not express an eternal truth by a visible object.

A parable may be defined as the use of natural and visible things and passing events, in order to bring to our knowledge, by their similitude, certain spiritual and eternal truths, which could not be so well learned in an abstract form. The visible things are indeed copies of spiritual truths, or “things in the heavens,” and were expressly designed to teach us the spiritual truths. Therefore the prophet (Isa. vi. 9, 10) complained of the Jews for looking at the natural things without perceiving the spiritual truths they exemplified; they heard indeed, but understood not; they saw indeed, but perceived not: for the heart of that people was fat, and their ears heavy, and they shut their eyes; “lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.” So our Lord, quoting this passage, lamented that the Jews, in seeing, saw not, and, in hearing, heard not, and would not understand; “therefore,” that is, in order to remedy this grievous defect, said He, “speak I to them in parables” (Matt. xiii. 10, 13; Mark iv. 12). They were blind and deaf to spiritual things, and therefore it was not given to them “to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.” The mysteries were the spiritual meanings or antitypes of the material things to which He pointed, or the spiritual truths inculcated by the visible events which He narrated. Expressing a similar thought, Seneca the moralist (Ep. 59) called fables, adminicula imbecillitatis.

On this point Dr. Greswell (Exposition of the Parables, vol. i., p. 55, 1834) wrote: “The operations which we may suppose to have been going on round about our Lord and His congregation—either in the country or on the lake,—at the time when He began to teach in parables, might give occasion to the material allusions, which are the basis of the external history, in three at least of the eight then delivered—the parable of the sower, of the tares,” etc. Again (p. 57), he says it was “a well-known feature of our Lord’s manner of teaching in general, the accommodation of His topics to the occasion, the application of His lessons to the circumstances of time and place.”

The late Archbishop Trench, writing on The Parables (1877, p. 13), said: “Their power lies deeper than this, in the harmony unconsciously felt by all men, and which all deeper minds have delighted to trace, between the natural and spiritual worlds, so that analogies from the first are felt to be something more than illustrations, happily but arbitrarily chosen…. All lovers of truth readily acknowledge these mysterious harmonies, and the force of arguments derived from them. To them the things on earth are copies of the things in heaven.” So Milton:

“What if earth
Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein
Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?”

Archbishop Trench continued (p. 15): “The untended soil, which yields thorns and briars as its natural harvest, is a permanent type and enduring parable of man’s heart, which has been submitted to the same curse, and, without a watchful spiritual husbandry, will as surely put forth its briars and its thorns.”

It is not difficult to understand one, at least, of the grounds which caused our Lord to adopt this mode of teaching, apart from the fact that He desired to show the eternal truths which are embodied in the ephemeral and material things of this world. We all remember the lines of Horace (De Arte Poeticâ, 179):

“Aut agitur res in scenis, aut acta refertur;
Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,
Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quæ
Ipse sibi tradit spectator.”

“The tale is either acted on the boards, or else related by the actors; but that which is merely narrated to the ear is slack in moving the minds of the audience; while that which is put before the eyes of the assembly, that which they see enacted before them, is always powerful in its effect.”

So our Lord, doubtless pointing to a vine, said, “I am the true Vine”; and, extending His hand to the sun, then bathing the whole landscape in glory, He said, “I am the Light of the world.” The parable of the sower also must have been suggested by some material things which were before the eyes of the bystanders. Let us retain that point in our minds. But before examining it more closely, let us notice another element in the seven parables of the thirteenth chapter of Matthew.

The aim of the Lord was to teach “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven”; and the seven parables seem to refer to the successive periods of His Church, to the seven candlesticks depicted in the Apocalypse. In the first we see our Lord sowing the good seed, which fell on the hearts of different classes of men during that first period of the Church.

In the second parable (Matt. xiii. 24) we see a field in which good seed had been sowed; and we watch Satan coming stealthily by night, and, not taking away the good seed, but sprinkling evil seeds over the field. He could not destroy the wheat that had been sowed; he could not root it up; he could not change its nature. For every plant which our heavenly Father has planted must grow until eternity; and Christ “will continue the good work which He hath begun in you unto the day of Christ.” Yet Satan spoiled the field by sowing his tares among the wheat. This he did “at night.” For “certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness” (Jude 4), “false brethren unawares brought in” (Gal. ii. 4), or, according to Paul (Acts xx. 29), “I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.” That was the period of the Church when the “mystery of iniquity was working,” as an evil seed which was germinating underground. Yet even the angels could not distinguish the wheat from tares until the day of judgment, although, in the minds of very many, the truths of Christianity were adulterated to such an extent, that towards the middle of this second period the Church could be united with the fourth universal empire—the monster with seven heads—and could consent to mix up many pagan maxims of law and many heathen doctrines and practices with the truths which Jesus had taught.

In the third parable (v. 31) we discern the Church—which had once been humble and small in its own eyes as “a grain of mustard seed”—acceding to temporal power and wealth, and becoming a great and wide spreading tree, so that all the foul birds of that air, of which Satan is the prince, came to rest in the branches thereof. No longer an invisible Church; it became a visible and powerful Church; and therefore resembled the great pagan empires (Dan. iv. 20), a “tree which grew and was strong, whose height reached unto the heaven, and the sight thereof [a visible Church] to all the earth.” The Church, when it coalesced with the Roman empire, and so became universal in its power, received from the devil “all the kingdoms of the earth, and the glory of them,” which Satan had offered to our Lord, and which our Lord had refused for Himself and for His Church. Then the Church became, for the future, an integral part of the dread image of Nebuchadnezzar; and it bowed down to Satan, and worshipped him, “the prince of this world,” “the ruler of the darkness of this present age.” Alas! it began “to reign as kings, without us [apostles]”; for “the mystery of iniquity” had been working secretly, and was now becoming manifest.

