Alford. He that knows he is wrong ought not to be argued with. - Bishop Wilson. This refusal is similar to that made when a sign from heaven was demanded (Matt. 12: :38). The answer assumes their proven and confessed incompetency to decide on the authority of a prophet, and, consequently, his superiority to their questioning. Such a defeat increased their opposition.-Schaff. One may admire in this incident the skill with which Christ confounds the enemies of truth. It illustrates, (a) Christ's refusal to submit his claims to the decision of inimical sceptics; (b) the unity of divine truth; one cannot accept a part and reject a part, e.g., accept John the Baptist and reject Christ; (c) the hypocrisy of much that appears to be religious investigation; (d) the right of a religious teacher to answer a fool according to his folly, if he has the ability so to do. — Abbott.

LIBRARY REFERENCES.

On Prayer, Professor Phelps's Still Hour. Trench's Poems, "The Suppliant." A. C. Thompson's Mercy Seat. H. D. Williams's Wonders of Prayer. Emmons's Sermons, vol. 5, "The Faith of Miracles. National Preacher, 8, Sermon, by C. Everest, on "The Nature and Efficacy of Prayer." Finney's Lectures on Revivals, "Prevalent Prayer." Guthrie's Gospel in Ezekiel, "Nature, Necessity, and Power of Prayer."

ILLUSTRATIVE.

I. Our prayers have been likened to a rope by which one in a little boat is striving to draw a great ship to himself. If he does not move the ship towards himself, he at least moves himself towards the ship. — P.

II. Dr. Judson, the great missionary, gives his experience as this: "I never was deeply interested in any object, I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for any thing, but it came. At some time, no matter at how distant a day, somehow, in some shape, probably the last I should have devised, it came.'

But (1) God, who ordained nature, knew, when he set the laws in motion, what you would pray for, and what answer to give; and so answered your prayer long before it was prayed. Hence you can believe that you have received, and therefore shall have. (2) God can lead us, by his providence and his spirit, into the best place among nature's laws. Gravitation need not cease for us, but God can lead us not to go by. The fire will burn all alike, but God can keep us from the fire. - P.

I.

PRACTICAL.

IV.

Strive! yet I do not promise

The prize you dream of to-day
Will not fade when you think to grasp it,
And melt in your hands away.
But another and holier treasure,
You would now perchance disdain,
Will come when your toil is over,
And pay you for all your pain.

Wait! but I do not tell you

The hour you long for now

Will not come with its radiance vanished,
And a shadow upon its brow;
Yet far through the misty future,
With a crown of starry light,

An hour of joy you know not

Is winging her silent flight.

Pray though the gift you long for
May never repay your pleading,
May never comfort your fears,

Yet pray, and with hopeful tears
An answer, not that you long for,
Your eyes are too dim to see it,
But diviner, will come one day:
Yet strive and wait and pray.

- Anon.

Ver. 24. Christians have all the power given them they need for their happiness and their work.

2.

We can rest implicitly on the goodness, wisdom, and power of our Father.

3. God loves to give to his children every thing that is good for them.

4. The only condition is that faith which joins us to God in desires and in love.

5. Ver. 25. This faith is proved by our being like Christ in forgiving our enemies. 6. Ver. 27, etc. Reformers are sure to get into trouble.

7. The authority of all true reformers is from God, who wants all things to be right. 8. Ver. 31. Bad men seek what is expedient for themselves, and not what is true. 9. Ver. 33. We should use wisdom in dealing with opponents of the truth.

IO.

It is often wisest to "carry the war into Africa," and not merely stand on the defensive. Make the infidels answer some of the hard questions that arise from their own positions.

SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS.

