hearts of those who interrogated Him, He designed not so much to instruct, as to silence and confound them. He replies, He replies, by asking them this question: When John the Baptist preached and baptized, did he do so by God's appointment, or was it only a human contrivance? This question of our Saviour completely silenced and confounded these malicious Scribes and Pharisees, because John had more than once borne testimony unto Him as the Messiah: moreover, it was evident that they dared not expressly deny John to have been sent from God; for, even Herod "feared the multitude, because they counted John as a prophet:" and they are here recorded to have participated in the same fear; yet, as they would not believe the Baptist, much less would they believe Christ's plain assertion of His own Divine authority.

They were there

fore obliged to confess their ignorance, and to relinquish their malevolent examination ®.

SECT. CXXV-Parable of the Two Sons.-Matt. xxi. 28--32.

JESUS then describes in a parable the different conduct of two sons, who were both directed by their father to go work in his vineyard. The first refused, but afterwards "repented, and went" and did as he was desired. The second

said he would go, with fair professions, but

"went not." auditors, to determine which of these two sons "did the will of his father? They say unto Him, The first." He points out in this parable the justice of God in utterly rejecting the Chief Priests and elders, with all their pretences of religion, and receiving in their stead the penitent Gentiles. John the Baptist came to preach to them the necessity of repentance and obedience'; setting an example of righteousness, and promoting its cause. This might have awakened them to better things; but "they believed Him not." On the other hand, the careless, and the profligate, who had heretofore lived after the devices and desires of their own hearts, listened to John's message and warnings, and were converted. The Baptist was indeed astonished, when he saw the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, and said, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" These, however, who were at first disobedient, "afterwards repented, and went" to work in the Father's vineyard'. Even publicans and sinners, those who were most despised, repented, and became Christians, while the Pharisees obstinately set themselves against the gracious terms of the Gospel"; and those

Our Lord then appeals to His

whom our Lord was now addressing, “the Chief Priests and elders of the people," professed to be workers in the Lord's vineyard, guardians of the truth, and zealous for the law of God. They "said, I go, Sir ";" but though they had not faults so scandalous as "the publicans and harlots," yet they had withal so much highmindedness, that they imagined it more their business to sit as censors and correctors of mankind, than to confess their own sins, or repent of them '.

SECT. CXXVI.-Parable of the Vineyard let out to Husbandmen.-Matt. xxi. 33-46; Mark xii. 1-12; Luke xx.

9-19.

OUR Lord did not rest satisfied with showing the rulers the heinousness of their sin in rejecting the Baptist', but spake unto them "another parable," describing, in a parabolical representation, wicked husbandmen, who had been entrusted by the Lord of a vineyard with the lease of it, during his absence "in a far country;" and who sent first one, and then another, and another servant, to "receive the fruit of it;" but these messengers were treated with extreme violence, -beaten, stoned, and killed. "Last of all," having yet one Son, "the Lord of the vineyard said, What shall I do? I will send My beloved Son: it may be they will reverence Him, when they see Him." "But when the 2 Dr. Macknight.

11

Abp. Sumner.

1

Dr. Waterland.

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husbandmen saw the Son, they said among themselves, This is the Heir; come, let us kill Him, and let us seize on His inheritance." And they took Him, and killed Him." Jesus then appeals to His auditors; and they allowed that such unfaithful labourers should be deprived of their trust, and destroyed for their iniquity 3. The Lord of the vineyard" here is God; the husbandmen are the Jews, -His chosen and peculiar people; the servants whom He successively sent, were the holy prophets who were sent to warn the nation to give the fruits of a holy and good life; but, instead of attending to their admonitions, they abused and ill-treated them, and even put them to death. At last God sent His Son into the world, to whom they did likewise 1. What therefore shall the Lord of the vineyard do unto them?" Struck with this parable, and not perceiving its application, that they were themselves the guilty husbandmen, these priests and elders acknowledged, by anticipation, the justice of God in the rejection and destruction of His rebellious people. They answer," He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and let out His vineyard unto other husbandmen." What the Jew has shown himself unworthy of, the Gentile shall receive: They shall render Him the fruits in their seasons Then, rejoins Christ, shall be thus fulfilled a remarkable prophecy, which they

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must have read in the Scriptures, that the Messiah, whom the Jews rejected, shall receive and unite the Gentiles to His Church, as a principal corner stone unites and links together the two sides of a building. No text of the Old Testament is quoted so often in the New as this twenty-second verse of the cxviiith Psalm. The sum and substance of the New Testament applications and expositions is, that Jesus Christ is the stone here mentioned; that He was rejected and set at nought by the Chief Priests and Pharisees, the then builders of the Church; but that, being chosen of God, and precious to Him, this most valuable stone, thus despised and rejected of men, was at length exalted to be the chief corner-stone in the building, and a centre of union for the Jew and Gentile, the two parts of which it consisted that this was the work of God, and the admiration of man'. The Chief Priests, when they replied to Jesus, did not readily perceive the tendency of this parable; but presently after, finding that they themselves were the persons whom Jesus represented, under the similitude of husbandmen, they would recall their words, and say, "God forbid:" and they sought to lay hands on Him; but "they feared the multitude, because they took Him for a prophet," and "perceived that He had spoken this parable against them.

Dr. S. Clarke.

;