The visible Church had ceased to “take up its cross daily”; it had left off “to spend and be spent for others”; it had begun to “seek its own, instead of the things that be of Christ.” Yet the material cross, once a shame and mark of humiliation and obloquy, was now assumed as a symbol of honour, and was then worshipped, and had ascribed to it a preserving and conquering virtue. There were no longer any fiery trials to cause the many to abjure Christianity; but there were honours and wealth and benefits, which brought innumerable accessions of hypocritical candidates for baptism. The Church rapidly grew, and its power increased, and it became more and more the corrupter of truth.

In the fourth parable (v. 33) we are shown the Church as the leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures (σάτα) of meal. The Church was the leaven; it was not the woman. A woman symbolizes a State or body politic (Hartwell Horne, Study of the Scriptures, 1834, vol. iv., p. 532). There was, indeed, the meal of good wheat. There were true Christians, who fed on the pure word of God. But the wicked woman took the corrupting “leaven of malice and wickedness,” and hid it in the three measures—the western empire, the eastern empire, and the parts external to the Roman empire, I suppose—until the whole was leavened and turned into a putrid, poisoned, and corrupting mass (Lev. ii. 11, vii. 12, viii. 2; Exod. xxix. 2; Num. vi. 15; Exod. xii. 15, 19, xiii. 7; Deut. xvi. 4; Matt. xvi. 6, 11, 12; Mark viii. 15; Luke xii. 1, xiii. 21; 1 Cor. v. 5–8; Gal. v. 9). That was the third period of the Church, from the middle of the tenth to the middle of the thirteenth centuries perhaps.

At this point our Lord ceased to address His parables to the multitude, but turned away to speak to His disciples apart (v. 36). Their Church was left to the others, desolate; while there were a few, constituting the invisible Church of Christ, to whose hearts He continued to speak.

The fifth parable, of the treasure hidden in the field (v. 44), tells us of the resisting influence of God. For a thousand years the Church had been there, and was giving leavened or poisoned bread to the nations of earth, and Christendom had fed carelessly on that which was their bane. Between the thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries truth seemed to have almost perished from the earth. Idolatry and priestcraft, superstitions and the foulest immoralities reigned throughout the visible Roman Church, as they used to reign throughout the Roman empire.

At the Reformation men learned that Christ had given His life to redeem the whole world; that He had purchased the whole field by selling all that He had. They learned that they were to be saved by the death of Christ and by faith in Christ alone, and not by the false mediators and intercessors which were then in vogue; not by the various forms and rites and ceremonies and the supposed powers of priests, which were then extolled. They saw that that was not the true Church which professed to be the visible Church; because the true Church was “hidden in the field,” and continued to be hidden even after Christ had found it; they saw that the true Church was not visibly distinguished in this world, that it “came not by observation,” but was within the heart. The visible body which professed to be the Church was not the “treasure hidden in the field,” nor a treasure at all; it was not that which, “when a man [the Son of man] hath found, he hideth, and, for joy thereof, goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.” The “field is the world,” and the treasure is His elect; namely, those who place their whole trust in Christ. “Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him” (John xvii. 2, 3). “And this is life eternal, that they may know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” Those who are hidden in the world, those believers cannot purchase anything. They have nothing wherewith to purchase. Yet, in Christ’s eyes, they are a treasure, and He purchased them.

The sixth parable (v. 45) repeats the affirmation in the last, as if the Reformation were to be renewed in these days. Christ “emptied Himself,” and gave up all the glory He had with the Father, and even His life, and bought the earth for the sake of all who put their trust in Him. Those all are now, however, not merely “a treasure,” but “one pearl of great price.” For the Holy Spirit has worked “with groanings that cannot be uttered” to make them all pure and glorious as one pearl. One pearl—for they are one in spirit, one in the same full confidence which all place in Him. A pearl, for (Dan. xi. 35) Christ shall “try them, and purge and make them white, even to the time of the end.” The apostle-prophet was asked (Rev. vii. 13, vi. 11), “What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?… These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

The fifth parable spoke of “a hidden treasure,” for which Christ had died. In the sixth parable His hidden Church is represented by the unity, purity, splendour, and precious value of a pearl, which also is hidden, as it had to be found. As this is another parable, it seems to intimate that the treasure had somehow become spoiled, and that a new reformation must somehow be made for the pearl to be found. A strong angel may preach the true gospel in mid-heaven; John may “prophesy again against (ἐπὶ) many peoples, and tongues, and kings” (Rev. x. 11); the cry may go forth, “Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins.” Perhaps it indicates that nearly all men, at this period, will be worshippers of the beast, while a few “that understand” will suffer “great tribulation,” in order to “become white” like a pearl; a few may “overcome by reason of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony, and because they love not their lives, even unto death.” They indeed will be precious and honourable in the sight of God, for “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”

After this (vv. 47–50) comes the seventh parable, which depicts the judgment, when the net will be drawn through the great deep to the shore, “full of fishes of every kind”; and then they will “sit down, and gather the good into vessels, and cast the bad away.” For this shall be the end of the world, when “the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

Now let us return to the first period, when our Lord, as a sower, went forth to sow. According to the canon already laid down, this parable must have been suggested by some material things, which were before the eyes of the assembled hearers.

But no agricultural sower could have been engaged in material sowing at that time; because (1) it was a sabbath day, and the Jews were extremely punctilious in abstaining from every manual labour on the sabbath. So punctilious were they, that they censured our Lord’s disciples for plucking the ears of corn, as they passed through the fields, and rubbing the ears in their hands to separate the grain. Also because (2) it was the sabbath just before the wave-offering of the first-fruits; that is, two days before it was lawful to reap any of the corn, which was then all standing in the fields awaiting the sickle.