This lesson follows close upon the last, showing how to remove the mountain of difficulty in their way. The subject is PRAYER AND ITS ANSWER. (1) The prayer of faith (ver. 24): what we can pray for; what is the faith needed, and how we can believe we have received before we see the answer. (2) The answer to prayer (ver. 24): the certainty of an answer; how God answers, and does not break natural laws; three kinds of answer to prayer. (3) A test of faith (vers. 25, 26): forgiveness is a test; for, if we trust God, we will be like him in forgiving, and obey his command to forgive. The unforgiving are unfit for heaven. (4) An account of some who had no faith (vers. 27–33). Show how their bad character arose

from a want of faith.

THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN.-MARK 12: I-12.

GOLDEN TEXT.

the corner.

son.

Ps. 118: 22.

The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of

TIME. Tuesday, April 4, A. D. 30; immediately after the incident in the last lesThe last day of Christ's public ministry.

PLACE. In the Temple at Jerusalem.

RULERS.

Tiberius Cesar, emperor of Rome. Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea; Herod Antipas, of Galilee.

PARALLEL ACCOUNTS. — Matt. 21 : 33-46. Luke 20:9-19.

INTRODUCTION.

After Jesus had put to silence the chief priests and scribes, he spoke to them three parables. The Two Sons, recorded only by Matthew; The Wicked Husbandmen, the present lesson; and The Marriage of the King's Son, given only by Matthew.-P. It was as if in a glass held up before them they might see themselves. Yet even these parables, wearing as they do so severe and threatening an aspect, are not words of defiance, but of earnest, tenderest love, spoken, if it were yet possible to turn them from their purpose, to save them from the fearful sin they were about to commit, to win them also for the kingdom of God. Trench.

1. And he began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the wine-fat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country.

And he began to speak unto I them in parables. A man

planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged a pit for the winepress, and built a tower, and let it out to

husbandmen, and went into

I. He began to speak unto them. It was spoken in the presence of the people, but directly to the parties who had assailed him.-Schaff. A certain man. (In Matthew, "a householder;" i.e., master of a family.) Representing God. Planted. The householder not merely possessed, he "planted," the vineyard. So God planted his spiritual vineyard, (a) under Abraham, (6) under Moses (Deut. 32:12-14; Ex. 15:17), (c) under Joshua, when the Jews were established in the land of Canaan. - Cambridge Bible. So God planted the Christian Church. And all we have and are is the gift of God, his planting. A vineyard. Our Lord draws, as was his wont, his illustration from common life and familiar objects. Palestine was emphatically a vine-growing country, and fitted, in consequence of its peculiar configuration and climate, for rearing the very finest grapes. Morison. By the "vineyard" we are to understand the kingdom of God as successively realized, (1) in the Jewish nation, and (2) in the spiritual Christian Church. It applies also to the heart and soul of each of us.-P. The opening words at once suggest a comparison with Isaiah (5:1-7). No doubt our Lord here takes up the prophecy there, the more willingly building on the old foundations, that his adversaries accused him of destroying

2. And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of men a servant, that he might the fruit of the vineyard.

another country. And at the 2 season he sent to the husbandreceive from the husbandmen of the fruits of the vineyard.

