All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:
Ver. 34. And without a parable spake he not, &c.] A singular judgment of God upon them for their contumacy and contempt of the gospel: so it is now upon many people, that God taketh sometimes from their most illuminate teachers, clearness and perspicuity of expression, for a punishment of their unthankfulness and rebellion against the light. Thieves and malefactors that affect darkness (because the light discovers their evil deeds) are worthily cast into a dark dungeon: so here, Ezekiel, by the just judgment of God upon them, was no more understood by his hearers than if he had spoken to them in a strange language. Heraclitus, for his obscurities, was called the Dark Doctor, and it seems he affected it; for he often commanded his scholars to deliver themselves darkly. a A minister is studiously to shun obscurity in his doctrine. But if nevertheless he prove obscure and hard to be understood, let the people see a hand of God in it, and rather accuse their own impiety than the preacher's inability.
a Ab obscuritate dictus est οκοτεινος. Ad hoc etiam discipulos erudiebat, cum illud saepius ingereret, Σκοτισον, obscurus esto. Joh. Bodin.