Those facts we learn from the first verse of the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, compared with the first verse of the twelfth chapter: “The same day,” that is, “the sabbath day,” which Luke (vi. 1) says was “the second sabbath after the first.” The first day of Nisan was the sabbath, which began the year. The 15th, the day of unleavened bread, was also a sabbath; and the day after the next sabbath, that is, the Sunday after “the second sabbath after the first,” the 23rd day of Nisan, was the time when the sheaf of first fruits was waved before the Lord. Until that had been waved, no one might reap any corn, nor even eat of any corn.

What were the events of that sabbath day, the 22nd, as recorded by S. Matthew? Jesus gave great umbrage to the Pharisees (a) because He went through the fields of standing corn, and His disciples plucked the ears, and rubbed them in their hands, to extract the grain, on the sabbath day. Moreover they ate the seed before the first fruits had been offered to the Lord. Then (v. 9) Jesus went into the synagogue, and healed a man with a withered hand on the sabbath day.

Then (v. 46), “while He yet talked to the people, His mother and His brethren (b) stood without, desiring to speak with Him.”

The common people (c) were not incensed with Jesus (v. 23), but said, “Is not this the Son of David?”

Lastly, “He stretched forth His hand toward His disciples (d), and said, Behold My mother and My brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” We must bear in mind that the twelve had been chosen (x. 1–4) only a short time before.

We see then, from chapter xii., that there were four kinds of people present before Him when He delivered the parable of the sower, and the three succeeding parables; and that He then (v. 36) sent away His mother and His brethren, and the Pharisees and the common people, and took His disciples apart, and shut Himself up with them in a house, to discourse to them alone. The four kinds were:

(a) The Pharisees.
(b) His mother and brothers, and probably His sisters,
(c) The common people.
(d) His disciples.

As the parable was spoken before the harvest, it could not have been suggested by a sower going forth, in their presence, to sow the tilths. But it might have been occasioned by the four kinds of persons before His eyes. We will consider them after we have reviewed the adjuncts.

The seed is “the word of the kingdom,” the gospel of the only true kingdom, because it renders submission to the only true King. That kingdom is distinguished from those states whose frontiers are rivers or mountain chains; which have tyrants for rulers, and slaves for subjects; whose dynasties pass away, whose kings fall into dust, and whose palaces become mere heaps of ruins.

A seed swells; it bursts its husk; it takes root; it thrusts its tender blade through the hard clods, and grows and spreads and brings forth fruit. The words of the gospel are blessed seeds, in doing thus in hard hearts.

The sower is Christ Himself. He casts the seed abroad. He waters it with the dew of grace, and refreshes it with showers of mercies; and, if the land receives it into the heart, then it is He that “gives the increase,” for He is also the sun.

Consider the enormous power that there is in the tender seed, to rend the earth and pierce the clods which encumber it above, and to strike its little roots through the clods below, and to spring upwards into air and sunlight. Such a power is Divine; and such a power there is in “the word of the kingdom.” “Is not My word like fire, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?”

The seed, the word of the kingdom, was first sown by our Lord in Palestine; but the corn shall wave over desert sands and arctic frosts. “There shall be a handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon. His name shall endure for ever; men shall be blessed in Him, and the nations shall call Him blessed.”

The wayside denotes a tract where the ground has been trodden so hard that the seeds cannot sink in, but lie on the surface, an easy prey to all the fowls of the air. Our Lord’s explanation of “the seed by the wayside” is, that it is seed which has fallen on the heart of one “who heareth the word and understandeth it not.” The Sower experienced such a hardness in the hearts of those to whom He had preached. (Matt. xxvii. 21–25) Pilate asked, “Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you?” The chief priests and elders answered, “Barabbas.” Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto Him, Let Him be crucified. And the governor said, Why, what evil hath He done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let Him be crucified… His blood be on us, and on our children.” “Now Barabbas was a robber” (John xviii. 40).

“He heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not”; and then “Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word,” says Mark. Luke adds the reason, “Lest they should believe, and be saved.” The careless tread, the persistent tramp, the confused traffic of worldly thoughts and selfish aims, have hardened the soil, and made it impenetrable as a rock. Wayside persons are “without God in the world.” “God is not in all their thoughts.” The words of the gospel may be uttered to them; but they misunderstand the words. Therefore “immediately,” almost at the instant that they hear the words, the seed is picked up and carried away by the devil, so that the seed may have no chance of striking root in such an impenetrable heart. Some prejudice, some preconceived notion, some distraction of attention, some attractive play of the fancy, or the gusts of some absorbing passion, causes the misunderstanding of the word, and all the evil has been done. Such was the first class of our Lord’s hearers.

(a) THE PHARISEES (xiii. 4)

“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 wayside” (xiii. 19).

“The Pharisees went out, and held a council against Him, how they might destroy Him”; and “they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils” (Matt. xii. 14, 24). Luke adds (xvi. 14), regarding Christ’s preaching, “The Pharisees, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided Him.” The Pharisees knew the Old Testament Scriptures by heart. They were very religious men, and most strict and punctilious in the observance of the Mosaic law and of the ordinances of their religion. They were “exceedingly zealous in the traditions of the fathers” (Gal. i. 14). They were “taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and were zealous towards God” (Acts xxii. 3). They were also intimately acquainted with all the prophecies relating to our Lord and His advent. Such were the persons who composed the first class. The next class was:

(b) HIS MOTHER AND HIS BRETHREN (xiii. 5)

“He that hath 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 a while; for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by-and-by he is offended” (xiii. 20, 21). “And they were offended in Him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house [home]. And He did not many mighty works there [in His own country] because of their unbelief” (xiii. 57, 58). “For neither did His brethren believe in Him” (John vii. 5).

It seems indeed extraordinary, and will surely give us a shock to hear that His mother and brothers and sisters were the “stony places.” How can it be that she, who has been supposed to have been immaculate from the time of her mother’s conception of her, should be a “stony place”? And how could His brothers and sisters, whose very existence has been denied, have been other “stony places”? But let us boldly look the matter in the face.

