material and moral facts or laws,
spring up naturally in human converse; and further, that the truth
expressed in parables, if not in all cases immediately palpable, is
better fitted both to arrest attention at first, and to imprint the
lesson permanently on the learner's memory. But the use and usefulness
of the parable in this respect are obvious and undisputed; it makes
spiritual truth more attractive and more memorable. The difficulty does
not lie on this side; it adheres to a second function of the parable, in
some respects the opposite of the first,--the function of concealing the
doctrine in judgment from closed eyes and hardened hearts. In some
instances and to some extent, the parables, while they conveyed the
doctrine to one portion of the audience, concealed it from another. In
those cases "they are like the husk which preserves the kernel _from_
the indolent, and _for_ the earnest."[6] It is the method, not unknown
in other departments of the divine government, of making the same fact
or law at once profitable to the humble, and punitive to the proud. Not
only the Lord's word, but also the Lord himself, partakes of this
twofold character, and produces these diverse effects; the same rock on
which a meek disciple surely builds his hope, is also the stone over
which scoffers stumble in their final fall.

[6] _Gerlach in Lange._

The judicial or penal function of the parable was indicated by the Lord
in express terms when he explained the meaning of the sower in private
to his own disciples (Matt. xiii. 11-17; Mark iv. 10-13). In these
cases, however, the wilful blindness of men's hearts appears as the sin
which brought down the punishment, and the obstacle which kept out the
blessing. Every word of God is good; but some persons maintain such an
averted attitude of mind, that it glides off like sunbeams from polar
snows, without ever obtaining an entrance to melt or fructify. To one of
two persons who stand in the same room gazing on the same picture in the
sunlight, the beauty of the landscape may be fully revealed, while to
the other, on account of a certain indirectness of position and view, it
appears only as an unpleasant dazzling glare. So, of two Jews who both
eagerly listened to Jesus, as he taught from the fishing-boat on the
Lake of Galilee, one found in the story the word of the kingdom,
refreshing as cold waters to a thirsty soul, while the other, hearing
the same words, perceived nothing in them