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The Parable Of The Instructed Scribe

Matthew xiii. 52.

Therefore, every Scribe instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a man that is an Householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.

A Scribe instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven is one who is initiated into the goods and truths of the Word of God, from which the Kingdom of Heaven is derived.

The Householder is the Lord Himself, because He is the sole proprietor of all things in the Grand House called Heaven and the Church.

Every one becomes like unto this Householder, in other words, every one becomes an image and likeness of God, that is to say, of Jesus Christ, by the reception of His Wisdom and Love, Wisdom being an image, and Love a likeness, and a likeness particularly in this respect, that man in such case wills and acts freely as from himself, as God wills and acts freely from himself; but yet under the full acknowledgement that the all, both of will and action, is from God.

The treasures of the Great Householder, Jesus Christ, are all the Divine Goods and Truths of His own Most Holy Word; and the things new and old, which He bringeth out of those treasures, are the interior and exterior Goods and Truths which He dispenses to mankind; the interior things of the Holy Word being called new, and the exterior things being called old, because the interior things are always filled with new life from their Living Fountain, whilst the exterior things, being more remote from that Life, are, comparatively, called old.

We learn from this parable, that in receiving into our minds and lives the Goods and Truths of God's Most Holy Word, we ought to imitate the Divine Giver of that Word, by not separating the letter from the spirit, nor the spirit from the letter; in other words, by not dividing between the internal and external sense of the Divine Law.

Thus we learn, that we ought to cherish Goodness and Truth, in all their degrees, both internal and external, and to apply them to the regulation of our lives, since internal Good and Truth, without external, are imperfect and powerless, as external Good and Truth, without internal, want their life and fulness.

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