"The field," which was to be sown both with tares and with wheat, is "the world" (ὁ κόσμος): that is to say, a world-wide kingdom is to be formed, embracing the genuine and the false-hearted subjects of Christ under one visible name; both are to "grow together until the harvest;" and the harvest is the end of the world, when "the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." The same truth is taught in the parable of the net cast into the sea, that gathered of every kind; and the same period is fixed for the severance of the good from the bad—"the end of the world." Similar is the import of the parable of the mustard seed, and of the leaven—holding forth the truth as it is in Jesus, in its progressive advancement, till, like a tree springing from the least of seeds, it ultimately overshadows "the world;" and, like leaven, working its way through the mass of human society, it at length leavens it all.

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