thee no wrong; didst thou not agree with me for a penny?"

"Friend" is commonly a word of address, as it would be among ourselves, from a superior to an inferior, and in Scripture is a word of an evil omen, seeing that besides the present passage, it is the compellation used to the guest that had not a wedding garment (Matt. xxi.), and to Judas when he came to betray his Master."I do thee no wrong;" he justifies his manner of dealing with them, as well as his sovereign right in his own things. They had put their claim on the footing of right, and on that footing they are answered ;—“ Take that thine is, and go thy way;" and again, "Is thine eye* evil because I am good? so long as I am just to you, may I not be good and liberal to them?" The solution of the difficulty that these complainers should get their reward and carry it away with them, has been already suggested,-namely that, according to the human relations, on which the parable is founded, and to which it must adapt itself, it would not have been consistent with equity to have made them forfeit their own hire, notwithstanding the bad feeling which they displayed. Yet we may say their reward vanished in their hands, and the sentences which follow sufficiently indicate, that with God an absolute forfeiture might follow, nay must necessarily follow, where this grudging, unloving, proud spirit has come to its full head; for it is said. immediately after, "So the last shall be first, and the first last."

Many expositors have been sorely troubled how to bring these words into agreement with the parable; for in it first and last seem all put upon the same footing, while here, in these words, a complete change of place is asserted; those who seemed highest, it is declared shall be placed at the lowest, and the lowest highest; compare too Luke xiii. 30, where there can be no doubt that a total rejection of the first, the unbelieving Jews, accompanied with the receiving of the last, the Gentiles, into covenant, is declared. Origen, whom Maldonatus follows, finds an explanation of the difficulty in the fact that the last hired are the first in order of payment; but this is so trifling an advantage, that the

which is better. Our "fellow," as now used, would contain too much of contempt in it, though else it would give the original with the greatest accuracy.

* Envy is ever spoken of as finding its expression from the eye, Deut. xv. 9; 1 Sam. xvii. 9 ("Saul eyed David "); Prov. xxiii. 6; xxviii. 22; Tob. iv. 7; Sirac xiv. 10; xxxi. 13; Mark vii. 22. There lies in the expression the belief, one of the widest spread in the world, of the eye being able to put forth positive powers of mischief. Thus in Greek the ὀφθαλμός βάσκανος and βασκαίνειν =φθονεῖν ; in Italian, the mal-occhio; in French, the mauvais-œil. Persius: Urentes oculos. See BECKER'S Charikles, v. 2, p. 291. We have on the other hand the åyadds öpdaλμós, the ungrudging eye. (Sirac xxxii. 10: LXX.)

†The same opposition between ȧyaðós and díxaws finds place, Rom. v. 7, which indeed is only to be explained by keeping fast hold of the opposition between the words.

explanation must be rejected as quite unsatisfactory. The circumstance of the last hired being first paid is evidently introduced merely for the convenience of the narration; if the first hired had been first paid, and, as was natural, had then gone their way, they would not have been present to see that the others had obtained the same remuneration as themselves, and so would have had no opportunity of expressing their discontent. Neander* finds the difficulty of reconciling the parable with the words which introduce and finish it so great, that he proposes a desperate remedy, and one under the frequent application of which we should lose all confidence in the trustworthiness, not to speak of the inspiration, of the Gospel narration. He thinks the sentences and the parable to have been spoken on different occasions, and only by accident to have been here brought into connection; and asserts that one must wholly pervert this so weighty parable to bring it through forced artifices into harmony with words which are alien to it. But what has been observed above may furnish a sufficient answer; if that be correct, the saying is not merely in its place here, but is absolutely necessary to complete the moral, to express that which the parable did not, and according to the order of human affairs, could not express, namely, the entre forfeiture which would follow on the indulgence of such a temper, as that displayed by the murmurers and complainers.

There is more difficulty with the other words, "Many be called but few chosen." They are not difficult in themselves, but difficult on account of the position which they occupy: the connection is easy and the application obvious, when they occur as the moral of the Marriage of the King's Son, Matt. xxii. 14, but here they have much perplexed interpreters, such at least, as will not admit the entire rejection from the heavenly kingdom of those represented by the murmuring laborers. Some explain them, Many are called, but few have the peculiar favor shown to them, that though their labor is so much less, their reward should be equal: thus Olshausen, who makes the "called" and the "chosen" alike partakers of final salvation, but that by these terms are signified higher and lower standings of men in the kingdom of God.‡ These last hired had, in his view, labored more abundantly, but this their more abundant labor was to be referred to a divine election, so that

*Leben Jesu, p. 196, note.

+ It is not often that there is so felicitous an equivalent proverb in another language as that which the Greek supplies here; and which Clement of Alexandria has more than once adduced on the score of its aptness as a parallel:

Πολλοί τοι ναρθηκοφόροι, παῦροι δέ τε βακχοι.

‡ Thus Wolf also (Curæ, in loc.): KANTOÙS ET ÈKλEKTOùs hic non tanquam specie sibi oppositos considerandos esse, sed tanquam oppositos gradu felicitatis atque dignitatis.

the name "chosen" or elect becomes them well, to whom such especial grace was given. But this supposition of larger labor upon their part mars, as has been already noted, the whole parable, and is by no means to be admitted. Others have supposed that the "called" may refer to some not expressly mentioned in the parable, who had refused altogether to work in the vineyard, in comparison with whom the "chosen," those who at any hour had accepted the invitation, were so few, that the Lord could not bear that any of these should be shut out from his full reward. But the easiest interpretation seems to be,-Many are called to work in God's vineyard, but few retain that temper of spirit, that humility, that entire submission to the righteousness of God, that utter denial of any claim as of right on their own part, which will allow them in the end to be partakers of his reward.*

