And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.
Ver. 45. They perceived that he spake of them] Who told them so, but their own guilty consciences? Every man hath a domestic chaplain within his own bosom, that preacheth over the sermon to him again, and comes over him with, "Thou art the man." Conscience is said to accuse or excuse in the mean while, μεταξυ αλληλων, Romans 2:15. In the interim between sermon and sermon, conviction and conviction. So that personal and nominal application is therefore needless, because every man hath a discursive faculty within him, applying several truths to every man's particular uses. And, ubi generalis de vitiis disputatio est, ibi nullius personae est iniuria, saith Jerome: Where the discourse against vice is general, no man can justly complain of a personal injury. By preaching, Christ many times smites the earth, Isaiah 11:4, that is, the consciences of carnal men glued to the earth. God's words hit them full in the teeth, and make them spit blood. Now if they rage, as tigers, tear themselves at the noise of a drum, if they fly in the faces of their teachers, and seek revenge upon them, they are commonly cast into a reprobate sense, and seldom escape the visible vengeance of God.