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zealous for the law, set themselves in the way as though they would fulfil the commands; this their profession was like the second son's promised obedience. But, as the Lord on a later occasion lays to their charge, that they said and did not (Matt. xxiii. 2), even as he quotes the prophet Isaiah as having long before described them truly (Matt. xv. 8), "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me," so was it here. When the marked time arrived, when it was needful to take decisively one side or the other, when the Baptist came unto them "in the way of righteousness," and summoned to earnest repentance, to a revival of God's work in the hearts of the entire people, then many of those hitherto openly profane were baptized, confessing their sins; and like the son who at first contumaciously refused obedience to his father's bidding, "repented and went :" while on the other hand, the real unrighteousness of the Pharisees, before concealed under show of zeal for the law, was evidently declared: professing willingness to go, they yet "went not."

When the Lord demands of his adversaries, "Whether of the twain did the will of his father?" they cannot profess inability to solve this question, as they had done that other (ver. 27); they are obliged now to give a reply, though that reply condemned themselves. "They say unto him, The first:"-not, of course, that he did it absolutely well, but by comparison with the other. Whereupon the Lord immediately makes the application of the words which have been reluctantly wrung from them, "Verily, I say unto you, that the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you." When he says, they "go before you," or take the lead of you, he would indicate that the door of hope was not yet shut upon them, that they were not yet irreversibly excluded from that kingdom*-the others indeed had preceded them, but they might still follow, if they would. Some interpreters lay an emphasis on the words, "in the way of righteousness," as though they are brought in to aggravate the sin of the Pharisees-as though Christ would say, "The Baptist came, a pattern of that very righteousness of the law, in which you profess to exercise yourselves. He did not come, calling to the new life of the Gospel, of which I am the pattern, and

many more, which however may be easily traced up to transcribers wanting to amend a phrase which they did not quite understand, and which seemed incomplete:-πopevoμai, àñépxoμai, or some such word must be supplied. See 1 Sam. iii. 4, 6; Gen. xxii. 1, LXX.

* But he does not affirm more, so that there need be no difficulty here on account of the Pharisees, or the greater part of them, never having followed; the word (poάyovσw) does not imply that they will follow, it merely declares that the others have entered first, leaving it open to them to follow or not. Compare the still stronger use of πрwтóτокоs (Matt. i. 25), where there were none to come after.

which you might have misunderstood; he did not come, seeking to put new wine into the old bottles; but he came, himself fulfilling that very idea of righteousness which you pretended to have set before yourselves, that which consisted in strong and marked separation of himself from sinners, and earnest asceticism; and yet you were so little hearty in the matter, that for all this he found no acceptance among you, no more acceptance than I have found. You found fault with him for the strictness of his manner of life, as you find fault with me for the condescension of mine,-and not merely did you reject him at first, but afterward when his preaching bore manifest fruit in the conversion of sinners, when God had thus set his seal to it, when 'the publicans and harlots believed him, even then you could not be provoked to jealousy; "Ye, when ye had seen it, repented not* afterward, that ye might believe him.”

In many copies, and some not unimportant ones, it is the son that is first spoken to, who promises to go, and afterwards disobeys, and the second who, refusing first, afterwards changes his mind, and enters on the work. Probably the order was thus reversed by transcribers, who thought that the application of the parable must be to the successive callings of Jews and Gentiles, and that therefore the order of their callings should be preserved. But the parable does not primarily apply to the Jew and Gentile, but must be referred rather to the two bodies within the bosom of the Jewish people:-it is not said, the Gentiles enter the kingdom of heaven before you, but, the publicans and harlots;

* Où μeteμeλýðnre-the word does not in itself describe so comprehensive a change as μetavocîv, and as a less expressive word is comparatively very seldom used in Scripture. Meraμéλeia does not of necessity signify more than the after anxiety for a deed done, which may be felt without any true repentance towards God, may be merely remorse, such as Judas felt after having betrayed his Master, and it is worthy of remark that this very word μeraueλndels is used of him. (Matt. xxvii. 3.) In the present case, however (that is, at ver. 29), the true μeravoía is meant, the change of affections and will and conduct. For a good tracing of the distinction between the two words, see SPANHEIM'S Dubia Evang., Dub. 9, v. 3, p. 16, seq.

This is the view maintained by Origen, Chrysostom, and Athanasius, as also by Jerome, who quotes as a parallel to "I go, sir," the words of the Jews at the giving of the law, "All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.” (Exod. xxiv. 7.) The Auct. Oper. Imperf. interprets it as is done above, noting at length the inconveniences that attend the application of it to Jew and Gentile. Maldonatus, who assents to his interpretation, affirms he is the only ancient author that gives it, and is perplexed how the other should have obtained such general reception--but the as eμol doкeî, with which Origen introduces his explanation, marks, that there was another opinion current in the Church in his time; even as is explicitly stated by Jerome: Alii non putant Gentilium et Judæorum esse parabolam, sed simpliciter peccatorum et justorum.

while yet the other, if the parable had admitted, (and if it had admitted, it would have required it,) would have been a far stronger way of provoking them to jealousy. (Rom x. 21, 22.) The other application of the parable need not indeed be excluded, since the whole Jewish nation stood to the Gentile world, in the same relation which the more selfrighteous among themselves did to notorious trangressors. But it is not till the next parable that Jew and Gentile, in their relations to one another, and in their respective relations to the kingdom of God, come distinctly and primarily forward.

