The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 43

1. Make your choice o.nd act upon H. If there is no better pearl, no higher treasure than what you can win by devotion to busineos and living for yourself, then by all means choose that and make the most of it. But if you think that Christ was right, if you foresee that what is outside his kingdom must perish, and that he bas gathered within it all that is worthy, all that is enduring, then let the reasonableness and remonstrance of this parable move you to show some eagerness in winning that great treasure. 2. If you have this treasure, do not murmur at the price you have paid for it. Having what worlds cannot buy1 you will surely not vex yourself by longing for this or that which the poorest-spirited slave of this world can easily obtain.-D. Vere. 47-50.-The parable of the net. This parable, the last of the series, directs o;ir thoughts to the completion of the kingdom. "So shall it be in the end of the world ; " this is the starting-point of the interpretation. We are to consider what part the king- dom of heaven is to play then; when other kingdoms have played their parts; when things are being settled for eternity according to their value to God. It makes no practical difference in the application of the parable whether you make the net the Church, or simply the progress of all things towards eternity. Our Lord would have us consider .the consummation of a.II things, when the great net shall at last be drawn to shore, when there shall be no more sea, no ebb and flow, especially no mingling of bad and good in an obscure and confusing element; but decision and separation, a deliberate sitting down to see what has !>ecn made of this world by us all, and a sum- ming up on tho.t eternal shore of all gains and results, and every man's aim made manifest:by his end. L THIB PARABLE SUGGESTS Til.AT WE ABE ALL INEVIT.AllLY ADVANCING. Our con- dition in this respect bears a close resemblance to fish enclosed in a net. At first, while the net is wide, they frisk and leap and seem free, but soon they discover that their advance is but in one direction, and when they halt they feel the pressure of the net. So it is with ourselves. We must go on; we cannot break through into the past; we cannot make time stand still till we resolve how to spend it. The years spent in indecision, in doubt, in self-seclusion, cannot now be filled with service of God and profit to our fellows. II. THE NET SUGGESTS THE ILEA OF ENTANGLEMENT. Looking at fish in a net, you see many thot are not swimming freely, but caught in the meshes and dragged on. Many have this interpreted by their own experience. They feel daily the pressure of the net ; ,their rosition is not altogether of their own choosing, and now they discharge its duties bees.use they must, not because they would. Such a condition may be sinful or sinless. . If the duties required of you be sinful, then have you not recognized the detriment to your own soul? Do you not reflect that what was good when first entangled me.y be landed broken, bruised, a.ad useless? But if the duties required of you a.re not violations of God's Law or offences to your own conscience, then rest satisfied with them, till God shows you e. way of escape. Do not toss and struggle in the net, but quietly set yourself to make the most of the condition you have unfor- tu:ilately fa.lien into. It may be your duty to continue in a position it Willi not originolly your duty to enter. Just because it seerus in many points unsuitable, it may ea.ii out deeper qualities within you-a patience that would otherwise have been undeveloped in you, a knowledge of man and of God that enlarges and mature■ your spirit. By very strange influences e.nd means a.re we passing onwards, and we would often fain escape from the gentle compulsion by which God draws us to our end and bliss; and there- fore must we bear in mind that however entangled and tied up we are and prevented from our own ways and directions, this present is, after all, only the drawing of the net, and not the time of our use. We a.re pressing to a shore where there is room and time enough for the fulfilment of every human purpose and exercise of every faculty. Ill. Age.in, a third thing the net shows us is THE MIXTUBE IN IT. "It gathers of every kind." And until it is fairly landed it is impossiblii to say whether the weight is to be rejoiced in or no. It is the glory of the kingdom of heaven tho.t there is no man to whom it is n-at 1ppropriate. It does not only gather those in whom it finds some- thing congenial, a naturu.l 1,usceptibility of temperament inclining them to devotion; but it gathers in of every.kind because it is suited to the.t moral condition in respect of which there is no diJierence of importance betwern one man and another, But thiii 44 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MA TTIIEW. [ou. xm. 1-68.