the law; and not in word only, but by the whole structure of the parable, connecting his own appearing with all that had gone before in the past Jewish history, so that men should look at it as part, indeed as the crowning and final act, of that great dealing of mercy and judgment which had ever been going forward. The image of the kingdom of God as a vine-stock or as a vineyard is not peculiar to this parable, but runs through the whole Old Testament (Deut. 32:32; Ps. 80:8-16; Isa. 5:1-7; 27: 1-7; Jer. 2:21; Ezek. 15:1-6; 19: 10); and has this especial fitness, that no property was considered to yield so large a return (Cant. 8:11, 12). None was therefore of such price and esteem. It no doubt belongs to the fitness of the image, that a vineyard does, if it is to bring forth richly, require the most diligent and never-ceasing care; that there is no season in the year in which much has not to be done in it. Virgil presses this very strongly in words not unworthy to be kept in mind by all to whom a spiritual vineyard has been committed. (See Georg, 2:397-419.) Trench. Set an hedge about it. Probably a hedge of thorns; possibly a wall.-Schaff. Enclosures of loose stone, like the walls of fields in Derbyshire or Westmoreland, everywhere catch the eye on the bare slopes of Hebron, of Bethlehem, and of Olivet.Stanley, Sinai and Palestine. The hedge around them is the law, separating them from the Gentiles. - Theophylact. By their circumscription through the law (Eph. 2:14) the Jews became a people dwelling alone, and not reckoned among the nations; that law being at once a hedge of separation and of defence, a wall of fire, which, preserving them distinct from the idolatrous nations round them and from their abominations, gave them the pledge and assurance of the continued protection of God. Nor should it be forgotten, that not inwardly only, but outwardly as well, Judea, through its geographical position, was hedged round, by the bounty of nature on every side circumscribed and defended. Trench. Digged a place (or pit) for the wine-fat (or wine-press). The wine-press (Matt. 21:33) consisted of two parts, —(1) the press, or trough, above, in which the grapes were placed, and there trodden by the feet of several persons amidst singing and other expressions of joy (Judg. 9:27; Isa. 16: 10; Jer. 25: 30); (2) a smaller trough (yekeb), into which the expressed juice flowed through a hole or spout (Neh. 13:15; Isa. 63:2; Lam. 1:15). Here the smaller trough, which was often hollowed ("digged") out of the earth or native rock and then lined with masonry, is put for the whole apparatus, and is called a wine-FAT. Cambridge Bible. This simply represents one means by which the fruit God expected from his people could be brought into use. Built a tower. Towers were erected in vineyards, of a very considerable height, and were intended for the accommodation of keepers, who defended the vineyar ls from thieves and from troublesome animals. — Ripley. In the time of the vintage used for recreation, no doubt, as in European countries. The tower represents the provisions made by God for the protection and prosperity of his people. Schaff. The hedge and wine-press and tower represent the various advantages conferred by God upon the Jewish people (Rom. 9:4). Observe how great care, for what belonged to the husbandmen he himself did. The sources of national prosperity with all nations come from God. - Abbott. These also represent all the influences God confers on us to make us fruitful, the Bible, the sabbath, Christian homes, the influences of the Spirit.-P. Let it out to husbandmen. Representing the rulers of the Jews (Matt. 21:45); but the people as a whole, a nation or a church, are included (Matt. 21:43).Schaff. And also each person to whom God has committed the influences for making his own soul a kingdom of God.-P. It is customary in the East, as in Ireland and in other parts of Europe, for the owner to let out his estate to husbandmen; i.e., to tenants, who pay him an annual rent, either in money or, as apparently in this case, in kind. - Abbott. It has pleased God, that, in his kingdom of grace, laborers should receive a reward of grace. Schaff. Went into a far country. (Better, "into another country," as in the Revised.) "For a long while" (or time), adds St. Luke. At Sinai, when the theocratic constitution was founded, and in the miracles which accompanied the deliverance from Egypt, the Lord may be said to have openly manifested himself to Israel, but then to have withdrawn himself again for a while, not speaking to the people again face to face (Deut. 34: 10-12), but waiting in patience to see what the law would effect, and what manner of works the people, under the teaching of their spiritual guides, would bring forth. Trench. Christ repeatedly represents God as appearing to withdraw from the earth, that he may test the fidelity and obedience of his children. This represents and partially explains "the eternal silences," - God's seeming absence. - Abbott.

