22.

Here they say; "It is true both kinds did once grow throughout the world, but the good wheat is diminished, and confined to this our country, and our small communion." ¹ But the Lord doth not allow thee to interpret as thou wilt. He who explaineth this parable Himself, shutteth thy mouth, thy sacrilegious, profane, and ungodly mouth, that is counter to thine own interests, while thou runnest counter to the testator, even as he calleth thee to the inheritance. How doth He shut thy mouth? by saying, "Let both grow together until the harvest." ² If the harvest hath come already, let us believe that the wheat has been diminished. Though not even then shall it be diminished, but gathered up into the barn. For so He saith, "Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into My barn." If then they grow until the harvest, and after the harvest are gathered in, how are they diminished, thou wicked, thou ungodly one? I grant that in comparison with the tares and chaff the wheat is less in quantity; still "both grow together until the harvest." For "when iniquity aboundeth, the love of many waxeth cold;" ³ the tares and the chaff multiply. But because throughout the whole world wheat cannot be wanting, which "by enduring unto the end shall be saved, both grow together until the harvest." And if because of the abundance of the wicked it is said, "When the Son of Man cometh, thinkest thou, shall He find faith on the earth?" ⁴ and by this denomination are signified all those who by transgression of the law imitate him to whom it was said," Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return;" ⁵ yet because of the abundance of the good also, and because of him to whom it was said, "Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven, and as the sand of the sea;" ⁶ is that also written, "Many shall come from the East and West, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, in the kingdom of God." ⁷ "Both" then "grow together until the harvest," and both the tares or chaff have their passages in the Scriptures, and the wheat theirs. And they who do not understand them, confound them and are themselves confounded; and in their blind desire they make such an uproar, that they will not be silenced even by the clear manifestation of the truth.