The Parable of the Sower
Matthew xiii. 83 — 23.
THE first snowdrop, the first green leaf on naked hedges, the first few notes that sounding from bush or tree break the long, dreary silence — still more the first smile that lights up an infant’s face, its first gleam of intelligence, its first broken word, possess an interest and yield a pleasure peculiar to themselves. With more interest still — did the world hold such treasures — would we look on the first stanzas of Homer’s muse; the first attempt of Archimedes’ skill; the first oration of Demosthenes; the first sermon of Chrysostom; the first sketch of Rubens; though we could hope to see nothing in these but the dawn of talents, which, at maturity, produced their splendid works, and won them immortal fame. What gives the interest to these things, gives a peculiar interest to this parable. Others may be as instructive and as beautiful, but of all those - parables that he strung like pearls on the thread of his discourses, this is the first Jesus ever spake. As peculiarly befitting him who came to sow saying truths broadcast on the world, no subject could form a more
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suitable introduction; and with the divine skill with which he chooses, Jesus handles the topic. For though his first, this parable bears no trace of the feebleness and imperfections that mark other, the greatest, men’s earliest efforts — another illustration this of the words ‘‘ He spake as never man spake,” as with his foot on the waves, He walked as never man walked.
The circumstances in which our Lord was placed while — in addition to his look and voice — imparting to this discourse an impressiveness and liveliness which it loses within the dull walls either of church or room, very probably gave it its color and form. A crowd eager to catch every word that fell from his blessed lips, surging and pressing forward, besieged the house, where, now answering the cavils of the Pharisees, and now expounding the mysteries of the Gospel, he talked to the people. Kind and considerate, our Lord — since faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God — that all might hear left the house; and, followed by a rushing, gathering throng, takes his way to the shores of the neighboring lake. There is room enough for all there. On reaching it he enters a boat, converting it into a pulpit; and when by a few strokes of the oars in John’s or Peter’s hands, the boat is shot a short way out, he turns to address the multitude who throng the shore — sitting or standing, tier above tier, on its shelying sides. Lighted by the sun, its roof heaven’s own lofty dome, its walls the hills that girdled the lake, which, shining like a silver mirror, lay still and quiet at its Maker’s feet, what edifice of man’s ever offered preacher such a noble temple? The preacher was in keeping with the temple; no Barnabas, or Boanerges among the sons of the mighty to be likened to him who then and there, from the rude pulpit of a fishing-boat, consecrated shores, and fields, and hillsides for worship — teaching his servants to sow beside all waters, to be instant in season and out of season; and with all respect to the ordinary places and forms of divine service, to seize, without much regard either to time or place, every opportunity of preaching the blessed Gospel, and of saving them that are ready to perish. To fancy aright this scene, we must remember that the hills of Galilee, unlike those by some of our wild Highland lochs, do not descend right into the lake; nor, coming down steep and rocky, leave but a narrow footpath on the margin of the water. On the contrary, and especially on the western shores, between the feet of these hills and the lake, lies a broad belt of land, sloping gently down to the beach; and in our Lord’s days, when the country teemed with inhabitants, and the shores all around were studded with towns and villages, this was cultivated by busy husbandmen, and rewarded their labor with abundant harvests. Now, it was on one of these fields which rose behind the throng, that our Lord’s eye caught the object which suggested this parable. A man, very probably, like Martha, cumbered about many things, with a large family to support, with a heavy rent to meet, who thought he had no time, and perhaps had no inclination to drop work and join the crowd, comes forth from his house to sow. Jesus seizes the incident as the text for a sermon, a groundwork for instruction; i We THE PARABLES.
and waving his hand so as to turn the eyes of the assembly on the husbandman, He begins the parable, saying, ‘‘ Behold, a sower went forth to sow.”