2. At the season; i.e., when the fruit-season drew near. Probably no definite time, but whenever any special duty was to be done, or special call to repentance made as by the

3. And they caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty.

4. And again he sent unto them another servant; and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled.

5. And again he sent another; and him they killed, and many others; beating some, and killing some.

And they took him, and beat 3 him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent unto them 4

another servant; and him they wounded in the head, and handled shamefully. And he 5 sent another; and him they

killed: and many others; beat

ing some, and killing some.

prophets.-P. All time is the time of fruit with the individual and with the nation. God continually seeks for fruit.— Abbott. God expects fruit after such careful preparation. Schaff. A servant. The servants—that is, the prophets, and other more eminent ministers of God in his theocracy—were sent, being raised up at particular times, having particular missions. The patience of the householder is thus brought out and magnified, that it may set forth the yet more wonderful forbearance and long-suffering of God.· Trench. God began about 430 years after the Exodus to send his prophets to the people of Israel, and continued even until John the Baptist; but all was in vain: they "persecuted the prophets," casting them out, and putting them to death. Alford. Every special call to love and serve God, every service at the church, every providence of God, every voice of the Holy Spirit, every season of revival, is a servant whom God sends to us for the fruits that are due him. -P. Of the fruit. The householder's share. The rent not being paid in money, but in a stipulated portion of the produce, according to the well-known metayer system once prevalent over a great part of Europe. The fruits were obedience, love, righteous living, teaching the true God to the nations, etc. These fruits which are demanded are in no wise to be explained as particular works, nor yet as a condition of honesty and uprightness, but much rather as the repentance and the inward longing after true inward righteousness, which the law was unable to bring about. Olshausen.

3. They caught him. The gradual growth of the outrage is clearly traced: (1) The first servant they “caught, beat, and sent away empty;" (2) at the second they “cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled;" (3) the third "they killed." — Cambridge Bible. They beat him. A verb which strictly means to flay or skin, but is secondarily applied to the severest kind of scourging. — Alexander. Empty. Empty-handed; i.e., without that which he came for. According to the obvious design of the whole parable, this is a lively figure for the undutiful and violent reception often given to the prophets or other divine messengers, and the refusal to obey their message. (See Matt. 23:29-31, 34, 37; Luke 11:47-50; 13:33, 34. Compare i Thess. 2:15; Rev. 16:6; 18:24.) — Alexander. The behavior of these husbandmen is only a picture of the way impenitent men still treat God's messengers of mercy,- the Holy Spirit, the Bible, the influences of religion, ― rejecting and sending them away empty. — P.

4. Another servant. God sent many prophets to the Jews, as he sends many influences to us. Shamefully handled, or dishonored. It is the generic summing up of all that the imagination naturally suggests when we think of what must have been done to the man in the affray in which his head was seriously wounded. — Morison.

5. Him they killed. Some of the prophets were not merely maltreated, but actually put to death. Thus, if we may trust Jewish tradition, Jeremiah was stoned by the exiles in Egypt, Isaiah sawn asunder by king Manasseh; and, for an ample historical justification of this description, see Jer. 37, 38; 1 Kings 18:13; 22:24-27; 2 Kings 6:31; 21: 16; 2 Chron. 24: 19-22; 36: 16; and also Acts 7: 52; and the whole passage finds a parallel in the words of the apostle (Ileb. 11: :36). The patience of the householder under these extraordinary provocations is wonderful, that he sends messenger after messenger for the purpose of bringing back, if possible, these wicked men to a sense of duty, and does not at once resume possession of his vineyard, and inflict summary vengeance, as the end proves that he had power to do, upon them; and this his patience is thus brought out and magnified, that it may set forth the yet more wonderful forbearance and long-suffering of God.- Trench. The conduct of the "lord of the vineyard" is a vivid representation of God's dealings with man. It is a faithful picture of his merciful dealings with the Jewish church. It is a no less faithful picture of his gracious treatment of the Gentile churches. For eighteen hundred years he has suffered their manners. They have repeatedly tried him by false doctrines, superstitions, and contempt of his word. Yet he has repeatedly granted them seasons of refreshing, raised up for them holy ministers and mighty reformers, and not cut them off, notwithstanding all their persecutions. We have probably little idea of the extent of our obligations, and of the number of gracious messages which the Lord of the vineyard is constantly sending to our souls. The last day will unfold to our wondering eyes a long list of unacknowledged kindnesses, of which, while

6. Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, They will

reverence my son.