XI.

THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN.

MATT. xxi. 33-44; MARK Xii. 1-12; LUKE xx. 9-18.

THE Lord's hearers would have been well content that he here should have paused. But no; he will not let them go: "Hear another parable," as if he would say, "I have not done with you yet; I have still another word of warning and rebuke," and to that he now summons them to listen. There is this apparent difference between the accounts of the several Evangelists, that while St. Matthew and St. Mark relate the parable as addressed to the Pharisees, it was, according to St. Luke, spoken to the people. But the sacred narrative itself supplies the helps for clearing away this slight apparent difference, St. Luke mentioning the chief priests and scribes (ver. 19) in a way which shows that they were listeners also; and thus, being spoken in the hearing of both parties, in the mind of one narrator the parable seemed addressed mainly to the people; in that of the others, to the Pharisees.

The opening words at once suggest a comparison with Isaiah v. 1-7; no doubt our Lord here takes up the prophecy there, the more willingly building on the old foundations, that his adversaries accused him of destroying the law; and not in word only, but by the whole structure of the parable, connecting his own appearing with all that had gone before in the past Jewish history, so that men should look at it as part, indeed as the crowning and final act, of that great dealing of mercy and judgment which had ever been going forward. The image of the kingdom of God as a vine-stock* or as a vineyardt is not peculiar to

* The vine-stock often appears on the Maccabæan coins as the emblem of Palestine; sometimes too the bunch of grapes, and the vine-leaf. Thus Deyling (Obss. Sac., v. 3, p. 236): Botrus præterea, folium vitis et palma, ut ex nummis apparet, symbolum erant Judææ.

↑ Bernard draws out the comparison between the Church and the vineyard at

this parable, but runs through the whole Old Testament (Deut. xxxii. 32; Ps. lxxx. 8-16; Isai. v. 1-7; xxvii. 1-7; Jer. ii. 21; Ezek. xv. 1–6; xix. 10); and has this especial fitness, that no property was considered . to yield so large a return (Cant. viii. 11, 12), none was therefore of such price and esteem, even as none required such unceasing care and attention. Our Lord compares himself to the vine as the noblest of earthly plants (John xv. 1), and in prophecy had been compared to it long before. (Gen. xlix. 11.)

It would not be convenient to interpret the vineyard here as the Jewish church, since the vineyard is said to be taken away from the Jews and given to another nation; and it is evident that this could not be accurately said of the Jewish church. In Isaiah, indeed, the vineyard is that Jewish church, and consistently with this, it is described, not as transferred to others, but as laid waste and utterly destroyed, its hedge taken away, its wall broken down, all labor of pruning or digging withdrawn from it, and the heavens themselves commanded that they rain no rain on it any more. Here, where it is transferred to other and more faithful husbandmen, we must rather understand by it the kingdom of God in its idea, which idea Jew and Gentile have been successively placed in conditions to realize.† Inasmuch indeed as Israel according to the flesh was the first occupier of the vineyard, it might be said that the vineyard at that time was the Jewish church; but this arrangement was only accidental and temporary, and not of necessity, as the sequel

some length (In Cant. Serm., 30): In fide plantata, in caritate mittit radices, defossa sarculo disciplinæ, stercorata pœnitentium lacrymis, rigata prædicantium verbis, et sic sanè exuberans vino, in quo est lætitia, sed non luxuria, vino totius suavitatis, nullius libidinis. Hoc certè vinum lætificat cor hominis, hoc constat et angelos bibere cum lætitia. Augustine also (Serm. 87, c. 1): Cultura ipsius est in nos, quod non cessat verbo suo extirpare semina mala de cordibus nostris, aperire cor nostrum tanquam aratro sermonis, plantare semina præceptorum, exspectare fructum pietatis. Cf. AMBROSE, Exp. in Luc., 1. 9, c. 29.

* It no doubt belongs to the fitness of the image that a vineyard does, if it is to bring forth richly, require the most diligent and never-ceasing care, that there is no season in the year in which much has not to be done in it. Virgil presses this very strongly, in words not unworthy to be kept in mind by all to whom a spiritual vineyard has been committed: see Georg., 2, 397–419, beginning—

Est etiam ille labor curandis vitibus alter,

Cui nunquam exhausti satis est: namque omne quotannis
Terque quaterque solum scindendum, glebaque versis
Æternum frangenda bidentibus; omne levandum
Fronde nemus. Redit agricolis labor actus in orbem,
Atque in se sua per vestigia volvitur annus.

And so Cato: Nulla possessio pretiosior, nulla majorem operam requirit.

+ Origen (Comm. in Matth., in loc.) draws out clearly and well the differences that exist in this regard between the parable in Isaiah and that recorded by the Evangelists.

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