The archangel appeared once to the mother of Jesus, before she had conceived Jesus by the Holy Ghost; and he never appeared again. He afterwards visited Joseph twice; but he never spoke with Mary again. It is urged that the archangel, during that one visit, called her “highly favoured” κεχαριτωμένη (Luke i. 28). But just so St. Paul says, of all Christians, that, in God’s grace, “He hath made us accepted” ἐχαρίτωσεν “in the Beloved” (Eph. i. 6). Hence Mary was not, by that expression, ranked higher than any other Christian. Stephen was placed in a higher rank; for we are told (Acts vi. 5) that he was “a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost”; while Barnabas (Acts xi. 24) was “a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost, and of faith.” The expression “full of grace” πλήρης χάριτος was never applied to Mary. It was reserved for our Lord (John i. 14). Therefore the Vulgate translation, “Ave, gratia plena!” (Hail full of grace!) is false. (The angel Gabriel instead greeting Mary with, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured…”)

The archangel told her she was “blessed” εὐλογημένη “among women”; and this again is an expression which is applicable to every Christian: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matt. v. 3); and “Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom” (Matt. xxv. 34). She was indeed highly favoured and happy; for her lot was that which every Jewish woman prayed for—to be the mother of the Messiah, as touching the flesh. The more therefore was to be expected of her, seeing that she had been highly favoured among women.

Jael, who treacherously murdered Sisera, the captain of Jabin’s army and the enemy of her nation, as he lay enjoying her hospitality, and sleeping confidingly in her tent, was called “blessed above women.” That was not said of Mary. If Mary had been conceived free from all taint of sin, or immaculate, as Jesus was, then she need not have looked up to Christ, and she would not have spoken of Him, in the Magnificat (Luke i. 46) as “My Saviour”; nor would she have added, as a reason, “for He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden.” Her “low estate” designated something very different from the pure and holy Being whom she was to bear. It denoted a child of Adam, conceived and born in sin; a child of Adam who was to be redeemed and saved through the atoning blood and intercessory mediation of her Child.

Mary had moreover, after the birth of Jesus, to offer the sin-offering for her purification; which she would not have had to do, except she were an unclean child of Adam, who required purification (Luke ii. 21–24). This she did, in obedience to the Mosaic law (Lev. xii. 2, 6, 7).

Mary heard the prophecy of Zacharias (Luke i. 67), and knew that John was to be “the prophet of the Highest,” and the forerunner of our Lord. She heard (Luke ii. 17) the prophecy of the angel to the shepherds, and knew that her Son was “a Saviour which is Christ the Lord.” Yet all that we are told of Mary (ii. 19) is, that she “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” She pondered them; she weighed and balanced opposing doubts. Even after finding her Son in the temple, and hearing His discourse (ii. 51), all His mother could do was to “keep all these sayings in her heart.” At Simeon’s prophecy (ii. 33) Mary only “marvelled.” At what did she marvel? At the prophetic announcement that Christ Jesus was to be “the salvation of all people,” and “a light to lighten the Gentiles.” The word “marvel” implies doubt, and a want of understanding that which excites the feeling of wonder.

Twelve years afterwards, when Jesus told His mother that He must be “about His Father’s business,” we still find in Mary the same deplorable state of mind (Luke ii. 49, 50): “She understood not the sayings which He spake unto them.” The utmost that could be said of her (Matt. [Luke] ii. 51) was, not that she believed, but that she stored His sayings in her memory. What! did she not understand who His Father was? Did she not then believe that the Almighty God was His Father?

About twenty years later, we find that Mary’s other sons did not believe on Jesus (John vii. 5), “for neither did His brethren believe in Him.” This unbelief of mother and brothers and sisters was prophesied by David, in that beautiful Psalm lxix., which all, by common consent, apply to Christ, and which our Lord applied to Himself (John ii. 17; comp. Ps. lxix. 9), and which the evangelists expressly applied to Him (Ps. lxix. 21; comp. Matt. xxvii. 34, 48; John xix. 29, 30). What did the psalmist prophesy? He makes Christ exclaim (v. 8), “I am become a stranger unto My brothers, and an alien unto My mother’s children.”

But let us return to Simeon’s prophecy. He said to Mary (v. 35), “A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also.” A sword, that is, of poignant sorrow and cutting remorse, after Christ’s death. We shall see presently, that she did not believe in Him during His whole life. She was a disbeliever, and therefore could not understand any of His sayings. She did not believe on Him until He was at the point of death. This was the view of many of the Fathers; and we shall afterwards show that it was the case.

Tertullian, for example, wrote (De Carne Christi, cap. vii.): “The brothers of the Lord did not believe on Him. His mother, in like manner, is shown not to have adhered to Him; whereas other Maries and Marthas were often in His company. By this their unbelief was to be at last made manifest.” Again on Matthew xii. 46 and Luke viii. 21: “Whilst Christ was preaching, was it without justice that He uttered these words, to strike at the unbelief of His mother and brothers who stood without?”

Origen (Hom. [17] xiii., vol. iii.) said: “What! do we suppose that when the apostles were offended or scandalised, the mother of our Lord was free from feeling offence? This was what Simeon prophesied, saying: And through thine own soul the pointed sword of unbelief shall pierce, and thou shalt be struck with the sharp edge of doubt.”

Basil, in explanation of the same passage, thus paraphrases it (Heb. iv. 12): “Yet, after all, there shall arise a certain wondering, even in thine own soul.” “Even thee also, who hast been instructed from above in the things of the Lord, some doubt shall darken.” When Hilary was asked, by a brother bishop, the meaning of that text, he replied (Ep. 260) that the sword which pierced her soul was disbelief, which smote her at the time of Christ’s passion.

