hich gives its natural strength to the production of
noxious weeds, falls under the Creator's primal curse and is nigh unto
burning. The point of the parable evidently is that God blesses the one,
that God destroys the other. In both cases the Apostle recognises the
Divine action, carrying into effect a Divine threat and a Divine
promise.

Let us see how the simile is applied. The terrible word "impossible"
might indeed have been pronounced, with some qualification, over a man
who had fallen under the power of evil habits. For God sets His seal to
the verdict of our moral nature. To such a man the only escape is
through the strait gate of repentance. But here we have much more than
the ordinary evil habits of men, such as covetousness, hypocrisy, carnal
imaginations, cruelty. The Apostle is thinking throughout of God's
revelation in His Son. He refers to the righteous anger of God against
those who persistently despise the Son. In the second chapter[99] he has
asked how men who neglect the salvation spoken through the Lord can hope
to shun God's anger. Here, he declares the same truth in a stronger
form. How shall they escape His wrath who crucify afresh the Son and put
Him to an open shame? Such men God will punish by hardening their
hearts, so that they cannot even repent. The initial grace becomes
impossible.

The four parts of the simile and of the application correspond.

_First_, drinking in the rain that often comes upon the land corresponds
to being once enlightened, tasting of the heavenly gift, being made
partakers of the Holy Ghost, and tasting the good word of God and the
powers of the world to come. The rain descends on all the land and gives
it its natural richness. The question whether the Apostle speaks of
converted or unconverted men is entirely beside the purpose, and may
safely be relegated to the limbo of misapplied interpretations. No doubt
the controversy between Calvinists and Arminians concerning final
perseverance and the possibility of a fall from a state of grace is
itself vastly important. But the question whether the gifts mentioned
are bestowed on an unconverted man is of no importance to the right
apprehension of the Apostle's meaning. We must be forgiven for thinking
he had it not in his mind. It is more to the purpose to remind ourselves
that all these excellences are regarded by the Apostle as gifts of God,
like the oft-descending rain, not as moral qualities in men. He mentions
the