to Il tuol .. people," may you go to y "WHOM NOT HAVING SEEN YE LOVE.” I WILL love Thee, all my treasure! love Thee without measure, I wind will love Thee right at length. Oh, I will love Thee, Light Divine, Alas! that I so lately knew Thee, Thee, so worthy of the best; The more I love, I mourn the more That I did not love before! For I ran, and wander'd blindly, Seeking some created light; I had wandered from Thee quite; I will praise Thee, Sun of Glory! aged "་་, W Will praise Thee that Thy words, so blest, Spake my sin-sick soul to rest! In Thy footsteps now uphold me, Never let me ling'ring stay, ati an I Be my heart more warmly glowing, 20 to e well, I will love, to-day, to-morrow, Johann Angelus. Jo? I debut THE PARABLE OF THE DRAW NET. TO FROM THE REV. W. ARNOT ON "THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. bas 550 0,921 dispon of if Tol bort al 7w Again, the kingdom dom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and kind; which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, Who but gathered of good into y vessels, cast the bad away. So shall be at the and gathered a end of the world: 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." (Matt.xiii. 47–59.) ration of the human race, are drawn from their element in this world, mi nistering spirits, on the lip of eternity that lies nearest time, receive them and separate the good from the evil. I shall enumerate here some of the reasons which commend this interpretation, and notice some of the ob jections which may be urged against it. Among the reasons which com with the sentence of death hanging mend it, 1 1. It assumes, according to the facts of the case and the express terms of the scripture, that the same persons who draw the net also separate the worthy from the worthless of its contents on shore. 2. In owning this along with Olshausen, it owns also that the angels who separate the good from the evil at the end of the world are angels, and does not with him explain them away into the human ministry of the Gospel. 3. It is perfectly congruous with the habits of fishermen and the cha racter of the instruments which they employ. As fishers drop the net. over a certain space, and without making any pretence of discrimina ting between good and bad, drag all within that space to shore; so the invisible agents whom God employs in His universal administration, whether laws or angelic spirits or both combined, make no distinction between good and bad, when by successive castings of the net, as it were, they enclose section after section, generation after generation, of human kind, and draw them slowly, silently, but inevitably to the edge of this life, and over it into the unseen world. I scarcely know in the whole range of nature an analogy more true and A 1726 over them, yet living and moving freely, and looking for many days. As the circle of the net grows narrower the fishes gently give way before it, and so enjoy for a little longer the sensation of floating at liberty in the water; and it is not until they touch the ground that they become thoroughly alarmed. The struggle then is sudden, earnest, short, unavailing. Thus are mankind, without respect to their vice or their virtue, indiscriminately drawn to the margin of this world's life, and, willing or unwilling, thrown into an unknown state beyond. 4. If any struggles are made against the encircling net during the slow, solemn process of drawing-any efforts on the part of the captives to leap out into freedom, they are made, not by one kind in displeasure at being shut up with another, but by every kind indifferently in displeasure at being shut up at all. Like the indefinite terror of mute fishes when they feel the net coming closer in, is the instinctive alarm of human beings when the hand of death is felt gradually contracting the space in which the pulses of life the pulses of life are permitted to play." to I shall now notice and endeavour estimate the principal objections, far as I am able to anticipate them, which may be urged against as the interpretation that I have sug- ་ ་ Some expositors have made a simi-, lar mistake in regard to the parable of the leaven, and the one error will throw light upon the origin and nature of the other. Observing that the Lord in another place represents the doctrines of the Pharisees and the Sadducees as a leaven, some have concluded that the leaven in the parable also must point to the spread of error, and have expounded it accordingly. All judicious critics, however, clearly see and distinctly explain in that hat case that that the leaven which h was in other instances employed to represent the diffusion of evil, was in the parable employed to represent the pre-. valence of good. Although leaven in one of Lord's discourses pointed to hypocrisy and unbelief, they teach, and teach correctly, that leaven in another of His discourses points to the progress of saving truth. 2. But has not the Lord said in this parable, as in all the rest of the group, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea? He has; yet the fact does not prove that He meant to represent the Church by the net, and the labour of the apos tles, by the spreading and drawing of the net. The formula, The kingdom of heaven is like,” relates to the parable as a whole, and not specifically to that feature of the parable which lies next to it in the record. For the evidence of this proposition it is not necessary to go further than the two immediately preceding parables. In one, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure;" in the other, it is like unto ai merchant-man."" If, The same discrimination should be instead of looking to the picture as a exercised here. It is quite true that whole, you insist on finding the ana-1 the Lord at one time, and in one logue of the kingdom or the Church discourse, compared the ministry of specifically in the net, you must, int apostles in winning souls to the like manner, in the parable of the labour of fishers in the ordinary exer- pearl, find that the Church is specificise of their craft; but that does not cally compared