This man, let it be observed, was not sowing a field like those around this city, where with hedge or wall the farmer fences his field from wandering feet; and by breaking up the rough parts of the ground, carefully weeding the foul, and feeding the bare and barren, gives a uniform aspect to the whole. Agriculture, stimulated by trade or the pressure of population on the means of subsistence, has made great progress since our Lord’s days — rising from a comparatively rude art to the position of a science. And to enter fully into the scene of this parable and the meaning of its different parts, we must therefore leave these fat and fertile plains, to transport ourselves to those remote districts of the country where old customs linger, and the natural features of the landscape resemble those of the shores of Galilee. We find what we want in many of our Highland glens — the shores of their lakes presenting a counterpart of the field whose different features are woven into this parable. There, leading to a well, or to the nook where the boat lies moored, or to a neighbor’s cottage, or to the parish church, we may see an old pathway skirting the borders of the field, or running right across it — in those places where the plough has rolled or rains have washed it down, the soil lies deep — elsewhere, on gravel or rocky knolls, it is poor and shallow — while here and there springing from cairns of stones, or parts imperfectly cleared and cultivated, whin and
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t nid rat ‘ id tT a the. nee broom, the wild rose, ferns, birches and dwarf-willows, lend a beauty to the field which is more picturesque than profitable. In the corresponding features of that field which lay in sight of his floating pulpit, Jesus saw striking emblems of the hearers of his own, and also of every other, congregation. As such he uses them; and bringing to his task the unrivaled skill which turned birds into teachers, drew the noblest truths out of the meanest subjects, and found in common things fresh texts for uncommon sermons, he reaped a harvest from this field other and better far than sickles had ever done. Its owner had never cultivated it to such purpose as the Great Husbandman. The preacher makes more of it than the plough; no part lies barren in Jesus’ hands; no golden crops that bowed their heads to the winds which swept the lake of Galilee like the truths he drew from its different soils! — in solemn and salutary warnings, in the revelation of his work, of his character, and of his gospel, making it yield a perpetual harvest of the bread of life, for the use of his own and all future ages.
THE SOWER.
Sheltered from the winds that played on the breezy summits of the mountains, the lake of Galilee reflected the face and form of Jesus — his image was mirrored in its glassy depths. And such a mirror is this parable; presenting in the sower a true emblem and image of Christ himself. Of that there can be no doubt, though he does not say so in as many words; saying, in his explanation of the parable, Iam the Sower, as, pointing on one occasion to a vine clasping in its arms a rock, which it clothed with broad leaves and hung with purple clusters, he said, I am the Vine; or on another occasion, pointing to the sun, as rolling out of the shadow of a cloud, or springing up from behind a hill, it bathed the whole landscape in golden glory, he said, I am the light of the world. With that kind and tender love which should touch and win our hearts, Jesus, leaving his Father’s bosom, descended on our world not only to procure, but to preach salvation; with his own hand to sow,.in the furrows that repentance had made, the seeds of eternal life. With this end in view he sent the Baptist to proclaim his advent, and prepare his way. In the order of things ploughing goes before sowing. ‘The soil must be broken up, and, stirring it to its depths, the iron must enter its bosom, that verdure in summer may clothe, and tall sheaves in autumn crowd the field. Now, what the man with the plough isto his fellow who, with a sowing sheet around him, casts the grain into the open furrows, John Baptist, denouncing vice, unmasking hypocrites, sparing neither prince nor peasant, priests nor people, but calling all to repentance, was to Jesus Christ. He went sternly through the land, like an iron ploughshare, — breaking up the fallow ground, and preparing men to receive the tidings of salvation which
Christ came to preach. Sovereigns do sometimes grant pardons; but, so far as I know, they never bring them. Little affected by the miseries of the wretch whose sighs and groans confined within stone walls never penetrate the palace to disturb the sleep or dash the
e pleasure of the court, kings content themselves with sending pardons through servants and cold officials; and such a thing as one leaving his palace, bending his steps to the prison, flying on wings of love, with his own lips to announce the tidings, and hear with his own ears, sound sweeter than finest music, the ery of joy from one plucked from the jaws of death, is untold in history. But Christ so loved us that he came himself with the good news. He who at a great price procured liberty to the captive also proclaimed it; and he who made this earth stood on it a preacher of salvation. No wonder Paul magnified his office, considering who had filled it; and no doubt it was the pleasure Jesus felt in the good news he preached which so glowed in his countenance, and lent such tenderness, and power, and pathos to his oratory, that a woman who heard him cried, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, — and his very enemies confessed, Never man spake like that man. Thus he sowed. Would that all his servants caught his spirit, and came to the pulpit wearing his mantle!