Chrysostom (vol. viii., p. 125), mentioning the miracle at Cana of Galilee, says: “Not even did all the apostles know Him as He ought to have been known. Not even His mother, nor His brothers knew Him.” Again (vol. v., p. 225), “Why do I speak of many, whereas not even the Virgin, who conceived Him, knew the ineffable mystery; not even His brothers believed on Him.” Further (vol. vii., p. 467), “Now we see the foolish arrogance both of her and of them.”

Last, but not least, St. Paul (Heb. iv. 11, 12), in saying, “Lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief,” adds, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” In using those words he, as the Fathers held, had in his mind the prophecy of Simeon concerning the unbelief of Mary: “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” For the cause of her unbelief was the thought which was entertained by very many. It was as follows:

All the Jews believed that the Messiah was to come to save them from their enemies. They supposed therefore that the Messiah was to be a great, powerful, and splendid King; a more renowned and glorious Conqueror than David himself. Even Christ’s disciples thought this. They had this notion in their minds when they asked, “Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” Our Lord shattered that idea when He declared, “My kingdom is not of this world”; and the proof He gave of that assertion was that His true servants do not fight to promote and extend His kingdom. Fighting and persecuting, under the plea of spreading Christianity, is but a deceit of the devil. The so-called spiritual sword, as well as the temporal sword, are weapons that Satan uses. Christ’s servants are ever humble and meek and despised, as He was Himself.

Herod held the common opinion of the Jews as to the Messiah, when (Matt. ii. 3) “he was troubled” at hearing that the King of the Jews had been born. Therefore it was that he killed all the children of two years old and under, in hopes that his rival might be killed amongst them. He took the sword of Satan against the Divine Saviour of the world.

So all Jerusalem thought, and “was troubled.” Because all the Jews supposed that He had been born who would conquer Herod, and drive the Romans out of Judæa.

So Mary thought, with the rest, when she “rejoiced” that God had “regarded the low estate of His handmaiden.” She looked forward to her Son’s brilliant conquests, as if they had been already accomplished (Luke i. 51–55): “He hath showed strength with His arm; He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away. He hath holpen His servant Israel; in remembrance of His mercy; as He spake… to Abraham and to his seed.”

Mary did not know that her Son was to be poor, and humble, and destitute, and despised, and persecuted, and condemned to suffer the most shameful death of malefactors. Therefore she was most grievously disappointed, and could not believe that He was the Messiah. When she watched Him for thirty years, still a mere humble carpenter, without even any ordinary ambition or “an honest desire to better himself,” she supposed she had been deceived; she thought the archangel’s visit was a hallucination; the shepherd’s tale and Simeon’s prophecy seemed to her the folly of ignorance and the doting of old age. She refused to believe that her Son was God.

By reason of “the veil upon the hearts” of the Jews, they could not believe that the Messiah would come upon earth to suffer every possible sorrow which man could undergo, and “all the ills that flesh is heir to.” They looked for the fulfilment, at the Messiah’s first coming, of all those Hebrew prophecies which were spoken of the second coming. They were expecting a glorious kingdom and great wealth. Therefore it was that, when He came in great humility, as “a root out of a dry ground, without form or comeliness, with no beauty in Him that they should desire Him,” they “esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted” (Isa. liii.). When He foretold His death (John xii. 34) they retorted, “We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever:… who is this Son of man?” They could not see that only “through sufferings could the Captain of our salvation be made perfect” (Heb. v. 8, 9), because it is only through sufferings that any child of God can attain to everlasting bliss. It was as foolish of the Jews to expect Christ’s reign, and refuse to see the sufferings, as it is for us to dwell upon the sufferings, and refuse to see Christ’s reign.

That then was the idea of Mary His mother and of His brethren; and this explains the meaning of His words at the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee (John ii. 4). His mother told Him that the guests were in want of wine, and He said, “Woman, what have I to do with Me? [thee?] Mine hour is not yet come.” He not only called her simply “Woman,” but He commanded her not to presume to interfere in a work which she did not and could not understand. Mary may have felt compassion for the guests, who had no more wherewith to slake their thirst, and add to the pleasure of their entertainment. Or she may have pitied the bridegroom, whose duty it had been to supply sufficient wine. At all events she proffered a harmless request to her Son to attend to their innocent wants. His answer to her was, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?”—Woman, what right have you to interfere with Me, by making requests for others? I know their wants far better than you can do; and I will do what is best without your asking; and if you ask Me to do somewhat that I have not determined to do, you are seeking to deflect Me to do what is not the best.

Not only so; He intimated to her, prophetically, that the hour would come when He would be giving up the ghost, and when she at last would believe on Him and understand. “Then” (said He, as it were) “when My last moment has arrived, then at last you will turn to Me; you will at length approach My cross, just as the sword of poignant grief and remorse is piercing your heart, and riving asunder your soul; then you will see that I am truly the Messiah, and that I am your Saviour, and was your Son.” Mary understood the rebuke, and said to the servants, “Do not come to me to proffer a request for you; but go to Him, whose heart is large, and whose heart is Divine; and ‘whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.’” This should be sufficient to teach us that “there is none other name given among men, whereby we must be saved,” except the name of Jesus—Jesus, who said to all sinners, “Come unto Me,” and who never said, “Go to Mary, My mother.”

Augustine of Hippo wrote (De Fide et Symbolo, cap. iv., § 9): “When the Lord said, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come, He gave us to understand that, as being God, He had no mother.” Chrysostom affirmed (Expos. in Ps. xlix.) that the Virgin Mary was ignorant of the mystery of the incarnation; and again (Hom. in Matt. xii. 48) he says that she was guilty of “overweening ambition” and “arrogance” in sending that message which she sent to Christ while He was preaching; and that she did it to vaunt a supposed influence over Him which she did not possess.

Ambrose (Ad Rom., cap. i.) lays down a general and far-reaching principle in saying: “We are brought into the presence of kings, by lords and officers; because a king is, after all, a man, and knows not to whom he may safely entrust his realm. But in order to come to God, from whom nothing is hidden, and who knows the merits of all men, we need no middle-man, only a devout mind. For wheresoever such a one speaks to God, God will answer him.”

