It is not necessary now to refute formally the fond, feeble notion, that this parable proves the sinfulness of dissenting from the Church of England, 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 has 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 appreciating the analogies of nature, whatever may be their familiarity with ecclesiastical affairs.
We subjoin two practical lessons; the first, though in itself self-evidently true, depending for its suggestion here on the special view of the net which we have submitted; the second founded directly on the word and enforced by the authority of the Lord.
1. We of this generation, a miscellaneous multitude of old and young, good and evil, move about at liberty in the wide expanse of life, as fishes move about in the deep broad sea; but certain mysterious, invisible lines, have been let down into the water, and are silently, slowly creeping near, and winding round us. The net at first has a vast compass: a fish within its circle has as much room as it needs, and cares not for distant danger. Even when the cords begin to come near, he moves out of their way, and for his own comfort embraces warmly the opinion that these cords do not constitute a net. They are some loose things,—certain species of sea-weed, such as he has often seen before. He has gone round them or through them often and easily: he will do so again. But these approach persistently, and still from the same side: they lie between him and the open sea: to avoid them he must move in-shore. Getting now a nearer view, he descries some new features of the danger. These lines are crossed and knitted in a manner all unlike the sea-weed threads that streamed so long and straight and loose in the tide-way. A secret foreboding of some unknown doom arises: the alarmed captive, having now no further room to retire, darts wildly sea-ward, and is caught in the inevitable meshes of the encircling net. After a moment of violent but feeble struggle, he is laid still and dumb on the shore.
It is a picture touchingly, terribly exact of our own state. The net has been spread around us: the sharp knitted lines gradually approach and touch us. Shrinking from the clammy contact as we would from living snakes, we retire before them, and still find room. But the lines appear again, always on the same side. Our space grows narrower as we recede, from year to year, from week to week, from day to day, until at length we graze the ground and strike upon the eternal world.
That net cannot be removed or evaded; but it may be changed, so that you would not fear its approach. When we become new creatures in Christ, death approaching us becomes a new creature too, as the image in a mirror changes with the object that stands before it. This dreaded net becomes like a warm, soft, encircling arm, pressing a frightened infant closer to a mother’s breast.
2. Good and bad alike are drawn in company toward the shore, but the good and bad are separated when they reach it.
No lesson can be addressed to men more touching, more piercing than this. Nor is its penetrating power diminished by any deficiency of authority in the word that presses it home. It is the word of the Lord; not spoken in parables, but expressly given as the meaning of the parable that had been spoken. Its force is not weakened by any quiver of doubt in the Christian brotherhood as to the Master’s mind. All Christians hear this word and understand it alike: the whole assembly, when they hear it, bow the head and worship. On the authority of our Redeemer, and in terms so transparent that they afford no room for doubt, we learn that on the shore to which we are silently, surely moving, a separation infallibly exact and irrevocably final will be made between the evil and the good. As to the positive punishment into which the impenitent will be cast, while I simply receive all the words of the Lord, I shall take care not to obtrude many of my own. He spoke of matters beyond the cognizance of sense, and beyond even the range of imagination, and therefore in the nature of the case we cannot fully understand his words. But He who utters this solemn warning knows what we understand by “a furnace of fire,” and by “wailing and gnashing of teeth:” he intends to convey to us, regarding sufferings that are not only unknown, but in our present condition to us unknowable, as clear and deep and awe-inspiring an impression as our minds are capable of receiving. He leads our minds in that direction as far as they can follow; and, for the rest, darkness will cover it until “that day.” In the direction downward unto death, as well as upward unto life, the word holds good, “What thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter.” Either line, when it crosses the border of this life, “passeth all understanding.” I suppose it is as completely impossible for a human heart to conceive what God hath prepared for them that hate him, as to conceive what he hath prepared for them that love him.
It is eminently noteworthy here, that the clearest, most articulate, and most emphatic announcements regarding the positive punishment of the wicked in a future world which the Scriptures contain, were spoken, and spoken repeatedly, by the lips of the Lord Jesus. Wherefore? Did the love of the Redeemer sometimes wax cold? Did even he, through the provocations that he met in his ministry, sometimes forget to be gracious? No; never at any time did his heart melt more with tenderness for men than when he proclaimed that the wicked shall be cast into outer darkness. He not only intimated, as in this parable, that such sentence would be pronounced, but declared that himself would pronounce it: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory ... then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. xxv. 31–41). He who uttered these words pitied and loved sinners; he loved them while he spoke these words; he loved them although he spoke these words;—because he loved them, he spoke these words. The thing which these words declare is true: Christ did not change the eternal law of God that evil shall not dwell in his presence: since this law remains beyond the line of the present world to meet every man as he enters eternity, it was kind to give us warning. It would have been unkind, and therefore unlike the Lord, to conceal the dreadful fact, and leave unwarned sinners to learn it first by feeling it. It was love, overflowing love in the heart of our Brother, that drew these warnings repeatedly from his lips. The reason why he tells us that the wicked shall be cast away, is that we may never be cast away. The good Shepherd would compel the sheep to flee to the fold by sending out his terrors, when they refused to be more gently led.
There is a machine in the Bank of England which receives sovereigns, as a mill receives grain, for the purpose of determining wholesale whether all are of full weight. As they pass through, the machinery, by unerring laws, throws all that are light to one side, and all that are of full weight to another. That process is a silent but solemn parable for me. Founded as it is upon the laws of nature, it affords the most vivid similitude of the certainty which characterizes the judgment of the great day. There are no mistakes or partialities to which the light may trust: the only hope lies in being of standard weight before they go in.
I gratefully recognise tender, overflowing love, in the faithful testimony of Christ regarding the punishment of the wicked: it is meant to compel sinners now to take refuge in his righteousness.[29]
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