They are sowers also. Every preacher of the Gospel is a sower of the seed: and though the whole scene of this parable is now changed, and Galilee’slake lies among her silent hills, still a beautiful, but now a lonely sheet of water — though her shores are furrowed by no plough, and her sea by no fisherman’s keel — though her cities live only in the pages of history, and have no place but on the geographer’s map — though the traveler finds little there to remind him of Jesus but the waves that sustained his form, and the storms that as they sweep and vex the lake recall the memorable night when, waked from deep and dreamless slumbers, he rose to bid winds and waves be still — though eighteen hundred long years are gone, still [may make use of the words with which Jesus, began his first public discourse, when, having read a passage from Isaiah, he closed the book and lifted up his head to say, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears. When bells have rung out and the congregation, whether coming from hamlets and farms along sweet country roads, or from their houses through dry and dusty streets, are assembled, and as they wait in silence, a man enters the pulpit in robe of office or in ordinary attire, it may be said, as truly as on the day when Christ was the preacher and a boat the pulpit, Behold, a sower went forth to sow. It is the same seed we sow; and, in their hearts, congregations still present the same varieties of soil; but what a difference between this sower and his successors; his skill and our rudeness; his power and our weakness; his love and our cold affections; his burning zeal and our feeble fires; the light of the world and the flame of a taper — ay, the brightest star that ever shone in the firmament of the Church! Well may we say with Paul, ‘“‘ Brethren, pray for us!”’ “Except the Lord do build the house The builders lose their pain,
Except the Lord the city keep
The watchmen watch in vain.”’
The Spirit in Christ’s day, not yet given in showers, or otherwise than in scattered drops, even he himself
THE PARABLE OF TITE SOWER. pd iy §
sowed to little purpose; a few hundred converts the whole result of his labors, and of such labors, how little the joy, how scant the harvest? What, then, can sustain the preacher in his study or his pulpit, but faith in the promises, in God’s own word that, by his ‘own Spirit, he will with the foolish things of the world so confound the wise, and with the weak things of the world so confound the things that are mighty, that ‘““he who goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”
THE SEED.
This, as Christ explains, is ‘the word of the Kingdom,’’ — those saving, Bible truths of which Paul speaks, saying, Woe be unto me if I preach not the Gospel. His kingdom, it is “‘the kingdom” by way of excellence, there being no other of which, having seen the rise, it shall not see also the fall — the kingdom, in contradistinction to those which, rivers, shores, or mountains bound — many of which founded in injustice, and maintained by oppression, have tyrants for their rulers, and for their subjects slaves; and all of which, if I may judge the future by the past, have this course to run — born, they grow, arrive at maturity, flourish for a longer or shorter period, then begin to decay; and, sinking under the infirmities of age, or falling by the hands of violence, at length expire- — their palaces a heap of ruins, their kings a handful of dust,
As different from these in its character as in its duration, the kingdom here is that over which Jesus reigns — justice his law, love his rule, mercy his sceptre, peace his government, and the only weapon he employs to conquer his enemies and govern his subjects, the Bible. By that he rules; on that his kingdom rests — God’s inspired Word, true without any mixture of error, and suffering as little from the assaults of sceptics, secret or avowed, as yon castle rock from the storms which, raving and howling around its solid crags, have blown, but not blown it away.