Epiphanius, writing against the Collyridian heretics, whose error was a cultus of the Virgin Mary, said (lib. iii., Hæres. 79): “Christ said to His mother, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. Lest any one should think that the Virgin was of a greater excellence than others, He called her Woman, as if prophesying the future species of sects and heresies which were to arise on the earth; lest persons, admiring too much that holy woman, should slip into this heresy of the Collyridians, and its deliriums. For, indeed, their whole doctrine is a mockery, and an old wives’ tale, and, so to speak, nothing but the working of a heresy.”

The expectation held by Mary and others of Christ’s worldly splendor and wealth, and the disappointment and doubt which ensued from observing His worldly condition, explain also the reply (Matt. xii. 46–50), in which He placed not only His disciples, but also “the common people” above His mother and brothers. Because the common people believed on Him; and His mother and brothers did not believe Him when He asserted that He was the Messiah, the Son of God. Observe that while He was preaching “to the people, His mother and His brethren stood without, desiring to speak with Him.” They sent someone in to bid Him come out; they would not themselves go in. Still less did they come to hear Him preach. They would not edge their way through the crowd of common people, who stood there rapt in attention; no, not they. They sent in a message, commanding Him to quit His preaching and come out. Then He said, “Who is My mother? and who are My brethren?” and, pointing to His disciples, He said they were His mother and brethren: “for whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.” Or, according to Luke’s version: “My mother and My brethren are these [the common people, or the disciples] which hear the word of God, and do it.” That is to say: My mother and brethren do not hear the word of God and do it; they do not the will of My Father; therefore I call them not mother and brethren; but I call these people by those endearing terms, because they do not turn their backs on the word of God.

The Apostle John is more explicit (vii. 5) when he says: “For neither did His brethren believe in Him”; and so were fulfilled the prophetic words of the royal psalmist (lxix. 8): “I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children; for the zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up.” Yes; His great zeal for God we all know. His mother and brothers knew it too; and so little did they believe that He was the Messiah, that they regarded Him as a madman! “The zeal of God’s house” had so completely absorbed Him, so completely was He filled with that fixed idea, that, as Mark the evangelist tells us (iii. 21), “When His kinsmen heard of it, they went out to lay hold on Him; for they said, He is beside Himself.” They regarded the Lord Christ as no better than a madman, as a dangerous lunatic who should be placed under restraint!

And the lawyers or “scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub”; that is, He is one possessed of the devil, which was the general theory concerning madness in those days. Then it was (v. 31) that His mother and brethren stood without, and sent in to cajole Him or compel Him to come out to them, in order that they might lay hands on Him, and take Him home by force to place Him in confinement. The beloved apostle (John vii. 20) relates how they said that He was possessed of a devil—that is to say, afflicted with madness; but (v. 31), on the other hand, “many of the people believed on Him, and said, When Christ cometh, will He do more miracles than these which this Man hath done?” The common people believed; the mother and brothers did not believe, but wished to seize and restrain Him as a madman!

A circumstance of a similar import is related by Luke (xi. 27, 28). While He was preaching, some enthusiastic believer, with a tendency to the Collyridian heresy, cried out, “Blessed is the womb [of the Virgin Mary] that bare Thee, and her paps which Thou hast sucked.” But the Lord Jesus rebuked her, saying, “Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.” By these words He again intimated that His mother did not “hear His word, and keep it.” With her material ears she had heard some of His words; but she had not kept them. She had pondered, because she doubted; and at length she resolved that He was mad. She “had no root [of faith] in herself,” and therefore she had only “dured for a while.”

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, wrote on this passage (De Sanctâ Virginitate, cap. iii.): “Therefore was Mary more blessed when she received the faith of Christ than when she conceived the flesh of Christ. Her maternal affinity would have been of no use to Mary, unless she had come to bear Christ more happily in her heart than in her womb.” Again (In Joan., tract. x., vol. iii., part ii., p. 369) he thus paraphrases our Lord’s words: “My mother, whom you have called blessed, is blessed by obeying the word of God; and not because the Word was, in her, made flesh.”

Let us now turn to Matthew xiii. 54 and Mark vi. 4. Jesus came to Nazareth, to His own country; and the people of that place, His fellow villagers, believing that He was a son of Joseph the carpenter, and brother of James, and Joses, and Simon, and Jude, and of a number of sisters—who were all children of Joseph—were greatly puzzled at His wisdom and at His miracles. What was the remark of Jesus? “A prophet is not without honor, save in His own country, and among His own kin, and in His own home.” Therefore, because all of the inhabitants of His native place, without any exception, were unbelievers—even His mother and brothers and sisters being disbelievers—therefore “He did not many mighty works there.” Doubtless (Gen. xviii. 32) if there had been but ten righteous persons in His native village, it would have been otherwise. If His mother, and Joseph, and His four brothers, and [say] four sisters had believed on Him, their combined testimony would have compelled all the other villagers to believe. But, like nearly all the other Jews, and like Herod, they had the idea in their heads that the Messiah was to be a great and splendid king, a great leader of men, and a triumphant conqueror. That was “the thought of many hearts.” Therefore they could not believe that the poor, humble, and meek Jesus was the Messiah; and therefore was His mother most terribly disappointed in Him, and so disgusted with Him that she thought Him mad.

It will doubtless have been remarked that, in Luke’s narrative of the parable of the sower (viii. 1–5), Jesus was proceeding, at that very time, on a missionary tour throughout Judea, “throughout every city and village.” How was Jesus accompanied? What escort had He? He went with His twelve disciples; and “certain women” went with Him, and “ministered unto Him of their substance.” Who were those women? We are expressly told that no woman accompanied Him who had not been “healed of evil spirits and infirmities.” Who were they? We have been given their names: “Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, and Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others.” Had He cast out devils from Mary His mother? We are not told. But her name has not been mentioned as one of those who went with Him. No; she held that He was mad, and should be put under restraint; and therefore of course she did not travel with Him and minister unto Him.