7. But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.

8. And they took him, and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard.

He had yet one, a beloved 6

son: he sent him last unto them, saying, They will reverbandmen said among themence my son. But those hus- 7 selves, This is the heir; come,

let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. And they 8

took him, and killed him, and

cast him forth out of the vine

we lived, we took no notice. Mercies before conversion, mercies after conversion, mercies at every step of their journey on earth, will be revealed to the minds of saved saints, and make them ashamed of their own thanklessness. Ryle.

6. Having yet therefore one son. This was the last and crowning effort of divine mercy; after which, on the one side, all the resources even of heavenly love are exhausted, on the other the measure of sins is perfectly filled up. Undoubtedly they who were our Lord's actual hearers quite understood what he meant, and the honor which in these words he claimed as his own; though they were unable to turn his words against himself, and to accuse him, on the strength of them, of making himself, as indeed he did then affirm himself, the Son of God. Trench. One son, his well-beloved, he sent him. This saying, put at that time by Jesus in the mouth of God, has a peculiar solemnity. There is his answer to the question, "By what authority doest thou these things?" Here, as everywhere, the meaning of the title son transcends absolutely the notion of Messiah, or theocratic king, or any office whatever. The title expresses, above all, the notion of a personal relation to God as Father. By this name Jesus establishes between the servants and himself an immeasurable distance.- Godet. They will reverence my son. That is, they will respect and treat with due esteem such a messenger (John 3:16, 17).- Jacobus. The expression of the hope that the husbandmen will reverence the son implies, of course, no ignorance, but the sincere will of God that all should be saved. Schaff. Is there not infinite reason that infinite beauty and excellence should be esteemed and loved, and that supreme authority should be obeyed, and the highest character revered? If we form our expectations from what we find in fact among mankind in other cases, sure we may expect the Son of God would meet with such a reception in our world: the thousandth part of this kindness would excite gratitude between man and man, and he would be counted a monster that would not be moved with it. Davies. If the love of God, shown in sending his Son Christ Jesus to save us, if all that was done for us on the cross, will not touch our hearts and make us choose God, then nothing will. The last hope is gone when we reject Christ.-P.

7. This is the heir. He for whom the inheritance is meant, and to whom it will in due course rightfully arrive, - not, as in earthly relations, by the death, but by the free appointment of the actual possessor. Christ is "heir of all things " (Heb. I : 2), not as he is the Son of God (for as such he created all), but as he is the Son of man. Trench. The Messiah to whom this world is to be given. He will inherit the vineyard when all the people are brought into the kingdom of God, and his kingdom is fully established. Come, let us kill him. The very words of Genesis (37: 20), where Joseph's brethren express a similar resolution. This resolution had actually been taken (John 11:53).· Alford. It is the heart which speaks in God's hearing. The thought of men's hearts is their true speech, and therefore given as though it were the words of their lips. Trench. Did the Jewish rulers know they were putting to death the heir, the Son of God? (1) They were plainly told, and ought to have known. (2) In all probability the truth did more than once flash upon them. (3) The final resolution to kill him was taken immediately after his greatest exhibition of divine power in the raising of Lazarus (John 11: 46-53).-Stock. The inheritance shall be ours. If Jesus were the Messiah (and this implies that they had so much conviction of it as to fear that he might be), and he was introducing the kingdom of God, whose whole spirit was so different from theirs, then they would lose their places as rulers, as teachers, as men of influence, their authority over the people, and their chief business. They were so connected with a system which must pass away with Christ, with wrong ideas and principles and customs which Christ was doing away, that, if Christ prevailed, they must fall. But they imagined, that, if they could destroy Christ, they could continue in possession of the inheritance, be rulers over Israel, teachers and leaders of the people, the possessors of the nation. As referring to the vine. yard of our own souls, it is the determination not to be ruled by Christ, but to be our own king, and hold sole possession of ourselves to do as we please.-P.

8. They killed him. As the Jews did Jesus. They killed that they might possess;