The parable of the vineyard let to wicked husbandmen. 189 cli. life! How vain are all the complimental forms of religion when SECT. In vain do we, like these Pharisees, inquire into the evidences 23 Mark X1. 23--24 The promises which are made to a miraculous faith in prayer, are not indeed our immediate concern; but we may truly inter from them some encouragement in favour of the prayer of faith, on whatever account, and in whatever circumstances it be offered. At least we may infer the necessity of forgiving injuries, if we 25, 26 desire that our petitions should be received with favour. Let us remember it; and labour to approach the throne of a forgiving God, with hearts not only clear of every malignant passion, but full of that cordial and universal benevolence which may engage us to pray for all men, and particularly for those who have least deserved our kindness, and seem least disposed to requite it. SECT. CLII. Christ utters the parable of the vineyard let out to unfaithful husbandmen; from which he takes occasion plainly to admonish the Jewish rulers of the danger and ruin they would incur by the schemes they were forming against him. Mat. XXI. 38, to the end; Mark XII.-1-12. Luke XX. 9-19. MAT. XXI. 33. HEAR another pa rable: There was 2 OCR MAT. XXI. 33. SECT. UR Lord having thus reproved the priests 4 166 Reflections on Christ's weeping over Jerusalem, &c. multuously rise in his defence, if they offered Luke XIX. 41. IMPROVEMENT. NEXT to the sight of a bleeding and dying Redeemer there can surely be none in the whole world more affecting than this which is here represented; even the Son of God weeping over perishing sinners; yea, over the sinners of Jerusalem. We might, perhaps, have been ready to think that, foreseeing so circumstantially, as we know he did, all the ungrateful and inhuman treatment he was to meet with in this nest of murderers, with the scene of his sufferings, and the very house of Caiaphas in his full view *, he should rather have taken up a proverb against it, and have anticipated the triumphs of that awful day when God would plead his cause with irresistible terror, and avenge the quarrel of his sacred blood. But behold, he seems to forget himself, and all his wrongs, great and cruel as they were; and in the midst of a procession intended for his honour, he melts into tears, as if it were for the calamity of a friend, or a brother; and says in the most genuine 42 language of undissembled grief, Oh that thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace! Behold, O our souls, with wonder and with awe, at once the goodness and severity of God: (Rom. xi. 22.) The sinners of 43, 44 Jerusalem wept over, and yet abandoned to ruin! We have our part 42 in all this: the tidings of the gospel are the things which belong to our peace, the things on which our everlasting happiness depends. Let us remember that the time will come in which, if we do not attend to them, they will be hid from our eyes. There is a limited day of mercy and grace; and therefore to-day, while it is called to-day, let us hear his voice, and not harden our hearts (Heb. iii. 15.) lest slighted mercy at length retire, and vengeance take i They hung as it were on his lips while he spake.] This is the literal import of engepalo avly answv. To render it, (as in a late version) The populace were strongly attached to his doctrine, is far from expressing the full sense. House of Caiaphas in his full view.] If we may credit the best accounts of Jerusalem which remain, this was exactly the case.-I cannot forbear referring my reader to Mr. Howe's excellent treatise, entitled, The Redeemer's Tears wept over lost Souls; in which, as in most of his practical works, there are such sublime and pathetic strokes of true, manly, and Christian eloquence, as do a great honour to the language and age in which they were written. a Some The passover kept at Jerusalem. 167 cxlvii. take its turn; a vengeance which will fall the heavier, and pierce SECT. the deeper, in proportion to all the long-suffering and goodness, which have been exercised towards us in vain. Let all, and especially the ministers of Christ, learn compassion to souls by such an example; and when the strongest efforts of love prove ineffectual for their recovery, let us at least be mourning for them before the Lord, and weeping over the ruin which we cannot prevent. Though Christ had cleared the temple from the profanations of Mat. these traders at the beginning of his ministry, he found the same XXI. 12. pollutions returned at the close of it. And, alas, how often do we find it thus with respect to our hearts! How soon do those weeds spring up again which we had been endeavouring with a resolute hand to root up; and how often are efforts for reformation forgotten, even when the attempt appeared at first to be most necessary! Let us learn of Christ not to be weary of well-doing, but with continued zeal renew our endeavours again and again. The scribes and Pharisees envied Christ; but the children sur-15 round him with their Hosannahs; and he graciously accepts their feeble accents of praise, as ordained by God out of the mouth of 16 babes and sucklings. Nor will he now despise the day of small things. Oh that we might have the pleasure to see little children pronouncing the name of Christ with reverence and love! And surely we who are parents must add, with a peculiar accent, Oh that our own may join in the choir! May they learn the song from our lips; and may our whole lives be one continued visible proof of the devotion and affection with which we present it! Amen. SECT. CXLVIII. Some Greeks that came to celebrate the passover at Jerusalem are introduced to Christ, who enters on an excellent discourse particularly suited to their circumstances; and retires in the evening to Bethany. John XII. 20-36. Mat. XXI. 17. Mark XI.