to a man, whereas in prevent Him from employing at another, the preceding example it was com time the universal sweep of the draw-pared to a treasure. In these examed net to represent the silent, slow, and ples it is demonstrated that ther sure encompassing of human kind, analogy instituted refers to the picture I which draws them, as a whole, and not to the single bad 66 feature that first occurs in the par- the end of the world. Yes, as the rative. L Lord said, the parable sheds light on the kingdom, but the portion of the kingdom on which the light falls is the close. It brings out in strong relief the final separation between those who remain distant and those who are brought nigh. In view of the decisive fact that the Lord gives an interpretation, and does not interpret the casting and drawing of the net to mean the visible Church and its operations-does not interpret the casting and drawing of the net at all, I cannot assent to the demand that the general formula of 1 The Lord intimates in the introductory formula that He intends by this parable to give yet another lesson regarding the kingdom of heaven; and it must be determined otherwise than by the mere juxtaposition of the clauses, on what aspect or period of the kingdom He will by this similitude throw light. Six consecutive lessons on the subject have already been given. He has taught already what hinders the kingdom in the deceitfulness of human hearts, and the machinations of the wicked one; what its inherent power is, and what its contagious all-introduction common to all the seven pervading influence; what is its value in the estimate of those who know it; and how much they willingly part with in order to obtain the treasure. What new and additional characteristic of the kingdom does the Master teach His disciples in the seventh and last parable of the group-the parable of the draw-net ? The closing lesson about the kingdom relates to the closing scene of the kingdom-the separation of the wicked from the good on the great day. From the order of the subjects in the series you might expect this; from the picture actually presented you are logically led to infer this; but, especially, you know this from the spontaneous explanation then and there given by the Lord. Although, according to His usual me, thod, He completed the parabolic picture, filling up the fore and back grounds with the objects that natu-scious partiality, use it as an instrurally lay there, yet when He comes toment practically to blot out the line the interpretation, He passes in silence which the Lord has elsewhere drawn all these preparatory features,band between the Church and the world tells the meaning of the last only-It is not necessary now to refute the separation of the wicked from the formally the fond, feeble notion, that just through the ministry of angels at this parablet proves the sinfulness of parables should be held to determine what specific portion of the extended picture, or whether any, represents the Church in relation to the character of its members and the duty of its ministers.... I have suggested a line of thought, which I believe to be relevant and profitable; but I would not dare to plant my foot on this exposition as the ground of any doctrine or any duty. It is because others, both in ancient and modern times, have pretended to find on unillumined side of this parable a light to guide Christians authoritatively in points that vitally affect the kingdom of Christ, that I have entered at so great length into the inquiry. the I confess frankly that I count it a good and necessary work to wrench this scripture from the hands of those who, whether in ignorance or con dissenting from the Church of Englande established by the State and prelatic in its government. Even although we should concede that the visible Church and the character of its constituents are the subjects with which the parable deals, it would be childish trifling on the part of a Churchman to quote it as of authority against Nonconformists. In the same Bible stands the precept," Come out from among them and be ye separate;" and the Nonconformist hàs as good a right, that is, no right at all, to quote it as of authority by itself against a Churchman. The matter cannot be settled, on either side, by general announcements like these, although they are selected from the Scriptures. Every case must be judged upon its own merits. The question whether a Dissenter has separated from a corrupt community in order to obey his Lord, or has rent the Church to gratify his own pride, must be determined in each case by an appeal to the facts: no solution satisfactory to intelligent Christians, or to grown men, can be reached by superciliously throwing a text in your neighbour's face. This remark is made upon the supposition that the parable bears upon the point, which I think is more than doubtful. Those who gravely counsel the fishes to abide peacefully within the net, and not to leap out pharisaically and schismatically because foul fish abound within the same enclosure, certainly show themselves incapable of appreeiating the analogies of nature, whatever may be their familiarity with ecclesiastical affairs. Arndt closes his exposition of this parable with a hymn, which I subjoin, not only for the sake of the doctrinal 'statement regarding the ground of a sinner's hope contained in the first verse, but also, and still more, for the union of simplicity and solemnity in the conception of future punishment contained in the second "Christ's blood and righteousness And enter rest In heaven. "Help, Lord, that we may come, To thy saints' happy home, Where a thousand years "Bishops" in the Apostolic Churches,tainty than this, that the Bishops we considered in a late number the question whether their episcopate was over a diocese or over a congregation and in conclusion we gave it as our opinion that no historical position referred to in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles of Paul, were the pastors of particular Churches, and not the pastors of the pastors of many Churches. We now proceed to enquire |