tically declares that "many that are first shall be last, and many that are last shall be first;" that they must not for a moment imagine that priority of service entitled them to priority of reward, or that those rewards and wages were otherwise than at the free gift and sovereign disposal of Him, who alike bestowed the power and the will to serve, and accepted the service also.

SECTION LVIII.

(Chapter xx. verses 1-17.)

THIS parable of the labourers in the vineyard may be said to have a threefold application: first, to our Lord's disciples and the successive preachers and ministers of the gospel; secondly, to the admission of the Gentiles into the Church, and to their participation of equal privileges with the Jews; and lastly, it may be applied to human life in general, and to the different periods of youth, manhood, declining years, and to the very verge of the grave, on which men continue to trifle with the calls of the gospel. There are, no doubt, portions of the parable which can hardly be said to apply to each of these divisions in all their minute detail, some which apply to one more than another, and some which perhaps apply to none; but it is not necessary that a parable should dovetail, as it were, in all its bearings with the real circumstances of the case;

it is sufficient if in its general scope and bearing its meaning is intelligible and explicit; and we may truly say of this parable, that few can read it without making a personal and profitable application of it to their own case.

The

The remark with which our Lord concluded the last chapter, that "many that are first shall be last, and many that are last shall be first," and His concluding this parable with the very same words, evidently, I think, shows that our Lord intended it in the first instance as a warning and a rebuke to the somewhat arrogant anticipations of Peter and His other disciples, for their ready obedience to the Saviour's call, their early enlistment under His banner, and forming, as it were, the vanguard of His followers. very promise made by their Master, that they should sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel, whatever the meaning of the promise might be supposed to shadow forth, and however inapplicable to one at least of the twelve who heard it, might yet, in its indistinct visions of glory, give rise to much of jealousy and envy and heart-burning. Our Lord therefore pointedly pursues the theme of the last chapter, by illustrating the doctrine he wished to inculcate under the similitude of labourers hired to work in a vineyard at different periods of the day.

It was, no doubt, early in the morning when Jesus, as it were, hired, and sent into his vineyard, these, the first Christian labourers. It was

as

as yet an untilled soil; and though they worked for a season under the eye and instructions of their Master, yet He had plainly foretold them that He should soon be taken from them; and, though His departure should be the precursor of another Comforter whom He would send, yet their future service was to be a service of toil and danger, of hardships and sufferings, well portrayed by the phrase in the parable, of "the burden and heat of the day." Yet, even regarded themselves, they were soon to be joined by other labourers, coming in at every hour, and sharing in the work they had so painfully commenced; and were they not to hold out the right hand of fellowship to them? or were they to look with a grudging and evil eye on each successive labourer that entered the vineyard, as if he were only sent to diminish their own well-earned reward and hire? If so, Peter, and James, and John, and the rest, might have looked askance on Paul; and Paul, in his turn, on Apollos, or Aquila, or Timothy, or Titus. These were called in at a later hour; and so it has been ever since. Every labourer, as he sees fresher and younger, and unworn and untired, successors hired one after another into the vineyard, may thankfully say what the Baptist said of himself, "He must increase, but I must decrease," and may hear their mutual Master say to each successive band, "Other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours." It was so even before the

apostles' time: patriarchs and prophets, and holy men of old, raised up of God from time to time, laboured in the field before them; others have laboured since, and others will labour still, till all be accomplished. It was a glorious draught which Peter's net drew to shore on the day of Pentecost, of "about three thousand souls;" it will be a still more glorious draught when "the earth shall be made to bring forth in one day," when "nations shall be born at once," and converts shall flock in "as the doves to the windows." The parable may here be said to close as regards these labourers; for, when the evening shall close in, and their Master calls one and all "to give them their hire," from Enoch and Noah, the first preachers of righteousness, down to the last and latest labourer, there will be no grudging, no repining, no murmuring over another's brighter crown, or whiter robe, or sweeter harp; but the mutual acknowledgment of each and all, as they cast their crowns before the throne, will be, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name be the praise and the glory ascribed!"

The Jews, indeed, did murmur at the admission of the Gentiles to the same privileges and the same equality with themselves. They long resisted it, and when Paul in his defence announced God's purpose of sending him to the Gentiles, they could not restrain their jealous fury, and cried out, "Away with such a fellow from the earth; for it is not fit that he should live." And

perhaps there are those at the present day who look with somewhat of contemptuous indifference and depreciating scorn on Missionary efforts, and on those who are from time to time called in to be members of Christ's Church from amid ignorant and idolatrous heathen, and who would shrink from calling an African a brother, or an Indian a fellow-heir with themselves. And yet of the first, old Fuller has well though quaintly spoken, when he called them" images of God carved in ebony;" and among the latter, the records of God's book will eventually disclose a faith, and walk, and conversation that may well put to shame many a white man's ampler but less-valued privileges; for we must remember, that of all these that are called in the parable, not one refuses; the instant they hear the offer, they accept it. They bargain not for terms; they take the householder at his word, "Whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive;" and they go without hesitation or delay into the vineyard. There is not one alluded to who says, "I go, sir," but he went not; and even of those who were unemployed at the last hour, it was an excuse, at once admitted and accepted, that "no man had hired them;" and they too instantly and joyously obeyed the call. Can any one in Christian England really say, "No man hath hired me?" There may be, and there are, more abundant means of grace vouchsafed to some than to others; but not one, even the most benighted, can plead that he has acted up even to