Luke then continues his narrative of the parable of the sower. But Matthew interposes the fact that, just before our Lord began to speak that parable, His mother and brothers stood without, ready to execute their plan of seizing and imprisoning Him as a lunatic. Their opportune arrival made up the four kinds of hearers before Him. But, before we examine the parable any further, let us come to the crucifixion.

His “hour had come”; and we learn that “all His acquaintance,” and even “the women who followed Him from Galilee, ministering unto Him [i.e., those who went the missionary tour], among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary [the wife of Cleophas] the mother of James [‘the Less’] and Joses and Salome, and the mother of Zebedee’s children [James and John].” They, we are expressly told, “beheld afar off” (Matt. xxvii. 55; Mark xv. 40, 47, xvi. 1; Luke xxiii. 49, 55, xxiv. 1, 9, 10; John xx. 1). Moreover we learn that only Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and Salome, went to the sepulchre of our Lord.

The Apostle John however interposes a fact between the “standing afar off” and the journey to the sepulchre (xix. 25): “There stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.” It was manifestly just before His death that they approached the cross; and perhaps it was then that His mother was pierced in soul with remorse at her hardness and unbelief during the last thirty years, and rushed forward just in time to see Him die. St. John proceeds: “When Jesus therefore saw His mother.” He had not been able to see His mother before; but she had approached at last, and now He saw her, disconsolate, and standing near Him, while remorse and grief and repentance filled her heart to overflowing, and welled up in her eyes; and He said to her, in His large compassion, speaking of John, “Woman, behold thy son.” Cyril of Alexandria, writing in the year 440 A.D. (Comm. in Joan., xix. 26, 27), tells us that Mary, during the suffering on the cross, failed, from doubt and remorse; and that our Lord committed her to John for instruction. But Jesus had magnanimously forgotten her disbelief; or rather, the memory of it had given way to love and compassion, and He said, “Woman, behold thy son!” Oh the tenderness of those words on the cross! He said, as it were, “Mother! thou hast not believed on Me while I was on earth. During My whole terrestrial life thou hast denied Me thy love! Thou didst deem Me mad! Thou wouldest have imprisoned Me. Now I go to My Father, and you will see Me no more on earth. Learn to love John, My dearly beloved disciple; love him for My sake!” At those words we can well believe that His mother was so overwhelmed with remorse—her soul was so pierced with that terrible sword, remorse—that she was unable to go to the sepulchre to gaze upon His lifeless corpse.

And Jesus? He came to earth in order to experience every possible kind of sorrow and misery (Isa. liii. 2–7), and He did experience it. But if His mother and brothers and sisters had believed on Him and loved Him, His home would have been bright and happy, and there would have been a poignant sorrow which many men have felt, and which He would not have felt. It was because He endured that bitter affliction throughout His life, because His loving heart was pierced by His mother’s antipathy, that, at the foot of the cross, the sword of remorse pierced His mother’s soul.

It is remarkable that Jesus, after His resurrection, first appeared to Mary Magdalene. He did not appear to His mother. The last sight of Him to whom she had caused such grief, the last memory of Him which ever after burdened her soul, was the pale, squalid, lifeless, gory form of One whom she had not loved till too late. In His glorified body she saw Him not.

He next appeared to Mary wife of Cleophas and mother of James the Less and Joses and Salome. For she too had accompanied Him and ministered unto Him of her substance. He did not appear to His mother. Those two Maries had attended at His sepulchre and learned His resurrection. Afterwards He appeared to His disciples; but not to His mother.

When the Holy Ghost was poured out at Pentecost upon a hundred and twenty brethren, His mother apparently was not there. She is not mentioned (Acts ii. 1; comp. i. 14, 15). Not a word is said about Mary His mother, except this slight mention: “These all [the eleven apostles] continued with one accord in prayer and supplication [in ‘the upper room where abode’ the eleven], with the women [who had accompanied Him], and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.” Then Mary His mother is allowed to pass altogether out of sight. The Scriptures are absolutely silent as to Mary, from a date preceding the first Pentecost. As to her fabled assumption into heaven, it is, of course, not even hinted at, except it be as one of the “old wives’ fables.” Neither do we find the slightest hint that Mary ever worked a miracle, or ever taught, or ever even interceded with Christ Jesus for others—except for more wine.

Let us now consider what our Lord says of those hearers of His whom He likened to stony ground. He was not speaking of a number of small stones intermingled with earth; but of a thin and shallow film of earth or sod over a large surface of rock, which is barely covered up and hid from view. The rest of the field may look green and sappy; but here the herbage is dwarfed, and yellow, and sickly. In the sun the film of earth soon gets warm, then dry and parched, then scorching hot. “There is no depth of earth,” and the roots are starved, and the plants dried up. “He heareth the word, and with joy receiveth it; yet hath he no root in himself, but dureth [only] for a while; for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by-and-by he is offended.” Only he who places implicit confidence in Christ, and trusts to Him entirely, can “endure to the end.” He only it is who has a root. So Luke says, “These have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.” The word may be listened to with attention; nay, more than that, there may be for a time a warmth of love and a glow of enthusiasm. Then comes a chilling period of desolation, and all the love and enthusiasm are lost. There may be a good profession, a splendid Magnificat, and even the beginning of a practice of religion; but it is only a precocious piety, and a fervent religiosity. Soon it is all withered and burned up, because there is no root of faith and trust in God.

(c) THE COMMON PEOPLE (xiii. 7)

“And others fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked them.” “This is he that heareth the word; and the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful” (Matt. xiii. 22).

Mark xii. 37: “And the common people heard Him gladly.”

