as contemporaries, and executing their ministry in common, in the decline of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, than before: and in proportion as the increasing wickedness of the times called for more strenuous exertions, and louder remonstrances on their part, the later prophets were but the more urgent in enforcing the necessity of repentance, and the more indefatigable in labouring for the national reformation. The servants were only the more harshly treated for the increased urgency of their demands; and the prophets were only the more disliked and persecuted, the more faithfully they discharged their duty, and the more assiduously they laboured for the conversion and amendment of the people. Lastly the mission of the servants was antecedent to that of the son, and even by its failure and ill success, entailing the necessity, prepared the way for the fact, of that dispensation itself; and the prophets, in like manner, were precursors of the Messiah, and the mission of the Messiah, humanly speaking, so far as it was intended for a common effect and purpose with that of the prophets, was produced by the failure of theirs.

With respect to that part of the parable, which follows next in order; it has been already observed that the personal description and personal history of the son, both before and after his mission to the husbandmen, are among the most decisive criterions of the nature, design, and import of the whole representation. It is manifest too, that to conduct to that one event, developed in the history of the son, as the final effect of his mission also-is the scope and tendency of all that precedes; the measure of

the guilt of the husbandmen, the termination of the efforts of the owner to reclaim them to a sense of their duty, the close of their period of probation, the virtual commencement of the economy of their retribution-the catastrophe, in short, of the whole story are all determined by it.

Now the description of the son, before he is sent, is that of the only son, and consequently the wellbeloved of his father; nor does he cease to be his only, and consequently his well-beloved son, in coming to the husbandmen: the only observable difference in the circumstances of his proper relation to the father, before and after his mission, is that before, he was the only and well-beloved son, not yet separate from the father, but living with him—after, he was his only and well-beloved, who had left him for a time, to come to his husbandmen. In like manner, our Lord Jesus Christ, by virtue of his eternal generation, was always the only begotten, and always the well-beloved of the Father; nor did he cease to retain those characters when he became man. The only difference was, that before his incarnation, he was the only begotten and well-beloved of his Father, who was still in the bosom of the Father, and had not yet temporarily separated himself from that blessed communion, to come into the world; after his incarnation, he was the only begotten and well-beloved of the Father, who had come forth from the Father, and assumed flesh, to sojourn for a time in the world.

The mission of the Son, on such an errand, to the

b John i. 14. 18: Matt. iii. 17: Mark i. 11: Luke iii. 22: John iii. 16. 18: Matt. xvii. 5: Mark ix. 7: Luke ix. 35: Ephes. i. 6: 1 John iv. 9.

tenants of his Father, supposed him to come as his messenger-and for the purpose of enforcing the rights of his Father from them, just as much as any of the servants before him. Notwithstanding then, the superior dignity of his personal character in comparison of theirs, his ministerial character, and his vicarious relation to the Father, were nothing different from those of the servants. It is needless to observe that our Lord was as much the Shiloh or apostle of the Father, as his disciples were so of himself, and repeatedly speaks of himself in that relation accordingly. But upon this question of the resemblance of the ministerial character even of our Lord to that of the prophets under the old dispensation; we know that among the opinions current about him, during the transaction of his personal ministry, one was that one of the prophets of olden time, had risen again in his person: an opinion, which, whatever else might concur to produce it, must have been principally due to the visible coincidence between the part and office which Christ was discharging at the time, and what was to be collected from scripture, or had been perpetuated by tradition, of the proper office and ministry of the prophets of the ancient dispensation.

c Cf. Luke ii. 49: John i. 14. 18; iii. 16. 17; v. 23, 24. 30. 36-38. 43; vi. 29. 38-40. 44. 46. 57: Mark ix. 37: Luke ix. 48: John vii. 16. 18. 28, 29. 33; viii. 16. 18. 26. 29. 42: Luke x. 16: John xii. 44, 45. 49; xiii. 1. 3. 20; xiv. 24. 31; xv. 21; xvi. 5. 28; xvii. 3, 4. 8. 18. 23. 25: Gal. iv. 4: Rom. viii. 3: Hebrews i. 1; iii. 1: 1 John iv. 9, 10. 14.

d Luke ix. 8. 19: Cf. Matt. xiv. 5; xvi. 14; xxi. 11, 46: Mark vi. 15; viii. 28; xi. 32: Luke vii. 16. 39; xiii. 33; xxiv. 19: John iv. 19; vi. 14; vii. 40; ix. 17.

The truth indeed is, as I shewed more at large in my former work, the object of our Lord's personal ministry was twofold; one, in which it did not differ from that of the ministry of John the Baptist, his immediate predecessor in it, nor from that of the ministry of any one of the prophets of old, more remotely his precursors also-another, in which it was peculiar to himself. The first of these offices was that of a moral teacher, and a preacher of repentance and righteousness; the second was that of the Redeemer and Saviour of mankind. The former was discharged by our Lord during the course of his ministerial life, from its beginning to its consummation; the latter was fulfilled once for all, at his death. In the first of these capacities his ministry could not be said to differ externally from that of any divinely commissioned teacher, who had gone before him whether a longer or a shorter time previously, in the same office of a teacher and preacher sent from God; in the latter, it was peculiar to himself, and absolutely without a parallel, in the ministry whether of prophets or of apostles. A prophet, an apostle, and Jesus Christ himself, in their respective order of time might agree in being teachers and preachers, and teachers and preachers sent from God: and prophets, and apostles, and Jesus Christ himself, in their respective order of time, might agree in suffering persecution, and encountering death, in the proper discharge of their ministerial commission: but neither prophet, nor apostle, nor any but Jesus Christ himself, was such a teacher and preacher, in his lifetime, who by suf

e Vide vol. ii. Diss. v. 147. sqq.

fering death in the proper discharge of his commission at last, effected the salvation and redemption of mankind for no prophet, nor apostle, nor any but Jesus Christ himself, besides being a teacher sent from God, was the only begotten and well-beloved of the Father, who had left the bosom of the Father, to appear in the form of his servant-and to fulfil the work, which he had given him to perform-in the world. Nor to the death of any teacher or preacher, sent from God, even in the proper discharge of his commission, except that of the only begotten, and well-beloved of the Father himself, could such a value attach, from the infinite dignity of the sufferer, as singly to be commensurate to the salvation of the world.

The superior personal dignity of the Son seemed likely to give him an influence and an authority, even in the discharge of the same commission with one of his father's servants before him, which none of the servants merely could have possessed: and our Lord's character, even as a prophet, was superior to the character of all who went before him in the prophetical office; there being no testimony which could be rendered to the fact of a divine legation, no attestation which could be given to the power and authority by which the messenger acted in the discharge of his commission, that was not multiplied manifold more in behalf of Jesus Christ, than of any prophet who had gone before him. Yet by a strange and unnatural result, the personal coming of the son led to the commission of a worse crime by the husbandmen, and to the infliction of a deeper injury upon the owner through their means, than the mission of any one of the servants could have