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be supposed that both, at least for a time, were equally willing to observe them; and if any thing transpires, in the course of their connection subsequently, which evinces a contrary disposition in either of the parties, it must be resolvable into causes, which could have no being prior to their separation, and first began to operate with the occasion of the separation itself.

The possession of the vineyard by the husbandmen, for the time being, even upon such terms as we must suppose to have been previously made by the owner in his own behalf, and the privilege of standing in the relation of his tenants, as entailed by their contract with him-was no doubt a valuable possession, in which the temporary occupants themselves found their own account, and a desirable privilege, which was not to be lightly endangered or forfeited. The very nature of the contract of landlord and tenants, supposes an equal regard to the interests of both parties, in their just proportion ; and while ample provision is made for the benefit of the owner of the soil, as in strictness entitled to the larger share of a common advantage-some due compensation is still reserved for the labours of those who cultivate it in his behalf. Solomon derived a profit of one thousand pieces of silver from his vineyard at Baal-hamon; but its keepers one of two hundred. And in proportion as the possession of the vineyard was valuable in itself, and the relation of tenants to the owner was a privilege of a certain kind; the mere deprivation of the vineyard, and the consequent loss of the relation entailed by its possession, would be in the same proportion, a de

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gree of punishment, to which the misconduct of the temporary possessors, though it might go no further than the simple abuse of the duties of their trust, without any aggravation of ill-usage, would still be liable, on the principle of the proper retribution in kind, for a proper corresponding offence.

After the departure of the owner, there are three periods in the œconomy of the parable; one, during which the proper action of the history slumbers; another, at which it is broken off; and a third, during which the course of events, so far as the narrative enters into detail, and is continued without interruption, may be said to begin and proceed. The first of these periods extends from the departure of the owner, to the mission of the first of the servants; the second, from the mission of the first of the servants to that of the son; the third, from the mission of the son to the implied return of the owner. The purposes to which the corresponding parts of the action, comprehended by them, are respectively subservient, are as determinate as the periods themselves. During the first, the fruit is advancing to maturity, but its season, before which the claims of the owner upon the husbandmen, could not begin to be enforced, is not yet fully come; during the second, the enforcement of the claims of the owner has been formally begun, and is still going on; during the third, there is an end to the further enforcement of the claims of the owner, but the guilt of the husbandmen, incurred by their systematic resistance to those claims, and the excesses to which it led, has not yet been adequately resented and punished, Before the maturity of the fruit, the demands of the

owner to his share of the produce of the vineyard, could not consistently be preferred; nor after it, be lawfully resisted. Before the assertion of his claims on the one hand, and the refusal to acknowledge or respect them on the other, there could be no proof of any injury done to him, or of any guilt incurred by the husbandmen-requiring a proper redress on his part, or deserving a proper punishment on theirs: but after the proof of both these things, as declared by the event, in the intermediate transaction of particulars between the mission of the first of the servants, and the death of the son, the necessity of some reparation for a cumulative series of wrongs, being now only too indisputable, the fact of this redress thenceforward, was only too certainly to be expected. Hence, as the departure of the owner was necessary to place the husbandmen in a state of probation, and to give them an opportunity of incurring a good or an evil desert (at his own hands) of a certain kind; so was his return as indispensable, under the circumstances of the case, to begin an œconomy of retribution, critically adapted to the preceding œconomy of probation, and resenting the evil desert acquired at his hands, accordingly.

The time taken up by the first of these periods, extends from the plantation of the vineyard to the first instance of the maturity of its fruits; between which, the ordinary course of nature would require a certain interval, not less than a year. The time comprehended by the second, reaches from the mission of the first of the servants to that of the son of the owner; an interval, which the purpose to which it is devoted, shews to have been of definite extent, as the beginning and the close of one and the same

œconomy, during which the assertion of the claims of the owner, his successive attempts to effect one object the recognition of those claims by the husbandmen—and the failure of them all, through their obstinacy and impenitence, is going on, and illustrated by the result. The time occupied by the third, is comprised between the death of the son of the owner, and his own return in person, to take vengeance on his murderers, and to let out the vineyard before possessed by them, to other husbandmen, more worthy of it; an interval, which like the last, as devoted to one object, and to that one alone, must be of determinate extent, and whether longer or shorter in itself, not more than adequate for the end proposed.

The mission of the servants of the owner of the vineyard, (who besides his character in relation to the vineyard, was described as the master of an household also,) is the introduction of a new order of persons, among the agents concerned in the parabolic transaction; the first cause of which is to be attributed to the absence of the owner of the vineyard from home, and yet, the season of the fruit being now come, the necessity of enforcing his rights, as the owner of the vineyard, at the proper time. The personal character of these messengers, before the time of their mission, is that of the servants of the owner, in his capacity of master of an household; a character which being prior to any other that might be superinduced upon it, would be independent of any such also, and capable of consisting with it: after the time of their mission, it is that of those who besides being the subordinate members of the

family of the owner, act in his stead, and represent his person, as the lord of the vineyard also. From the time of their mission, they appear in the character of his vicegerents, and sustain the part of his deputies to the husbandmen, the tenants of his vineyard. The duty which they have to discharge is that of enforcing their master's rights-the claim which they make to the fruits of the vineyard, or to a certain portion of them, is made in his behalf: and considered in this point of view, resistance to their demands becomes resistance to the demands of their master-an insult or an injury offered to them, is an insult or an injury offered to their master. The personal office of all these servants, whatever be the number who are sent, and whatever the order of succession in which they are sent, like their personal relation to their master, is consequently one and the same. Even the official character of the son, as sent upon the same errand with the servants, notwithstanding the superior dignity of his personal relation to the owner of the vineyard, was nothing distinct from theirs. He too, in coming on such an errand, was but his father's vicegerent, as well as the servants: he too, was but his father's messenger to the tenants of his vineyard, like one of them.

The cause of the mission of the first of this new order of persons, might be the arrival of the season of the fruits of the vineyard, that is the proper period when its fruits were ripe, and its productiveness was to be judged of from the event; at which time, the owner of the vineyard as the landlord, and the husbandmen as the farmers and tenants, might most fitly begin to look each for their proper share

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