ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SECOND PORTION.

The Vineyard let out. Parable, No. 25.

PLACE. Jerusalem, in the Temple. TIME. Wednesday in Passion Week; three days before His death. YEAR 30.

I. BEGINNING PRAYER.

MAY GOD, for the sake of JESUS CHRIST, give me the HOLY SPIRIT, that I may understand this portion of his Holy Word, and profit by it. AMEN

II. THE SCRIPTURE.

Read St. Matthew's Gospel, c. xxi. ver. 33 to 46. St. Mark's Gospel, chap xii. verses 1 to,12. St. Luke's Gospel, chap. xx. ver. 9 to 19. III. THE MEANINGS;

or sense of some words as used in this portion, MATTHEW vi. verse

33, &c. a tower means here a homestead

MARK xii, verse

1, a

a wine-fat .. . . . a vat, or hollow place to receive the juice pressed from the grapes 3, &c. empty ...without getting the rent

IV. THE EXPLANATION.

After our Lord had reproved the chief priests, scribes, and elders, he addressed himself to the people who were assembled in the court of the temple, and delivered two parables. In the first place, he told them of a man who, being the owner of an estate, set apart one particular portion of it for the purpose of cultivating grapes. He took every care to make it a fit and proper place for the object he divided it from the rest of his property by a good fence, he provided a proper machine for pressing the juice from the grapes; and under

this press he had a large pit dug, properly staned as a vat, to receive the juice and make the wine. Then he built a homestead; and when all was completed, he gave a lease of this vineyard to a number of persons, and left them to cultivate it; while he himself went to a distant part of the country, where he meant to remain a long while.

It was the custom for landlords very often to take their rent in kind; and just about the vintage time, when the grapes were to be gathered, the landlord sent some of his servants to get the proper proportion of fruit for his rent. The tenants instead of paying the rent, laid a plot against the servants and seized them; one they beat, another they killed, they flung stones at another to kill him, and he that escaped from them went away without the rent.

The landlord then sent another party of servants, whom they treated in the same shameful manner; throwing stones at them, wounding them, and beating them. A third party received the same treatment, and so also many others: some of whom were wounded, and some killed.

The landlord considered with himself, what was to be done; and having an only son whom he greatly loved, he determined to send him to these wicked and rebellious tenants; in the hope that they would pay proper respect at least to him. When however the tenants saw their lord's son, they consulted together and agreed to kill him; that they might seize the vineyard for themselves. They executed their wicked purpose, drove him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

Jesus then put the case to the people, and asked them what they considered would be right, under

such circumstances, for the owner of the vineyard to do, when he himself should come. They answered, that of course he would punish such wicked men by putting them to death, and would let his vineyard to other people, who would be more honest in paying him the rent. Our Lord said, that this was exactly what would be done, in the case he meant to be represented in the parable: and they, having some notion that the application was meant for themselves, exclaimed "God forbid !"

In this parable God is represented as the owner of the property, and his vineyard means the Jewish nation. Every thing had been done by Him to keep them a people separate from all others (which is described by the fencing), and to make them fit for the object of their being thus separated,—that is, to manifest the peculiar holiness of the Lord's people, and to render him the glory; which is described by the fruits of the vineyard, and the payment of such fruit due to the landlord at the proper season. An exactly similar comparison is made use of in the fifth chapter of Isaiah; and the vineyard is there explained to mean "the house of Israel and the men of Judah.” (Isaiah v. 1-7.) By the servants sent to the tenants in the parable are intended the holy prophets, whom God sent from time to time to speak his words to the Jews; in order to induce them to bring forth the fruits of righteousness. And the manner in which the Jews generally received them accords exactly with the ill-treatment described in the parable: some were killed, some were insulted; and none of them produced the effect intended by their mission. At length it pleased God to send his own well-beloved Son Jesus Christ, to make

the last attempt to bring the Jews to a sense of their duty: "he came unto his own, and his own received him not" (John i. 11. Matt. xxiii. 37); and they filled up the measure of their iniquities, by taking away his life. (Matt, xxiii. 30-32. 1 Thess. ii,

15, 16.) This wicked conduct of the Jews made it necessary that the Lord should visit them with that terrible destruction which happened to them afterward (Luke xxi. 22-24); when the vineyard was let out to other tenants, and he opened his elect Church to the Gentile world. (Rev. v. 9.)

When the people shewed that they had caught something of the meaning of this parable, and by their exclamation expressed a hope that it would not be fulfilled, Jesus looked earnestly upon them; and asked, whether they had never read the 118th Psalm, and inquired what they thought was the meaning of verses 22, 23, where it was said "the stone which the builders refused, the same is become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?" He told them that the event prophesied in these words was, that the kingdom of God-the privileges of being God's people upon the earth should be taken away from the Jews, and transferred to a people who should answer the purpose for which that kingdom was set up in the world. In this Scripture the Messiah is compared to a stone fit for the purpose of building a beautiful house, more fit than any other, and therefore, "a tried stone, a precious corner stone. (Isaiah xxviii. 16. 1 Peter ii. 4-8.) This stone however was considered unfit for use by the persons first employed in building the house-that is the Jews, and therefore was by them rejected, (Isa, liii. 3.) But by the power of

Jehovah himself, this despised stone would be placed in the most important position of the building; the principal which supports all the stones, placed at the corner to bind together the main wall. When this came to pass, it would excite the wonder of the Jews.

Carrying on the comparison suggested by this text from Isaiah,Jesus supposed this stone to be still lying on one side as cast there, but not yet placed by the Lord in its rightful position. He declared that whosoever should stumble over it, would be broken; but that afterwards, if in being raised up it should fall on any person, it would destroy him altogether, and crush him to pieces by which he meant what is described of him in Isaiah (viii. 14, 15), and referred to by Peter (1 Pet. ii. 8), that the doctrine of his Gospel would be "a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence to them who stumble at the word, being disobedient." He who takes offence at the Gospel of Christ, will be like a man with a broken limb, crippled in his walk and in much danger; though there is a possibility of his recovering from the effects of his fall. (Matt, xi, 6.) But those who reject Christ, even until the time when having been raised on high, He shall come again in his glory, will then find the Lord fall upon them with an overpowering judgment; and they "shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints." (2 Thess. i. 9, 10.)

The Chief Priests, Scribes and Pharisees, who were listening to what He said, could not help observing that his parable was intended to apply to them. They would have taken him up at once, if