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mands even of the first of his servants, and to send him away empty; much more, when not content with that, they had proceeded from simple disregard of his claims, to open hostility against them, and the mission of servant after servant was followed by insult upon insult to the master, and outrage upon outrage to the servants. All this, while it establishes the fact of the obstinacy, ingratitude, and impenitence of the husbandmen, beyond the possibility of doubt, is the noblest testimony to the invincible patience, and almost boundless placability of the owner of the vineyard; who, if he possessed the power of punishing the husbandmen at last, possessed the power of punishing them at first, and if he resented the insults and injuries offered to himself at last, might have resented the indignities offered him at first, had not his resentment been overruled for a time, by his benevolence. Yet nothing but the death of his son, his only, and well beloved son, is powerful enough to rouse his reluctant vengeance-though it would be a calumny to so much goodness and gentleness as his, to suppose he did not sympathise with the treatment of his faithful servants, who had lost their lives in his service, and in the discharge of their own duty; and the death of his son was a species of provocation, which however inclined he might have been to overlook every thing else, it was impossible that he could forgive; whatever compensation the husbandmen might have made for any other offence, it was impossible they could atone for this; whatever hope of amendment there might still be of them, notwithstanding their conduct towards his servants, yet by the perpetration of this crime against his son, their

wickedness was proved to be irreclaimable, and all hope of their amendment to be desperate.

As no demand could be more just and reasonable than the claim of the owner of the vineyard to his proper share of its productions-so the mission of the first of his servants, the sole object of which was to enforce this demand, was naturally to be expected at the proper time; and the success of the mission was naturally to be anticipated even from their sense of its justice to whom it was addressed. The servants that came after the first, might be sent upon the same errand; but there would be this difference between the business of their mission, and that of the first, that they would have to persuade the husbandmen to that compliance with the demands of the owner, on the principle of repentance as well as of justice, which the first of their number had been commissioned to effect, on the score of its own equity and propriety.

The history of the treatment of the servants, as it is described in the parable, can receive no explanation at present; nor any explanation hereafter, but what it must derive from a comparison of that history with the real one, in reference to those whom these servants represent. We may, notwithstanding, observe upon it, that as they have all a similar office to discharge, so they all discharge it in a similar manner, and all more or less meet with the same kind of treatment. And while the uniformity of this treatment in general, is a melancholy proof of the consistency of the offending parties to their own principles from first to last; still it is worthy of remark, as an eminent instance of the attention to

decorum which appears in the narrative, that the effect of such principles, in leading to such results, is supposed to be progressive. It is a common event in the history of the servants, that they are all unsuccessful; that they all fail in the object of their mission. It is not a common event, that they are all put to death. The husbandmen express their disregard of the first application, by sending the messenger of their landlord away empty; or if they are guilty of personal violence towards him, it is that of beating, but not of stoning him. Nor until the mission of fresh servants, do they begin to embrue their hands in blood, and to evince their dislike of the message, or their contempt of its author, by putting the messengers to death. Now this was the course which they might naturally be expected to run; and the use of this continued advancement on their part, to one extremity after another, in the same career of audacity, is to forward the final result, and to prepare us for the death of the son of the owner of the vineyard himself. They who had proceeded to such lengths in their treatment of the servants before, were already predisposed to the exertion of similar violence even towards the son.

This naturally leads us to observe, that to be sent on a mission of this kind, especially after the experience of its results in the first instance, was to be sent on a service of obvious danger. Yet we do not perceive that the consciousness of this fact deters either the lord of the vineyard from being willing to send, or his servants from being willing to be sent, upon the errand in question; the first of which considerations is a striking proof of the gentleness, patience, and forbearance of the master, and the latter of the

courage, devotion, and magnanimity of the ser

vants.

And with respect to the mode in which each of the servants acquits himself of his commission; it does not appear, that however faithfully and firmly, as became his duty to his master, it was not in the same spirit of mildness and moderation in which it had been imposed upon him. It does not appear that either the first of the number, or any that came after him, had it in charge to trust for the success of their commission, to any arguments but those of reason and justice, entreaty and expostulation. Even the mission of the son is ascribed more to the deference and respect which it might justly be hoped would be inspired by the dignity of his personal character, than to the awe which might be produced by his personal presence and authority. "They will "reverence," not, "They will fear my son," is the language attributed to the father, when deliberating upon his mission.

And with respect to the failure of the missions, common as that may be in each instance of their repetition, it does not appear that the claims of the servants, on the part of their master, were ever resisted by the husbandmen, under the idea that these messengers were not, in each instance, what they professed and declared themselves to be, the organs and representatives of the lord of the vineyard. On the contrary, the very treatment which they experience at the hands of the husbandmen, implies the preliminary recognition of their character, as actually coming from such a master, and actually empowered to advance such demands in his behalf. Nor is this conclusion without its importance; for it proves

that the principle of the resistance to their claims, in every instance, was no doubt of the authority of the messenger, but a total dislike of the message; no good reason to dispute the justice of the demand, but a fixed determination not to allow it.

We may observe, too, on the authority of St. Matthew, that the servants dispatched upon the later missions, are increased in their numbers, and, as it would seem, in the proportionate urgency of their demands; corresponding to which, their treatment by the husbandmen likewise increases in violence and severity. We observe too, that these missions being once begun, there is, for a certain time, an uninterrupted series of them-their order and succession continue unbroken-the errand has no sooner failed in one instance, than it is repeated in another. The mission of the son alone is followed by no more; and the mission of the son was evidently of such a kind, that from the necessity of the case, whether it succeeded or failed, it could be followed by no more. We may infer, then, that up to a certain point of time, the errands of the servants, for a common purpose, once begun, might, and perhaps, must continue; and even the miscarriage of one be no argument that another was unnecessary, or possibly might not succeed. The mission of the first of the servants is consequently the first step, and that of the son is the last in a determinate series of causes, designed for the production of a determinate effect; which as concerns the lord of the vineyard is the acknowledgment of his covenanted rights, as concerns the husbandmen, his tenants, is the observance of their covenanted duties.

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