*The term, reward, as applied to the felicity which God will impart to his people, sometimes offends, while it seems to bring us back to a legal standing point, and to imply a claim as of right, not merely of grace, upon man's part; but since it is a scriptural term (Matt. v. 12, vi. 1; Luke vi. 35; 2 John 8; Rev. xxii. 12), there is no reason why we should shrink from using it, even as we find our Church has not shrunk from its use. Thus in one of our Collects we pray "that we plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works may of thee be plenteously rewarded"—and in the Baptismal Service, "everlastingly rewarded." Yet at the same time we should clearly understand what we mean by it. Aquinas says: Potest homo apud Deum aliquid mereri non quidem secundùm absolutam justitiæ rationem, sed secundùm divinæ ordinationis quandam præsuppositionem; and this is a satisfactory distinction; the reward has relation to the work, but this is, as the early protesters against the papal doctrine of merits expressed it, according to a justitia promissionis divinæ, not a justitia retributionis. There is nothing of a meritum condignum, though Bellarmine sought to press this parable into service, in support of such. (See GERHARD's Loc. Theoll., loc. 18, c. 8, ý 14.) When it is said, “God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love," it is only saying in other words, he is faithful (OvK &dikos=TIσrds). Compare 1 John i. 9; 1 Cor. x. 13; 1 Pet. iv. 19. By free promise he makes himself a debtor: Augustine (Serm. 110, c. 4): Non debendo sed promittendo debitorem se Deus fecit. In the reward there is a certain retrospect to the work done, but no proportion between them, except such as may have been established by the free appointment of the Giver, and the only claim which it justifies is upon his promise. "He is faithful that promised"-this and not any other thing must remain always the ground of all expectations and hopes and what these expectations are to be, and what they are not to be, it is the main purpose of this parable to declare. Bernard declares excellently the spirit in which man ought to work, and in which God will accept the work, when he says: Vera caritas mercenaria non est, quamvis merces eam sequatur.

:

X.

THE TWO SONS.

MATTHEW Xxi. 28–32.

OUR Lord had put back with another question the question with which his adversaries had hoped either to silence him, if he should decline to answer, or to obtain matter of accusation against him, if he should give the answer which they expected; and now he becomes himself the assailing party, and commences that series of parables, in which, as in a glass held up before them, they might see themselves, the impurity of their hearts, their neglect of the charge laid upon them, their contempt of the privileges afforded them, the aggravated guilt of that outrage against himself which they were already meditating in their hearts. Yet even these, wearing as they do so severe and threatening an aspect, are not words of defiance, but of earnest, tenderest love,-spoken, if it were yet possible to turn them from their purpose, to save them from the fearful sin they were about to commit, to win them also for the kingdom of God. The first, that of the Two Sons, goes not so deeply into the matter as the two that follow, and is rather retrospective, while those other are prophetic also.

"But what think ye?—A certain man had two sons." Here, as at Luke xv. 11, are described, under the image of two sons of one father, two great moral divisions of men, under one or other of which might be ranged almost all with whom our blessed Lord in his teaching and preaching came in contact. Of one of these classes the Pharisees were specimens and representatives,-though this class as well as the other will exist at all times. In this are included all who have sought a righteousness through the law, and by the help of it have been kept in the main from open outbreakings of evil. In the second class, of which the publicans and harlots stand as representatives, are contained all who

have thrown off the yoke, openly and boldly transgressed the laws of God, done evil with both hands earnestly. Now the condition of those first is of course far preferable; that righteousness of the law better than this open unrighteousness;-provided always that it is ready to give place to the righteousness of faith when that appears, provided that it knows and feels its own incompleteness; and this will always be the case, where the attempt to keep the law has been truly and honestly made; the law will then have done its work, and have proved a schoolmaster to Christ. But if this righteousness is satisfied with itself, and this will be, where evasions have been sought out to escape the strictness of the requirements of the law; if, cold and loveless and proud, it imagines that it wants nothing, and so refuses to submit itself to the righteousness of faith, then far better that the sinner should have had his eyes opened to perceive his misery and guilt, even though it had been by means of manifest and grievous transgressions, than that he should remain in this ignorance of his true state, of that which is lacking to him still; just as it would be better that disease, if in the frame, should take a decided shape, so that it might be felt and acknowledged to be disease, and then met and overcome, than that it should be secretly lurking in, and pervading, the whole system, and because secretly, its very existence denied by him whose life it was threatening. From this point of view St. Paul speaks, Rom. vii. 7-9, and the same lesson is taught us in all Scripture -that there is no such fault as counting we have no fault. It is taught us in the bearing of the elder son towards his father and returning brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son; and again, in the conduct of the Pharisee who had invited Jesus to his house, in his demeanor to him and to the woman "which was a sinner;" and in his who went up into the temple to pray. (Luke xviii. 10. Compare v. 29–32.)

"And he came to the first and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard." This command was the general summons made both by the nat ural law in the conscience, and also by the revealed law which Moses gave, for men to bring forth fruit unto God. This call the publicans and harlots, and all open sinners, manifestly neglected and despised. The son first bidden to go to work, "answered and said, I will not.”* The rudeness of the answer, the total absence of any attempt to excuse his disobedience, are both characteristic; he does not take the trouble to say, like those invited guests, "I pray thee have me excused;" but flatly refuses to go; he is in short the representative of careless, reckless sinners. And he came to the second and said likewise, and he answered and said, I go, sir." The Scribes and Pharisees, as professing to be

* Gerhard: Vita peccatorum nihil aliud est, quâm realis quidam clamor et professio, Nolumus facere Dei voluntatem.

† Εγώ, κύριε. The readings here are very various, ναι κύριε, ὑπάγω κύριε, and