In regard to the figure here. None — not leaven With its assimilating power, nor light with its illuminating rays, nor bread with its nutritious elements, nor water as it springs sparkling from a mossy fountain to parched and thirsty lips — none sets forth the word of God better than this of seed. For example: —
There 1s life in Seed. — Dry and dead as it seems, let a seed be planted with a stone-flashing diamond, or burning ruby; and while that in the richest soil remains a stone, this awakes and, bursting its husky shell, rises from the ground to adorn the earth with beauty, perfume the air with fragrance, or enrich men with its fruit. Such life there is in all, but especially in Gospel, truth. It lives when we die — as the old martyr exclaimed, when he stood bound to the fiery stake, Me you may kill; the truth you cannot! This is the incorruptible and immortal seed; and though ornaments, polish, illustrations, eloquence in sermons may help the end in view, as feathers do the arrow’s flight, or their wings the thistle-downs, as they float, sailing through the air, to distant fields, it is to the truth of God’s Word, blessed by God’s Spirit, that sinners owe their conversion, and saints their quickening and comfort in the house of God. The patient is healed by the medicine, not by what gilds it: the hungry are fed by the meat, not by what garnishes it; these fields crowded with joyous reapers and covered with golden sheaves show the life that was in the seed, not in the sower, or in the soil; and conversions being due not to the human talent but to the divine truths in the sermon, the greatest as well as the feeblest preachers have to say, Not unto us, not unto us; but unto thee, O Lord, be all the glory!
There is force in Seed. — Buried in the ground a seed does not remain inert, — lie there in a living tomb. It forces its way upward, and with a power quite remarkable in a soft, green, feeble blade, pushes aside the dull clods that cover it. Wafted by winds or dropped by passing bird into the fissure of a crag, from weak beginnings the acorn grows into an oak — growing till by the forth-putting of a silent but continuous force, it heaves the stony table from its bed, rending the rock in pieces. But what so worthy to be called the power as well as the wisdom of God as that Word which, lodged in the mind, and accompanied by the divine blessing, fed by showers from heaven, rends hearts, harder than the rocks, in pieces? ‘‘ He that hath my word,’’ says God, ‘‘let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord? Is not my word like as a fire, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?”’
There is a power of propagation in Seed. — Thus a single grain of corn would, were the produce of each season sown again, so spread from field to field, from country to country, from continent to continent, as in the course of a few years to cover the whole surface of the earth with one wide harvest, — employing all the sickles, filling all the barns, and feeding all the mouths in the world. Such an event, indeed, could not happen in nature, because each latitude has its own productions, and there’is no plant formed to grow alike under the sun of Africa, and amid the snows of Greenland. It is the glory of the Gospel, and. one of the evidences of its divine origin-that it can: and, unless prophecy fail, that it shall. There is not a shore which shall not be sown with this seed; not a land but shall yield harvests of glory to God and of souls for heaven. By revolutions that are overturning all things, by war’s rude and bloody share, and otherwise, God is breaking up the fallow ground, and ploughing the earth for a glorious seed-time. The seed that sprang up in Bethlehem shall wave over arctic snows and desert sands: and as every shore is washed by one sea, and every land that lies between the poles is girdled by one atmosphere, and every drop of blood that flows in human veins belongs to one great family of brothers, so in God’s set time men of every color and tongue shall cherish a common faith, and trust in a common Saviour. It was of that, and of this seed-time, the Psalmist spoke, when standing on the heights of prophecy, and looking along the vista of distant ages, he said, ‘‘ There shall be a handful of corn in the earth
THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER. yi
on the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon.” ‘His name,’ — referring to Christ — ‘‘ His name shall endure forever; men shall be blessed in him, and all nations shall call him blessed.” Thus the seer spake; and while we echo his devout ‘“‘ Amen and Amen,”’ let us pray, Even so come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!
THE SOIL.
Hearers represented by the Wayside. — ‘“When he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up.’’ Nothing more likely to happen! No care, with broad cast sowing, could prevent some seed falling on the pathway where, as that was beaten hard by the feet of passengers, it lay exposed to birds which, as all know, in spring, ere buds have burst, or sunny skies tempted insects forth, or genial showers called worms from their holes, often suffer from want of food. Made bold by hunger, our birds, some from the woods sailing on raven’s wing, others with snowy plumage from neighboring shores, attend the ploughman as he turns up the furrows and their food; so yonder in the fields of Galilee they watch the motions of the husbandman, and sweep down from rock or tree to piok up the grains that lie on the beaten road.
