parables to explain how this truth grows in the minds, and he takes for example a little child, before its mind is filled with errors of the priest as a figure of heaven. Not that the mind contains any wisdom, but like the soil of the earth it is pure from foul seeds or error, ready to receive the true seed of wisdom. He says, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven:” this truth could live and grow in the child. Not that heaven or kingdom was happiness, but happiness was in the one who entered into it. But as the kingdom grew, false ideas would creep in; for it is not to be supposed that Jesus ever intended to make His kingdom perfect till every enemy or error should be destroyed. So he likens it unto a great many things, to a sower in a field, and an enemy sowing in the same field. Here you have good seed and bad seed, truth and error, good and evil. But the good was good, and the bad was bad, and they never mingled.
I will take a person as he would come to Jesus, and show how He preached the kingdom of heaven. Take the little child. Jesus asked how long this child had been in this way, (Mark IX, 21). When told, He said, “Do you believe all things possible with God?” They said, “Yes.” So then He cured the child, not by a “power,” but by His wisdom, for He knew what He was about. So their faith in Him kept the child from having any more fits. All His cures went to prove His theory of the Christ, which He preached and illustrated by parables, and proved by showing Himself to the multitude after they believed Him dead. The identity of it was a body, and the doctrine of it was its blood. So He says, “if you eat not my flesh and drink not my blood, you have no life in you.”
I will give an illustration. Suppose a person comes to me to learn navigation. I say, “You must be born again, for your ideas of navigation are all false.” He says, How can I learn or be born again when I am so old? I answer, “You must be born in the science of navigation.” This he cannot understand, but still he wishes to learn. So I begin to explain. As he begins to learn, this is called the love that is spoken of with which God so loved the world. Now, love for wisdom prompts him to learn, and as he learns his happiness is full. This is entering into heaven. This is the heaven God has prepared for every one who will try to learn, and if every one will search for God or Wisdom God will not cast him off.
