can this be accepted as satisfactory. Nor are the cases of Adonijah and Shimei (1 Kin. ii.), which are sometimes adduced, altogether in point. They no doubt, on occasion of their later offences, were punished far more severely than probably they would have been, had it not been for their former offences; yet still it is not the former crimes which are revived that they may be punished, but the later offence which calls down its own punishment; and moreover, to produce parallels from the questionable acts of imperfect men, is but a poor way of establishing the righteousness of God.

The question herein involved, Do sins, once forgiven, return on the sinner through his after offences? is one frequently and fully discussed by the Schoolmen;* and of course this parable, and the arguments which may be drawn from it, always take a prominent place in such discussions. But it may be worthy of consideration, whether the difficulties do not arise mainly from our allowing ourselves in too dead and formal a way of contemplating the forgiveness of sins;-from our suffering the earthly circumstances of the remission of a debt to embarrass the heavenly truth, instead of regarding them as helps, but at the same time weak and often failing ones, for the setting forth that truth. One cannot conceive of remission of sins apart from living communion with Christ; this is one of the great ideas brought out in our baptismal service, that we are members of a righteous Person and justified in him. But if through sin we cut ourselves off from communion with him, we fall back into a state of nature, which is of itself a state of condemnation and death, a state upon which therefore the wrath of God is abiding. If then, laying apart the contemplation of a man's sins as a formal debt, which must either be forgiven him or not-we contemplate the life out of Christ as a state of wrath, and the life in Christ as a state of grace, the first a walking in darkness, and the other a walking in the light, we can better understand how a man's sins should return upon him; that is, he sinning anew falls back into the darkness out of which he had been delivered, and no doubt all that he has done of evil in former times adds to the thickness of that darkness, causes the wrath of God to abide more terribly on that state in which he now is, and therefore upon him. (John v. 14.) Even as also it must not be left out of sight that all forgiveness short of the crowning act of

By PET. LOMBARD, 1. 4, dist. 22; AQUINAS (Sum. Theol., pars 3, qu. 88), and H. DE STO VICTORE. (De Sacram., 1. 2, pars 14, c. 9: Utrum peccata semel dimissa redeant.) Cf. AUGUSTINE, De Bapt., Con. Don., 1. 1, c. 12. Cajetan, quoting Rom. xi. 29, "the gifts of God are without repentance" (àμeтaμéλnta), explains thus the recalling of the pardon which had once been granted: Repetuntur debita semel donata, non ut fuerant priùs debita, sed ut modò effecta sunt materia ingratitudinis, which is exactly the decision of Aquinas.

forgiveness and mercy, which will find place on the day of judgment, and will be followed by a total impossibility of sinning any more, is conditional, in the very nature of things so conditional, that the condition must in every case be assumed, whether stated or no; that condition being that the forgiven man abide in faith and obedience, in that state of grace into which he has been brought; which he whom the unmerciful servant here represents, had not done, but on the contrary evidently and plainly showed by his conduct, that he had "forgotten that he was purged from his old sins." He that is to partake of the final salvation must abide in Christ, else he will be "cast forth as a branch, and withered." (John xv. 6.) This is the condition, not arbitrarily imposed from without, but belonging to the very essence of the salvation itself; as, if one were drawn from the raging sea, and set upon the safe shore, the condition of his continued safety would be that he abode there, and did not again cast himself into the raging waters. In this point of view an interesting parallel will be supplied to this parable by 1 John i. 7, "If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." He whom this servant represents does not abide in the light of love, but falls back into the old darkness; he has, therefore, no fellowship with his brother, and the cleansing power of that blood ceases from him.

It is familiar to many that the Romish theologians have often found an argument for purgatory, in the words "till he should pay all that was due, as on the parallel expression, Matt. v. 26; as though they designated a limit beyond which the punishment should not extend. But it seems plain enough that the phrase is nothing more than a proverbial one, to signify that the offender should now be dealt with according to the extreme rigor of the law;t that he should have justice without mercy, that always paying, he should never have paid off his debt. For since man could never acquit the slightest portion of the debt in which he is indebted to God, the putting that as a condition of his liberation, which it was impossible could ever be fulfilled, was the strongest possible way of expressing the eternal duration of his punishment; just as, when the Phocæans abandoning their city swore that they would not return to it again, till the mass of iron which they plunged into the sea appeared once more upon the surface, it was in fact the most emphatic

*See GERHARD's Loci Theoll., loc. 27, c. 8. Chrysostom rightly explains it, τουτέστι διηνεκῶς, οὔτε γὰρ ἀποδώσει ποτέ, and Augustine (De Serm. Dom. in Mon., 1. 1, c. 11): Donec solvas... miror si non eam significat pœnam quæ vocatur æterSo Remigius: Semper solvet, sed nunquam persolvet.

na.

vere.

