But it is clear that this allegory relates only to the kingdom of heaven; therefore, assuredly no man can assume a right from thence to fetter or imprison his neighbor who should come to dine with him without being properly dressed; nor do I believe that history furnishes us with any instance of a prince causing one of his courtiers to be hanged upon such an occasion; and there is little reason to apprehend that when the emperor sent his pages to any of the princes of the empire to invite them to an entertainment those princes would fall upon the pages and kill them.
The invitation to the marriage feast is a type of the preaching of the gospel, and the murder of the king’s servants is figurative of the persecution of those who preach wisdom and virtue.
The other parable is that of a private person who made a great supper, to which he invited many of his friends,[66] and when he was ready to sit down to table sent his servants to tell them that all things were ready; but one excused himself by saying that he had bought a piece of ground and must needs go and see it, an excuse which was not admissible, as no one goes to visit their lands in the night-time; another said he had bought five yoke of oxen and was going to prove them; he was as much to blame as the other, since no one would go to prove oxen at supper-time; the third said he had married a wife and could not come; this last was certainly a very good excuse. The master of the house being very angry at this disappointment, told his servants to go into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor, and the maimed, the halt and the blind; this being done, and finding that there was yet room, he said unto his servant, “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them (that you find) to come in.”
It is true that we are not expressly told that this parable is a type of the kingdom of heaven, and the words “compel them to come in” have been perverted to very bad purposes; but it is very evident that one single servant could not forcibly compel every person he met to come and sup with his master; besides, the company of people so compelled would not have made the supper very agreeable. “Compel them to come in,” therefore, means nothing more, according to commentators of the best reputation, than pray, desire, press them to come in; therefore, what connection, for heaven’s sake, can prayers and invitations have with persecution?
But to take things in a literal sense, is it necessary to be maimed, halt, and blind, or to be compelled by force to enter into the bosom of the Church? Christ says in the same parable: “When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy rich kinsmen”; but did any one ever infer from this that we should never dine or sup with our friends or kinsmen if they happen to be worth money?
Our Saviour, after this parable of the feast, says: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother, his wife and children, his brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple,” etc. But is there any person living so unnatural as to conclude from this that he ought to hate his father and mother and his nearest relations? And is it not evident to one of the meanest capacity that the true interpretation of these words is: hesitate not between me and your dearest affections?
The following passage in the eighth chapter of St. Matthew is also quoted: “Whosoever heareth not the word of God shall be like to an heathen, and like one who sitteth at the receipt of custom”; but certainly this is not saying that we ought to persecute all unbelievers and custom-house officers; they are frequently cursed indeed, but they are not delivered up to the arm of secular power. And so far from depriving the latter of any part of the prerogatives of citizens, they are indulged with the greatest privileges; and though their profession is the only one condemned in Scripture, it is of all others the most protected and favored by every government. Why then should we not show some indulgence to our brethren who are unbelievers, while we load with benefits our brethren the tax-gatherers?
Another passage which has been grossly abused is that in St. Matthew and St. Mark, where we are told that Jesus being hungry in the morning, and coming to a fig tree which had no leaves—for it was not the time of figs—Jesus cursed the tree and it immediately dried up.
This miracle has been explained in several different ways, but not one of them appears to authorize persecution. Though a fig tree could not be expected to bear fruit in the beginning of March, yet we find it blasted; but is that a reason why we should blast our brethren with affliction in all seasons of the year? When we meet with anything in holy writing that may occasion doubts in our vain and inquisitive minds, we should pay it all due reverence, but let us not make use of it to countenance cruelty and persecution.
The spirit of persecution which perverts everything has also strained in its own vindication the story of Christ driving the buyers and sellers out of the temple, and that of his sending a legion of devils out of the body of the man possessed with an evil spirit into two thousand unclean animals; but cannot any one perceive that these two instances were no other than acts of justice, which God Himself deigned to execute for a contravention of His law? It was a disrespect shown to the house of the Lord to change His dwelling into a market for buyers and sellers. And although the Sanhedrim and its priests might permit this traffic for the greater convenience of their sacrifices, yet the God to whom these sacrifices were offered might, doubtless, though under a human shape, overturn this profane practice. In the same manner might He punish those who brought into the country whole troops of those animals which were prohibited by the law of which He Himself deigned to be an observer. These two examples, then, have not the least connection with persecution for religion’s sake; and the spirit of non-toleration must certainly be founded upon very false principles when it everywhere seeks such idle pretexts.