(by this cautious method of instructing them) convert and save their souls.
Thus there was in this way of teaching, something favour- able, and something judicial. The people set themselves against the truth ; therefore our Lord withheld his plainer instructions from them : but he did so, not with a view to increase, but rather to remove, their blindness.]
Having fixed the meaning of the text itself, we proceed, in answer to the Apostles' question, to,
II. State more particularly our Lord's reasons for teaching by parables —
In the whole of his ministry our Lord was influ- enced by benevolence. More especially in addressing the people by parables, he sought,
1. To counteract their prejudices —
[They were determined to reject every thing that opposed their prejudices, or their passions, and on no account to admit the idea of a suffering Messiah. The only way therefore of bringing them to acknowledge any truth, was to present it to them in such a view that they should not discern its real scope. When they saw the bearing of any question that was put to them, they would not return an answer^: but, when they could see no reference to themselves, they answered readily enough S; and by this means they were often made to criminate them- selves before they perceived the tendency of their own acknow- ledgments'^. As David in the parable of the ewe lamb condemned with most excessive severity a conduct somewhat similar to his own, and thereby pronounced sentence against himself, when he would have denied or extenuated his guilt, if it had been charged home upon him in a more open way ; so, by taking them unawares, our Lord often succeeded in con- founding, and sometimes in converting, those, who would have rejected his testimony at once, if they had observed at first the full scope of his instructions.]
2. To prepare them for fuller instructions —
[Our Lord was willing to impart knowledge, if the people had been capable of receiving it : but it was necessary that they who had lived in such gross darkness, should be brought
should he converted. But surely, this is a motive whicli we would not willingly ascribe to him, especially when his words so easily admit of a very different interpretation.
f Matt. xxi. 23—27. s Luke vii. 43.
h Matt. xxi. 28—32. and xxii. 41—46.