Just as the Roman proverbs, Ad numum solvere, ad extremum assem sol

form they could devise of declaring that they would never return ;— such an emphatic expression is the present.*

The Lord concludes with a word of earnest warning: "So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses." "So"-with the same rigor; such treasures of wrath, as well as such treasures of grace, are with him. He who could so greatly forgive, can also so greatly punish. Chrysostom observes, that he says, my heavenly Father, meaning to imply-yours he will not be, since so acting you will have denied the relationship; but this observation can scarcely be correct, since our Lord often says, My Father, when no such reason can be assigned (as ver. 19). On the declaration itself we may observe that, according to the view given in Scripture, the Christian stands in a middle point, between a mercy received and a mercy yet needed. Sometimes the first is urged upon him as an argument for showing mercy-" forgiving one another as Christ forgave you" (Col. iii. 13; Ephes. iv. 32); sometimes the last, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy" (Matt. v. 7); "Forgive and ye shall be forgiven" (Luke vi. 37; Jam. v. 9); and so the son of Sirach (xxviii. 3, 4), "One man beareth hatred against another, and doth he seek pardon from the Lord? he showeth no mercy to a man who is like himself, and doth he ask forgiveness of his own sins!"-so that while he is ever to look back on the mercy received as the source and motive of the mercy which he shows, he also looks forward to the mercy which he yet needs, and which he is assured that the merciful, according to what Bengel beautifully calls the Benigna talio of the kingdom of God, shall receive as a new provocation to its abundant exercise. Tholuck has some good remarks upon this point: "From the circumstance that mercy is here [Matt. v. 7] promised as the recompense of anterior mercy on our part, it might indeed be inferred that under 'merciful' we are to imagine such as have not yet in any degree partaken of mercy; but this conclusion would only be just on the supposition, that the divine compassion consisted in an isolated act, which could be done to man but once for all. Seeing, however, that it is an act which extends over the whole life of the individual, and reaches its

* Just so Macbeth thinks he has the strongest assurance of safety, while that is put as a condition of his defeat, which he counts can never come to pass :

"Let them fly all;

Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane

I cannot taint with fear."

† ̓Απὸ τῶν καρδιῶν: en uxs, Ephes. vi. 6; to the exclusion, not merely of acts of hostility, but also of all μvnoikaкía. H. de Sto Victore: Ut nec opere exerceat vindictam, nec corde reservet malitiam; and Jerome: Dominus addidit, de cordibus vestris, ut omnem simulationem fictæ pacis averteret.

culminating point in eternity, it behooves us to consider the compassion of God for man, and man for his brethren, as reciprocally calling forth and affording a basis for one another."* And this seems the explanation of a difficulty suggested by Origen,† namely, where in time we are to place the transactions shadowed forth in this parable !—for on the one hand, there are reasons why they should be placed at the end of this present dispensation, since, it might be asked, when else does God take account with his servants for condemnation or acquittal? while yet on the other hand, if it were thus placed at the end of the dispensation, what further opportunity would there be for the forgiven servant to show the harshness which he actually does show to his fellow-servant? The difficulty disappears, when we no longer contemplate forgiveness as an isolated act, which must take place at some definite moment, but consider it as ever going forward,-as running parallel with and extending over the entire life.‡

* Auslegung der Bergpredigt, p. 93. † Comm. in Matth., xviii.

There is a fine story illustrative of this parable, told by Fleury (Hist. Eccles., v. 2, p. 334.) It is briefly this. Between two Christians at Antioch enmity and division had fallen out. After a while one of them desired to be reconciled, but the other, who was a priest, refused. While it was thus with them, the persecution of Valerian began; and Sapricius, the priest, having boldly confessed himself a Christian, was on the way to death. Nicephorus met him and again sued for peace, which was again refused. While he was seeking and the other refusing, they arrived at the place of execution. He that should have been the martyr was here terrified, offered to sacrifice to the gods, and despite the entreaties of the other did so, making shipwreck of his faith: while Nicephorus, boldly confessing, stepped in his place, and received the crown which Sapricius lost. This whole story runs finely parallel with our parable. Before Sapricius could have had grace to confess thus to Christ, he must have had his own ten thousand talents forgiven; but refusing to forgive a far lesser wrong, to put away the displeasure he had taken up on some infinitely lighter grounds against his brother, he forfeited all the advantages of his position, his Lord was angry, took away from his grace, and suffered him again to fall under those powers of evil from which he had been once delivered. It comes out, too, in this story, that it is not merely the outward wrong and outrage upon a brother, which constitutes a likeness to the unmerciful servant, but the unforgiving temper, even apart from all such. So Augustine (Quæst. Evang., 1. 1, qu. 25): Noluit ignoscere, . intelligendum, tenuit contra eum hunc

animum, ut supplicia illi vellet.

IX.

THE LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD.

MATTHEW XX. 1-16.

THIS parable stands in closest connection with the four last verses of the preceding chapter, and can only be rightly understood by their help, so that the actual division of the chapters is here peculiarly unfortunate, causing, as it has often done, this parable to be explained quite independently of the context, and without any attempt to show the circumstances out of which it sprung. And yet on the right tracing of this connection, and the showing how the parable grew out of, and was in fact an answer to. Peter's question, "What shall we have ?" the success of the exposi tion will mainly depend. The parable now to be considered is only second to that of the Unjust Steward in the number of explanations, and those the most widely different, that have been proposed for it; as it is also only second to that, if indeed second, in the difficulties which beset it. These Chrysostom† states clearly and strongly; though few, I think, will be wholly satisfied with his solution of them. There is first the dif ficulty of bringing the parable into harmony with the saying by which it is introduced and concluded, and which it is plainly intended to illustrate and secondly, there is the moral difficulty, the same as finds place in regard of the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son,namely, how can one who is himself a member of the kingdom of God "be held," as Chrysostom terms it, "by that lowest of all passions, envy, and an evil eye," grudging in his heart the favors shown to other members of that kingdom? or, if it be denied that these murmurers and envious are members of that kingdom, how is this denial reconcilable

* Hase (Leben Jesu, p. 147), gives the literature connected with this parable, consisting of no less than fifteen essays, most of them separately published; and has yet omitted some, of which the titles are given in WOLF's Curæ.

In Matth., Hom. 64.