The explanation of this scene Jesus gives in these words: ‘‘ 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’’
—Mark says, “Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word” — Luke says, “‘ Then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.” Again I say, nothing more likely to happen. Some who carefully cultivate their fields, or their gardens, or their business, or their minds, take no pains whatever to cultivate their hearts. The Bible neglected, prayer, unless as a mere form, a plough passed over the surface, unused, no serious thought given from week’s end to week’s end to another world and their precious souls, their hearts are like ground ploughshare has never entered. Worse still, in a worse’state than an uncultivated waste, the world with its many, hurrying, heavy feet has been trampling over their poor hearts the whole week through — day by day, year by year, from early childhood, perhaps, to gray old age; till under the ceaseless tread and tramp and traflic of worldly thoughts, unholy desires, selfish and evil passions, they have grown harder with time, and become as unimpressible and impenetrable almost as a stone. They are without God in the world. He is in the sky above and in the earth beneath them, in the air they inhale and in the bread they eat, by their side when they walk and by their bed when they sleep, everywhere but where most of all he should be: he is not in all their thoughts; and bringing to his house hearts as hard as the flags they walk on, no wonder that their hearing and our preaching is vain!
The case as painted in this parable, and in truth, — for this is no fiction, — is worse still. So bad, in-THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER. yes.
deed, that but for the mercy that pities the poorest sinners, and the might that can turn a heart of stone into one of flesh, we could cherish no hope of doing them any good. Wherever there is a preacher in the pulpit, there is a devil among the pews, busy, watching the words that fall from the speaker’s lips to catch them away, and, by the idle, worldly, evil thoughts — the birds that pick up the seed — which he intrudes on them, to prevent the word making an impression or remove any it happens to make. What an illustration of this the speech which a dying, despairing man addressed to one under whose ministry he had sat for y twenty years! I have never, he cried, heard a single “, sermon! The minister, to whom his face was quite familiar, who had known him for years as a regular attender at church, looked astonished — fancied that he was raving under the delirium of his approaching end. No, not-at alt! The man was in his sad and sober senses. I attended church, he explained, but my habit was, SO soon as you began the sermon, to begin a review of last week’s trade, and to anticipate and arrange the business of the next. Now, in like manner, to a greater or less extent, Satan deals with thousands who occupy pews in the church. Doing so, distracting their attention, playing with their fancy, carrying away their minds to outside scenes of business or pleasure, ‘‘lest they should believe and be saved.” Thus he destroys souls, not in his own devilish haunts, but in the very house of God; wrecking them at the very mouth of the harbor; slaying them on the very steps of the altar; turning their attendance on ordinances into a means of hardening their hearts and
aggravating their final, dreadful doom, he, if I may say
so, seethes the kid in its mother’s milk. Since Christ’s
own presence did not scare the fiend from the room
where the disciples had met for the Church’s greatest
and most solemn rite; since, stealing into the chamber, he entered into Judas when his hand was dipped into
the same dish with Christ’s, how should we watch, keep
our hearts and keep our feet when we enter the house
of God, — in the words of Peter, Be sober, be vigilant, — because our adversary, the Devil, as a roaring lion,
walketh about seeking whom he may devour.
Hearers represented by the Stony Grownd. — In Spring, before the growth hides the ground, I have seen fields sown out with corn so thick of stones that they seemed the substitutes for soil. I have heard people wonder what could induce any man in his senses to cultivate such land; yet they. would wonder more to see the crops such soil, where the roots wind round the stones and bore away down in search of food, yields to the reaper’s sickle. It is not such ground, though misunderstanding the term stony ground some may suppose so, which is described here; but that which, while the other parts of the field are green and healthy is marked in summer by a yellow, sickly hue. There the soil lies shallow — spread like a skin on bones of: rock: and so, though a braird soon appears with fair and early promise of an abundant crop, the plants, having no depth of earth, are scorched by the sun; and, drawing no nourishment from the rock which their roots embrace, soon wither away.