Matt. xii. 23: “And all the people were amazed and said, Is not this the Son of David?”

Matt. xxi. 9: “And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.” In all this “the common people” saw the fulfilment of the prophecy (Zech. ix. 9): “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, thy King cometh unto thee; He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” Crowds had followed Jesus from city to city throughout Judea, and even into the desert. They thronged Him as He passed, hanging on His lips, and storing up every word that He uttered. Ten thousand throats now shouted “Hosanna to the Son of David!” and rejoiced greatly when they beheld their King coming unto them. Ten thousand swords would then have flashed out in His defence. Yet in a week those tongues were loading Him with infamy and sneers, and those very throats were crying out, “Crucify Him! crucify Him!”

“The cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches,” or, as St. Mark says, “the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.” This is a stage higher than Christ’s mother and brothers. The word was received with joy and attention by the common people; they received it with great warmth of zeal. They recognized the fulfilment of the word of prophecy; and they had faith and trust in God. But cares and lusts of other things entered in. Not perhaps the allurements of bribes (which the priests did probably give to the people to cry “Crucify Him!”); nor yet the siren attractions of wealth; but rather the cares and anxieties of poverty, the gnawings of hunger, the harassing of want, the fears for the future. Not the giddy whirl in the chase after pleasures was that which choked the word in their case; but the hard climbing upwards, the constant toiling in pursuit of a competence, or the arid and burning thirst for reputation. Some such attractions drew their thoughts away from a simple, childlike trust in Christ their King.

Jesus came unto them,—Jesus whose preaching they had heard, and whose miracles they had seen. They rejoiced in the Son of David, and cried, “Hosanna to the Highest!” Then He was to them the one good thing; but their minds turned away to other things, which appeared also to be as good or better. They set before themselves another end in life, and they were drawn off from the ultimate end of man. Their cares or desires, their love of riches or fear of poverty, these or the like strangled and choked the word. The word did not die out, but it “became unfruitful.” For such persons the death-bed is fearful, and the last moments are full of terror. The hollow echo from the open sepulchre then is, “Prepare to meet thy God”; instead of the sound in the calm evening air, “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth, for they cease from their labours, and their works [the fruits] do follow after them.”

(d) HIS DISCIPLES (xiii. 8)

“Other [grain] fell on good ground, and brought forth fruit.”

Matt. xiii. 11: “It is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.”

Ver. 16: “Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear.”

Ver. 23: “He that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth.”

Luke viii. 15: “But that on the good ground are they who, with an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.” They keep the word, as the seed is held which has fallen in a furrow. It lodges in their hearts. Then they “understand it”; they “comprehend with all saints [or holy ones] what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the love of God, which passeth knowledge.”

On the other hand, we are told that “the darkness comprehended it not.” The savage will give you handfuls of rough diamonds or native gold for a few glass beads. Why does he so? Because he does not understand their relative values. He does not rate them as he should. The wayfarer wanders out of his way by night over rugged paths and into dangerous morasses. Why? Because he does not know the way which leads to the place he would reach. Such is he who forgets the love evinced on Calvary, and scorns the guidance of our everlasting King, to seek the guidance of the Virgin Mary; and who looks to her alone as protector, advocate, and mediator, although she showed only unbelief during His life, and remorse on Calvary. “Good ground” denotes the contrary to such persons as the Virgin Mary; it denotes ground that is not hard and impenetrable, nor shallow soil over a hard rock; nor ground encumbered by thorns and choked by the growth of weeds. “Good ground” represents “an honest and good heart.” It is the very opposite to those of whom it is said, “Because they loved not truth, God has sent them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.”

This good ground “keeps the seed,” so that the winds of doctrine should not blow the grain away, nor “the fowls of the air” be able to pick it up. Such persons “bring forth fruit.” They “prove their faith by their works.” In them we perceive no ostentation; and yet they are ever doing works of mercy and undertaking unselfish labors. In them we observe no religiosity, no cant, no trust in ceremonies; but they lead Christian lives, “neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

How full of lessons for us is that parable of the sower, as every parable of our Lord is, when we understand it! There were four classes of persons before our Lord, and they suggested the parable to our Lord. To this day there are four classes of persons, with the same characteristics. There were then, as now, the Pharisees, who trusted to their religious observances; who were so punctilious in the performance of their religious duties, and fond of rites and ceremonies; so full of Scripture texts, and so ready to teach its lessons; so apt to make long prayers, and to fast, and to pose as godly and pious before men. Yet they were the lowest class of all. Their hearts were trodden down and made hard and impenetrable by worldly wayfarers, who rendered them as the wayside.

There were His mother and brothers and sisters, who enjoyed the honor and advantages of kinship with Him, but despised it. They might have learned all His most secret thoughts at home; but they cared not to do so. They might, day by day, have become imbued by His doctrines; but they thought Him mad, and believed not on Him until He was hanging, in the throes of death, upon the cross.

There were “the common people,” who heard Him gladly, and rejoiced in His doctrines, and hailed Him as their King. Yet, mobile vulgus (the fickle mob)! the fear of their rulers, and the desire not to anger those in power, overcame them; and the bribes offered for their support seduced them, and they cried out, “Crucify Him!” while they pleaded for a bandit’s unprofitable life.

Lastly, there were His disciples, with their “honest and good hearts,” who received His words, and kept them, and handed down “the form of sound words” for us to receive and keep. They brought forth fruit “with patience”; and, by their means, “God added to the Church daily such as should be saved.” For their faith or trust in Christ their King was often sorely tried; and their trials and tribulations “worked patience,” and patience gave experience under fresh trials, until they had learned the way that God deals with sons, before He reaps the harvest for His everlasting garner.

That was our Lord’s estimation of the four classes of persons before Him. We shall presently see how the Roman Church, in slow process of time, came to discard the gospel parable, and reverse the estimation by our Lord.

Continued in The Circumstantial Evidence