And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.
Read Chapter 14
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the high-ways and hedges, &c. Go forth, without the city-without Jerusalem, and beyond Judæa, and call the Gentiles to Christ.
Into the highways. "The partings of the highways" (S. Matthew 22:9), i.e. into the roads which lead to all nations and to the ends of the earth.
And hedges. The hamlets and villages, which were surrounded not by walls but by hedges. Hence we are taught that the Gospel is to be preached by the Apostles and their successors, even to savage and uncivilised nations; a duty which is recognised more and more by the followers of Christ.
Hence the servant does not say, as he added of the Jews in the22nd verse, "it is done as thou hast commanded;" because the work is not yet finished among the Gentiles; it is being done more fully from day to day, to be completed at the end or the world. "The meaning of this verse," says Titus , " Isaiah , that after the Israelites had been gathered in, the people of the Gentiles were ...
Compel them to come in. This is almost the only expression in the New Testament, which can give to the intolerant a plea for persecution. The spirit of the gospel is the spirit of mildness, and the compulsion which it authorizes to bring infidels or heretics into the Church, is such as we use towards our friends, when we press them to accept of our hospitality. The great pope, St. Gregory, forbade the Jews to be persecuted in Rome, who refused to receive the faith of Christ. "That is a new and unheard of kind of preaching "says he, "which demands assent by stripes. "(Haydock)
