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 but incoherent and tantalizing enigmas. For the right comprehension of the parables in particular, as of revealed truth in general, a receptive heart is a qualification even more peremptorily and essentially necessary than a penetrating understanding. "If any man is willing to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God" (John vii. 17).