THIRTY-SIXTH SERMON.
ON THE ACCUSATION OF THE CRIMINAL IN THE JUDGMENT.
Subject.
The criminal shall be accused in the judgment of God.—Preached on the fifth Sunday after Epiphany.
Text.
Colligite primum zizania, et alligate ea in fasciculos ad comburendum.—Matt. xiii. 30.
“Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn.”
Introduction.
According to Barradius, Cornelius à Lapide, and other commentators, the cockle signifies the wicked and those who love the world; the wheat the just and pious servants of God. The reaper is in every case death. The place in which the cockle is to be burnt is hell. The barn where the wheat is to be gathered is heaven. The time in which the cockle is to be publicly tied in bundles to be burnt, and the wheat gathered into heaven, is the last day of the general judgment. If we look at the fields in the spring-time we see weeds of different colors—white, red, yellow, blue, coming forth like the most beautiful flowers and adorning the whole field. A child that has not yet seen much outside the house of its parents might easily imagine them to be real flowers, and think that they have been planted purposely, while it would look on the green stalk of the corn just showing above the ground as useless grass. But when the harvest-time comes the apparent flowers are seen to be but useless weeds, and what seemed to be grass is known now as the fruitful stalk that bears the nourishing food and is carefully stored away. So it is in the world, my dear brethren. If we consider on one side the life of the wicked man and the worldling, we find in it much pomp and splendor in dress, food, drink, sleep, gaming, amusements, pleasure-seeking, and luxury—things that worldly-minded people de sire at least, if they cannot have them in reality. And if on the other side we consider the lives of the good and pious, we see in