In explanation of this part of the parable, our Lord says, ‘“‘ 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 a while; for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended,”’ or, aS it is given by Luke, ‘‘ They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.”’ These are alarming words. The matter is more serious than it was, since other than wayside hearers miss heaven. What have we here? the word listened to with attention; with more, much more than attention; with such feelings as a man under sentence of death hears the news of his pardon, or men on a wreck, lashed to the mast, hanging on the shrouds, hear the ery, the joyful ery, A-boat! a life boat! People count on heaven to whom the Sabbath is a weariness, and a sermon dulness; yet here are those who, though they receive the word, according to one Evangelist, with “‘joy,’’ and according to another with ‘gladness,’ come short of eternal life. Nor is the impression the truth produces a mere feeling, a passing emotion; vanishing with the tears it brings to their eyes; going down like the sea-swell when winds are hushed; dying away like some sweet strain of music when the hand is removed that struck the trembling strings. On the contrary the impression passes out into expression; they move out of the passive into the active state — making a good profession, and entering on the practice of religion. More, and more marked still, as the braird on shallow ground rises sooner than that which springs from deeper soil, the conversion (as it is supposed to be) of stony ground hearers is often marked by precocious piety, and a forward, flaming zeal. I have known most melancholy instances of that; and in all such cases, as some have fearfully illustrated, the last state of such persons is worse than the first. Let all of us take warning; let each prove his own work — whether he has in true, saving faith what is the root of the matter.
Paul had such hearers, whom he addresses, saying, ‘“Ye did run well, what did hinder you?” John Baptist had many such, and in Herod a distinguished one — the only king, so far as I know, who felt such interest in religion as to break through established routine and leave his court chaplain to listen to a street preacher. His conduct in this matter, the pleasure he felt in the ministry of the fearless and faithful Baptist, the many things he did at John’s bidding and advice, were full of promise — never soil was covered with a greener braird — never sky was lighted with a brighter dawn. He dured for a while; then fell away — and what a fall ! — quenching the hopes, which God’s people had begun to cherish of a pious king, in the blood of the martyred, murdered preacher. Not Paul, or the Baptist only, but our Lord himself had many such hearers. Crowds followed him; tracked his steps: from city to city, from shore to shore — hanging on his lips, thronging the streets through which he passed, and besieging the houses where he lodged. The day was once when ten thousand tongues would have
THE PARABLE OF TUE SOWER. oat
spoken and ten thousand swords would have flashed in his defence; and the day arrived when, during for a while, they fell away, and of the crowds that swelled his jubilant train, all, all deserted him — the only voice lifted up in his behalf coming from the cross of a. dying thief.
The explanation of these, and of all cases where religion disappears and dies out under the influence either of temptation or of persecution, lies here — they had no root, no true faith. Convictions were mistaken for conversion; admiration of the servant for attachment to his master; an appreciation of the moral beauties of the gospel for an appreciation of its holiness; the pleasures of emotion, or such gratification as taste enjoys in a beautiful discourse, for the pleasures of piety. Beneath such promising appearances there lies a stony heart; and so when the tests of suffering or of temptation are applied, they fall away, like the multitude who, offended at Jesus’ saying, walked no more with him.
Where however there is true faith, his people, thank God, need not much dread such trials. Resting firmly on the Rock of Ages, they are as Mount Zion which cannot be moved: ‘To borrow the figure here, the hotter the sun, if the heavens send it showers, and the earth give it soil, the plant grows the taller and the stronger — grace growing in converted hearts like corn in strong, deep, rich, well watered soils. The warmer the summer, the richer the harvest.
Those represented by the Greund with Thorns. — Of the seed our Lord says ‘‘ Some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them;” explaining it thus, ‘‘ He also that receiveth seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word, and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and,”’ as Mark adds, “the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.”’
