But if, on the
contrary, they did not believe God, then they would set to work, in
their disobedient self-conceit, to do that which he had forbidden
them; and the certain result would be that, with the tares, they
would root up the wheat likewise.
Note here two things. First, it is not said that there were no tares
among the wheat; nor that the servants would fail in rooting some of
them up. They would succeed probably in doing some good: but they
would succeed certainly in doing more harm. In their short-sighted,
blind, erring, hasty zeal, they would destroy the good with the evil.
Their knowledge of this complex and miraculous universe was too
shallow, their canons of criticism were too narrow, to decide on what
ought, or ought not, to grow in the field of him whose ways and
thoughts were as much higher than theirs as the heaven is higher than
the earth.
Note also, that the Lord does not blame them for their purpose. He
merely points out to them its danger; and forbids it because it is
dangerous; for their wish to root out the tares was not 'natural.'
We shall libel it by calling it that. It was distinctly spiritual,
the first impulse of spiritual men, who love right, and hate wrong,
and desire to cultivate the one, and exterminate the other. To root
out the tares; to put down bad men and wrong thoughts by force, is
one of the earliest religious instincts.
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