ractical question of discipline. If they were
prepared to admit that there should be absolutely no discipline--that no
man should be shut out from communion, however heretical his opinions or
vicious his practice might be, their task under the general principle of
interpretation which they have adopted would be very easy. The command
is clear, cast none out of the "field," however fully developed their
wickedness may be, until the angels make the separation between good and
evil at the consummation of all things. If the field means the Church,
the exclusion of the unworthy by a human ministry is absolutely
forbidden. But the expositors are not willing altogether to abandon
discipline. They maintain, on the one hand, that this parable deals with
and settles the question of the right to eject unworthy members from
the communion of the Church; and on the other hand, that while it
condemns excessive and puritanical strictness, it permits and justifies
the ejection of those who are manifestly unworthy. Most of the
commentaries that have come under my notice betray on this point
weakness and inconsistency. If by this feature of the parable the Lord
gives a decision on Church discipline, he forbids it out and out, in all
its forms, and in all its degrees. The separation suggested, he permits
not to be attempted at all, until he shall charge his angels to
accomplish it at the end of the world. In my judgment, to contend for
the right of excluding some of the ranker tares, after admitting that
this parable bears upon the subject of ecclesiastical discipline, tends
not only to perplex the student, but to throw a reflection on the
authority of the Word. I see only two doors open: either cease to hold
that the field is the Church, or cease to claim the right of excluding
any from communion.

Good old Benjamin Keach, in a portly volume on the parables, addressed
"to the impartial reader," and sent "from my house in Horsley Down,
Southwark, August 20. 1701," indicates with clearness and simplicity his
own judgment; but, overawed by authority, seems afraid at the sound of
his own words: "The field is the world; though it may, as some think,
also refer to the Church. Marlorate saith by a synecdoche, a part for
the whole, it signifies the Church; though this seems doubtful to me,
and I rather believe it means the world." The second of two reasons
which he submits as the grounds of his opinion is,--"Because tares, when
discovered to be s