Mark 4:26

Ver. 26-29. Our evangelist alone taketh notice of this parable, nor hath it any particular explication annexed. If we expound it with relation to what went before, the scope of it seemeth to be, to let us know that God will have an account of men for their hearing of his word, and therefore men had need to take heed what they hear, as Mark saith, and how they hear, as Luke phrases it: thus Mark 4:29 expounds the former, with the help of our Saviour's exposition of the parable of the tares, on which he had told us, Matthew 13:39, The harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. There is another notion of God's harvest, Matthew 9:37 1 Thessalonians 4:35, where God's harvest signifies a people inclined and prepared to hear and to receive the gospel. But withal this parable of our Saviour's may be of further use to us. So is the kingdom of God, &c.; that is, Such is the providential dispensation of God, in gathering his church by the ministry of the word, as men's casting of seed into the ground: when the husbandman hath cast his seed into the ground, he is no more solicitous about it, nor doth he expect to discern the motion of it; but having done what is his part, he sleepeth, and riseth again, leaving the issue to God's providence. The earth bringeth forth fruit of herself, yet not without the influence of heaven, both in the shining of the sun and the falling of the dew and of the rain; neither doth its fruit appear presently in its full ripeness and perfection, but gradually is made perfect; first there appears the blade, the herb, then the ear, then the grain, which by degrees groweth to its full magnitude, and then hardeneth, and then the husbandman putteth in his sickle: so the ministers of the gospel ought faithfully to do their parts in sowing the seed of the gospel, then not to be too solicitous, but to leave the issue unto God. Where the seed falls upon good ground, the word will not be unfruitful: the minister of the gospel doth not presently discern the fruit of his labour, he at first, it may be, seeth nothing of it, but is ready to cry out, I have laboured in vain; but though the seed lie under the clods, and seems choked with the corruption of man's heart, yet if the soul be one to whom it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, it shall spring out, the word will be found not to be lost; but first will spring the blade, then will appear the ear: the fruit of the word preached appears by degrees, sometimes at first only by creating good inclinations in the soul, and desires to learn the way of the Lord more perfectly, then in acts further tending to perfection, at last in confirmed habits of grace. It is not thus with all, in some the word brings forth nothing but the blade, a little outward profession, which dwindles away and dies; in some the profession holds longer, but they never come to confirmed habits of virtue and holiness. But there will come a harvest, when God will come with his sickle to reap the fruit of his seed sown; therefore men had need take heed what and how they hear. This I take to be the sense of this parable.