kes absolutely no distinction between good and bad; it can
discriminate only between great and small. The net is laid down in the
sea along a certain line: twelve inches beyond that line fishes good and
bad are swimming, which it does not touch; while an inch within that
line are fishes good and bad which it draws indiscriminately to the
shore. I can perceive no likeness between this and the kingdom of
heaven, if you understand thereby the visible Church and the efforts of
the ministry.

3. One of the chief practical lessons which expositors ancient and
modern have drawn from the parable, under this view of its meaning, is
extremely incongruous, and even grotesque. Churchmen cling to it as a
sheet anchor in controversy with Nonconformists. If this notion were
adopted only by mediaeval monks and modern Romanists, I would reckon it
unworthy of notice; but it is received and uttered again as genuine at
this day by grave and learned Protestant theologians of Germany, and
notwithstanding the solidity and good sense which characterize his
"Notes" generally, is formally reproduced in its boldest form by Dr.
Trench.[26]

[26] "They [this and the parable of the tares] convey, too, the same
further lesson, that this fact [the actual intermixture of evil in
the visible Church] does not justify self-willed departure from the
fellowship of the Church, and impatient leaping over or breaking
through the nets, as here it has often been called; but the Lord's
separation is patiently to be waited for, which shall surely arrive
at the end of the present age."--_Dr. Trench, Notes on the
Parables_, p. 133. This is a style far too loose for a critical
exposition of Scripture. If the actual presence of tolerated
impurity within the Church does not justify a "self-willed"
departure from her communion, does it justify a departure that is
not self-willed, but a solemn separation in order to carry out the
will of the Lord? The assumption that the separation of the English
Nonconformists was "self-willed," of course begs the whole question.

The practical lesson, then, which these expositors draw from the parable
is, that disciples of Christ are not justified in leaving an organized
Church with which they were connected, and forming a Christian community
beyond its pale, on the ground that unworthy members are tolerated
within its communion. This is, indeed, not the true state of the
question as between the Establish