The regions which lie mid-way between the equator and the poles are proved by experience to be most favorable to life and its enjoyments; and so those conditions which lie mid-way between the opposite extremes of poverty and riches, are found most conducive to man’s spiritual welfare. The proof of that which this parable, as well as many other passages of Scripture, presents, should warn both rich and poor of their peculiar dangers; and teach contentment to such of us as are fortunate enough to be neither harassed with the cares of poverty, nor tempted by the deceitfulness of riches. ‘The danger and deceitful influence of riches, their tendency to turn our thoughts away from another world, and drown such concern for the soul as providences or preachers may have awakened, in the cup of pleasure, is awfully expressed in the saying of our Lord, ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” Dr. Johnson put the point well when, on Garrick showing him his beautiful mansion and grounds, the great moralist and good man laid his hand kindly on the player’s shoulder, and said, “Ah! David, David, these are the things which make a death-bed terrible!”’
The equally dangerous and deadly influence of great poverty I may illustrate by a scene which I have not forgotten, nor can forget. Alone, in the garret of a dilapidated house, within a wretched room, stretched on a pallet of straw, covered only by some scanty, filthy rags, with no fire in the empty chimney, and the winter wind blowing in cold and fitful gusts through the broken, battered window, an old woman lay, feeble, wasted, gray. She had passed the eleventh hour; the hand was creeping on to the twelfth. Had she been called? It was important to turn to the best account the few remaining sands of life; so I spoke to her of her soul, told her of a Saviour — urging her to prepare for that other world on whose awful border her spirit was hovering. She looked; she stared; and raising herself on her elbow, with chattering teeth, and ravenous look, muttered “I am cold and hungry.’ Promising help, I at the same time warned her that there was something worse than cold and hunger. Whereupon, stretching out a naked and skinny arm, with an answer which if it did not satisfy the reason touched the feelings, she said, “If you were as cold and as hungry as I am you could think of nothing else.’’ The cares of the world were choking the word.
And so may, what Mark calls, “the lusts of other things’? do — in such as are placed in the happy medium between wealth and want, strangling good thoughts in their very birth: destroying the fairest promises of conversion. Let me illustrate this also by an exampie. Robert Burns, who had times of serious reflection, in one of which, as recorded by his own pen, he beautifully compares himself, in the review of his past life, to a lonely man walking amid the ruins of a noble temple, where pillars stand dismantled of their capitals, and elaborate works of purest marble lie on the ground, overgrown by tall, foul, rank weeds — was once brought, as I have heard, under deep convictions. He was in great alarm. ‘The seed of the word had begun to grow. He sought counsel from one called a minister of the Gospel. Alas, that in that crisis of his history he should have trusted the helm to the hands of such a pilot! This so-called minister laughed at the poet’s fears — bade him dance them away at balls, drown them in bowls of wine, fly from these phantoms to the arms of pleasure. Jatal, too pleasant advice! He followed it: and ‘‘the lusts of other things” entering in, choked the word.
Now, be it woman’s household cares or the. anxieties and annoyances of man’s business, the harassments of poverty or the enticements of wealth, the pursuit of fame or power, or pleasure, whatever in short it be that engrosses our attention, and, stealing our thoughts from God, and our hearts from heaven, counteracts the holy influences of Bibles, churches, sermons, Sabbaths, it is choking the word. We need to be on our guard. It is not the green and tender corn only which is smothered. I have seen the stately tree, with roots struck deep in the soil, and giant arms that had battled with the tempest, fall a prey to a low and ignoble creeper; fastening on it, rising on it, twining its pliant branches around the massive trunk, binding it more and more closely in its fatal embraces, the weak strangled the strong — to death. What but God’s great grace and mercy, the timely interposition of Heaven, in his peril and extremity saved King David from becoming a ruin, a wreck as great as Demas the apostate, or Judas the traitor? The devil’s hand was fastened on his throat, when Nathan appeared to loose it. Watch, therefore, and pray, that ye enter not into temptation — Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
Those represented by the Good Ground. — “He,” says our Lord, “that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth [ Mark says ‘‘receiveth]” it: which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, in some an hundred fold, some sixty, some thirty;’’ or as it is given by Luke, ‘ The good ground are they which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.’ In these words we are presented with certain salient, distinctive points of character, — touchstones, by which each man may, and should, try — himself. In doing little else: than indicating these, I remark of true Christians,
First, They receive the Word. In their case it does not, so to speak, go in at the one ear, and come out at the other. It does not fall on their minds to run off like water from a stone; it falls, but it is as seed into. a furrow, to lodge itself in their hearts. They do not: reject, but receive it.
