DISCOURSE XL. PART I. MATTHEW xiii. 29. But he faid, Nay; left while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. To understand the text we must look back as far as the twenty-fourth verse of this chapter, where our Saviour puts forth a parable, comparing the kingdom of heaven to a man who fowed good feed in his field; but while men flept, his enemy came and fowed tares among the wheat. When they both fprung up and appeared in the field, the fervants, under a furprise at the disappointment, report it to their master; Sir, didft not thou fow good feed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He faid unto them, An enemy hath done this. The fervants reply, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? In answer to which follow the words of the text, But he faid, Nay; left while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Take away the dress of parable, and what our Saviour here delivers amounts to this; there will al VOL. II. ways be a mixture in the world of good and bad men, which no care or diligence can prevent; and though men may and will judge, that the wicked ought immediately to be cut off by the hand of God, yet God judges otherwife, and delays his vengeance for wife and just reasons; fparing the wicked at present for the fake of the righteous; referving all to that great day in which the divine juftice fhall be fully displayed, and every man fhall receive according to his own works. The view of this parable has, in fome parts of it, I think, been mifapprehended. It is intended to represent the neceffary condition of mankind, fome being good, fome bad; a mixture which, from the very nature of mankind, is always to be expected; and to justify God in delaying the punishment of those fins, which all the world think are ripe for vengeance. This being the view of the parable, it is going out of the way to confider the particular causes to which the fins of men may be afcribed; for the question is not, from whence the fins of men arife; but why, from whatever cause they fpring, they are not punished? In the parable therefore our Lord affigns only a general reason of the wickedness of the world, An enemy hath done this. But there are, who think they fee another reafon affigned in the parable, namely, the careleffness of the public governors and rulers, intimated in those words, But while men flept, his enemy came and fowed tares among the wheat: and this text always finds a place in fuch complaints. And there is indeed no doubt, but that the negligence of governors and magiftrates, civil and ecclefiaftical, may be often one caufe of the ignorance and wickedness of the people: but that it is affigned as a cause in the parable cannot be proved; for thefe words, while men slept, instead of charging the fervants with negligence, plainly fhew, that no care or diligence of theirs could prevent the enemy. Whilft they were awake, their care was awake alfo, and the enemy had no access: but fleep they muft, nature requires it; and then it was the enemy did the mischief. Had it been faid, while men played, or were careless, or riotous, that would have been a charge upon them; but to say, while men flept, is fo far from proving that their negligence caused it, that it plainly proves their diligence could not prevent it. For, what will you fay? Should hufbandmen never fleep? It is a condition upon which they cannot live, and therefore their fleeping cannot be charged as their crime. This circumftance therefore in the parable is to fhew, not the fault of the husbandmen, but the zeal and induftry of the enemy to do mischief. Watch him as narrowly as you will, yet ftill he will break through all your care and diligence. If you do but step afide, compelled by the call of nature, to eat, to drink, or to sleep, he is ready to take the opportunity to fow his tares; and the ground, which will not answer the husbandman's hope without his toil, and labour, and coft, will produce the ill feed of its own accord, and yield but too plentiful a crop. Farther, the character of the hufbandmen throughout the parable agrees to this expofition: when they faw the tares spring up, they betrayed no consciousness of guilt or negligence; they did not come with ex cufes to their mafter, but with a queftion, which plainly speaks how little they mistrusted themfelves: Sir, didft not thou fow good feed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? Would any fervant, who had fuffered the field to grow wild by his own laziness, have expoftulated the case in such a manner? The master, far from charging any of his family with the fault, lays it at another door, An enemy hath done this. Upon which the fervants, not fparing of their own pains, were defirous to go to work immediately, and to root out all the tares at once. What is there in all this that fuits with the character of a lazy, idle, negligent fervant? What is there that does not speak a care and concern for their master's affairs? As foon as they difcover the tares, they go directly to their mafter, and inform him, and offer their fervice to root them out. In this particular he corrects their judgment, though he does not condemn their diligence. And, in truth, one main view of the parable is to correct the zeal of thofe, who cannot fee the iniquity of the world without great indignation; and, not being able to stop or to correct it themfelves, are apt to call upon God to vindicate his own caufe, by taking the matter to himself, and punishing the evil doers. The men who have this zeal and warmth against iniquity, are not commonly the idle, negligent rulers; nor can we suppose that our Saviour would paint the fame men in fuch different colours in the compass of a fhort parable, representing them idle and careless at the twenty-fifth verfe, active and zealous at the twenty-eighth. Befides, as was observed before, to charge the wickedness of the |