-11. JOHN XII. 20. AND there were certain Greeks among them that came up to JOHN XII. 20. John AND among those that came up to Jerusalem SECT. from different countries to worship at the cxlviii. worship at the feast: feast, there were some Greeks, or persons who were descended from Grecian parents, and XII. 20. used that language, but had forsaken the idolatry of their ancestors, and devoted themselves 21 The same came to the God of Israel 2. These therefore came to 21 there a Some Greeks-who had devoted themselves to the God of Israel.] It is strange that such learned critics as Isaac Vossius Philip, and Salmasius should imagine these wor- writers, 192 SECT. clii. upon And when at last he sent his son they killed him. their master's son, and seized him; and, him, and cast him out fearing neither God nor man, they cast him out slew him. [MARK of the vineyard, and Mat. of the vineyard, and slew him, exposing his dead XXI. 39. body in a most contemptuous and insolent, as well as inhumane manner. XII. 8. 15.—] LUKE XX. 40 When the lord therefore of the vinehe do unto those hus yard cometh, what will 40 When therefore the Lord of the vineyard himself cometh, armed with a power which they will be utterly unable to resist, what will he do, think you, to those treacherous and cruel husbandmen, baudmen? [MARK when he has them entirely at his disposal? 41 Luke II. -15.} 9.-LUKE XX. 41 They say unto And, as the Jewish rulers did not understand that they themselves were these unfaithful hus- him, He will miserabandmen, they say unto him, There is no doubt bly destroy those wicked men, and will let but he will wretchedly destroy those wicked and out his vineyard unto incorrigible wretches, nor is the most torment- other husbandmen, ing death too severe for them to expect; and he which shall render him will then let out the vineyard to other husbandmen, suns. who shall faithfully render him the fruits of it in their proper seasons. Thus did they, before they were aware, conXX. 16. demn themselves; and [Jesus added], You have the fruits in their sea LUKE XX. 16. come and destroy these [Jesus said]. He shall answered right: he shall indeed quickly come, and husbandmen, and sball destroy these husbandmen of whom I speak, who- give the vineyard to ever they shall appear to be, with terrible seve- others. [MARK XII, rity, and will give the vineyard to others. Now -9.1 all this was as if he had said, Consider your own concern in what you have heard: God has planted a church among you, and given you an excellent revelation of his will; abundant provision has been made, both for your protection and your improvement too: but you have ungratefully refused the fruits of obedience, which were so justly his due; and when he has frequently sent his servants the prophets, with one message and demand after another, you the rulers and teachers of Israel, to whom the cultivation of the vineyard has been committed, have treated them in a most ungrateful and barbarous manner and now at last he has sent his son, and you are going to seize on him, and to add that murder which you are now contriving to the And cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.] So Matthew and Luke express it; but Mark has changed the order of the words, and says, They killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard; if we may not render that clause, They both slew him, and cast him out, so as not to determine which was done first. One cannot suppose Christ uttered it both these ways; so that if there be no accidental transposition in Mark, he guilt probably meant thereby to intimate what is hinted in the paraphrase, the exposing his dead body in a most daring defiance of public justice. Those that explain the casting him out of the vineyard, of excommunication, which preceded or attended the execution of a capital sentence, do not observe the proper import of the vineyard. See below, note i. He that serves Christ shall be honoured by his Father. forth much fruit. 169 John but if it die, it bringeth duction of the like kind arises, and it brings SECT. forth much fruit. And so it is that I myself cxlviii. shall fall, and a new scene be opened, in which my kingdom shall seem to be utterly lost and XII. 24. gone; yet, like the spring corn, it shall assuredly revive, and appear beautiful and fruitful. 25 He that loveth his life, shall lose it: and he that hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal. ne; and where I am, But, in the mean time, such difficulties are 25 also to be expected by my faithful servants, that it is but fit I should inform these strangers of what I have once and again told you; that he who loves his own life too well to part with it for my sake, shall lose it, and expose himself to death in the worst and most dreadful sense of the word; but he that acts as if he hates his life in this world, by exposing it to the greatest dangers in the cause of my gospel, shall preserve it even to everlasting life, and secure a state of immortal glory and happiness. (Compare Mat. x. 39, sect. Ixxvi. Mark viii. 35, sect. lxxxix. and 26 If any man serve Luke xvii. 33, sect. cxxviii.) If any man 26 me, let him follow therefore would engage to serve me as one of my loyal people, let him resolve to follow me whithersoever I shall lead him, whatever dangers and difficulties may lie in the way; and let him know, for his encouragement, that where I am, or where I shortly am to take up mine abode, there shall also my faithful servant be; for I will assign him an inheritance in that blessed world where I am for ever to rest and reign after all the sufferings I have endured here: and I assure you that, among all that follow me, if any man, of whatever nation he be, or whatever his religious profession may before have been, will faithfully serve me here, him will [my] Father also honour, and confer such rich rewards upon him as to make him for ever both great and happy. there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour. 27 Now is my soul shall I say? Father, Having said this, our Lord paused for a while, 27 tronbled and what and entered on a deep contemplation of the very save me from this hour: different views of things which lay before him. but And then he added aloud, Now is my very soul distressed and troubled in an affecting view of a If any man serve me.] Our Lord, by this indefinite expression, strongly intimates that his kingdom was to be of a very extensive nature; and that not only the prose this lytes of righteousness, but those of the gate, e Wha |