Secondly, They understand it, — appreciate its value; feel its power; and ‘‘ comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.” But ‘“‘the darkness,” as the apostle John says, ‘‘ comprehendeth it not.’’ Did others comprehend, understand the truth in the highest sense of the term, would they act as they do? No! no more than a man, even a child, who understood the nature of fire, would walk into the burning flames. Did yonder savage know, or even dream of, ‘its value, would he give a handful of gold to purchase a few worthless beads, a looking-glass, some fragile, infant’s toy? Still less would yonder sinner, did he rightly understand the meaning of God’s wrath, of God’s love, of the cross of Calvary, of eternity, pawn his soul and peril its salvation for pleasures which perish in the using.
Thirdly, They keep the Word: as — in contradistinction to soils that puffed up by winter frosts throw out, or others that starve, their plants — good ground keeps the corn. Esteemed a treasure more precious than gold, yea than much fine gold, they lay the word in their hearts, locking it up there. — Its effect on others is temporary, as truths written on sands within the tide-mark where waves roll in, nor leave a letter there. On them its effects are permanent, not passing; deep, not shallow; the work of God’s Spirit, not of man’s powers ‘of persuasion; such as Job wished: ‘ O that my words -were written! O that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron pen in the rock for ever!”’ With hearts where the tenderness of flesh is associated with the tenaciousness of stone, as granite keeps the letters of its inscription, so they “‘keep the Word.”
Fourthly, They bring forth Fruit. — In the form of good works, of unselfish, gentle, and heavenly dispositions, of useful, noble, holy, and Christian lives, they bring forth fruit — some much; some little; but all some. ‘‘ Neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ,”’ they prove their faith by their works. So living, within a wide or narrow circle, when:they die they are missed: and their memory, while ‘‘the name of the wicked shall rot,’’ embalmed in their virtues and long preserved from decay, remains fragrant — as withered rose-leaves in a vase of spices.
Such are some of the points which distinguish real Christians from those who, however fair, are mere professors. The key to all lies here — they have, what is meant by the “‘good ground,” a good heart, — what Luke calls “(an honest and good heart,’’ — in other words a true and a new heart. Implanted at conversion, entailed on no heir, the natural inheritance of no man, this heart is found in those only who, born again of the Holy Ghost, have received the truth in the love of it. Its presence or absence explains what is otherwise inexplicable — in the same family, some reprobate and others religious; among disciples of the same Master, a Judas and a John; hanging one on each side of the same cross, an impenitent and a penitent thief; leaving the same church after listening to the same sermon, one sinner converted and another hardened. How important, — the term is too feeble, — how indispensable, absolutely indispensable, would men be saved, nor go to hell with a Bible hung like a millstone round their neck, this new heart! God can e give it. He has given it wherever it has been got. There is nothing in the grains of corn to change bad ground into good; but this seed has the wondrous power of changing the nature of the soil. Blessed of God, the truth sanctifies. What therefore though the heart by nature is like a stone? The finest soils of earth were once stone; and He who by the action of stormy waves and stupendous icebergs ground down the rocks which reared their naked, rugged heads above the waste of waters into soil where now the ploughman draws his furrows and flashing sickles reap their richest harvest, can work such changes on hearts of stone. And he will, if we ask him. ‘If a son,” says our Lord, ‘‘shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”