and good); but he asks for it one year of grace, to see if it will yet do better: "If it bear fruit, well;† and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down." During this year he "he will dig about it and dung it :" that is, he will hollow out the earth from around the stem of the tree, and afterwards fill up the hollow with manure; as one may often see done now to the orange-trees in the south of Italy. By these appliances is signified that multiplication of the means of grace, which in God's dealing with men, we may so often observe to find place at the last moment, before those means are withdrawn for ever. Thus, before the flood, they had Noah, a "preacher of righteousness,"-before the great catastrophes of the Jews, they had among them some of their most eminent prophets, as Jeremiah before the taking of Jerusalem by the Chaldæans, and before its final destruction, they enjoyed the ministry of Christ and of his apostles. To this last, no doubt, allusion is here more immediately made, to that larger, richer supply of grace,—that freer outpouring of the Spirit, which was consequent on the death, and resurrection, and ascension, of the Lord. So Theophylact explains this digging about and manuring the hitherto unfruitful tree: "Though they were not made better by the law and the prophets, nor yielded fruit of repentance, yet will I water them by my doctrines and passion; it may be, they will then yield fruits of obedience." No doubt if the history of men's lives were writ as large as the history of nations and of churches, and could we, therefore, read the history of those as plainly as of these, we should oftener perceive that what is true of the last is also true of the first we should mark critical moments in men's lives to which all the future was linked, on which it was made altogether to depend,— times of gracious visitation which it was of the deepest importance to know, and not to suffer to escape unobserved and unimproved. Such a time of visitation to the Jewish people was the Lord's ministry in the midst of it (Luke xix. 42); then was the digging about and manuring the tree which had been so long barren. But it abode in its barrenness, -its day of grace came to an end; and, as here is threatened, it was inexorably cut down. We may observe, however, that in the parable our Lord does not actually affirm that the tree will certainly continue unfruitful to the last, but suggests the other alternative as possible; "If

* With a play on the words, Augustine (Serm. 110, c. 4): Dilata est securis, noli esse secura; and elsewhere, Distulit securim, non dedit securitatem. We have the same suspended sense, with e, or some word similar, understood, Luke xxii. 42.

For a useful spiritual application of the words, see AUGUSTINE, Serm. 254 and 110, c. 1: Sordes cultoris, dolores sunt peccatoris. Cf. Ambrose, De Panit, 1. 2, c. 1.

it bear fruit, well." For thus the door of repentance is left open to all; they are warned that they are not shut up, except indeed by their own evil will, in unbelief and hardness of heart, that it is they only themselves who make inevitable their doom.

* Rosenmüller (Alte und Neue Morgenland, v. 5, p. 187) quotes from an Arabian writer the following receipt for curing a palm-tree of barrenness. "Thou must take a hatchet, and go to the tree with a friend, unto whom thou sayest, I will cut down this tree, for it is unfruitful. He answers, Do not so, this year it will certainly bear fruit. But the other says, It must needs be,—it must be hewn down; and gives the stem of the tree three blows with the back of the hatchet. But the other restrains him, crying, Nay, do it not, thou wilt certainly have fruit from it this year, only have patience with it, and be not over-hasty in cutting it down; if it still refuses to bear fruit, then cut it down. Then will the tree that year be certainly fruitful and bear abundantly." The same story is to be found in RUCKERT'S Brahmanische Erzahlungen, so that it would appear widely spread in the East; also in S. DE SACY'S Chrest. Arabe, v. 2, p. 379; and in the collection of tracts De Re Rusticâ, entitled Geoponica.

XXI.

THE GREAT SUPPER.

LUKE XIV. 15-24.

Ir is not worth while to repeat the arguments which seem to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this parable, and that recorded at Matt. xxii. 2, are entirely different, spoken upon different occasions, and with (partially) different aims. On the present occasion, the Lord had been invited to eat bread at the house of one of the chief of the Pharisees. (Ver. 1.) Much happened at this meal, which was probably no common meal, but an entertainment prepared with much cost and expense, and at which many, and it is likely, guests of consideration, were present. This would seem probable for many reasons; there were contests among the guests for precedency, or at least a silent, but not unobserved or unrebuked, attempt on the part of some to select for themselves the places of honor and dignity.* (Ver. 7.) Then again, in the Lord's address to his host, in which he points out to him a more excellent way of hospitality (ver. 12), it would seem implied that at that feast were present many of his kindred and richer neighbors—such a supposition adds much force to the admonishment. And yet further, our Saviour so often borrowed the images of his parables from that which was actually at the moment present before his eyes and the eyes of his hearers that his speaking of a certain man having made a great supper, would seem to indicate that this also at which he was now sitting was no ordinary, but rather some costly and numerously attended entertainment.

The circumstances out of which the parable immediately grew were these one that sat at the table with him, after hearing some of the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth, could not help exclaiming,

*This snatching at the first places is adduced by Theophrastus (Char. 21) as an example of the μikpopiλoriuía. See also BECKER's Charikles, v. 1, p. 427.

certainly not in the spirit of mockery, rather in approval and admiration, "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!" But how, it may be asked, came the Lord's last words, "Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just," to elicit exactly this observation? what natural connection was there between the two, for such a connection is evidently marked in the narrative? When we keep in mind the notions then current among the Jews concerning the resurrection of the just, or, which was the same thing, the open setting up of the kingdom of God,—that it would be ushered in by a great and glorious festival, of which all the members of that kingdom should be partakers, it is at once easy to perceive how this man's thoughts, a man it might be with certain favorable dispositions towards the truth, but of a carnal mind like the most of his countrymen, should have passed on from the resurrection of the just, of which Jesus spake, to the great festival which was to accompany that resurrection, or rather, should have interpreted the Lord's words, when he spake of the recompense that would then be given to the merciful, as meaning participation in that festival. His exclamation, "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!" might be unfolded thus; "Blessed is he that shall share in the recompense whereof thou speakest, in the reward which shall be given at the resurrection of the just." His words are an earthly way of saying, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection!" It is likely from the warning conveyed in the parable, which we are told was particularly, though we cannot suppose exclusively, addressed to him, that he spoke these words with a very easy and comfortable assurance that he should make one of those that should thus eat bread in the kingdom of God. He, as a Jew, as a member of the elect nation, had been invited to that great feast of God; that was all which he paused to consider; and not whether he had truly accepted the call, or, on the contrary, had suffered carnal desires and lusts to keep him away from rightly embracing it; certainly he had not at all considered whether in the refusal to enter into that higher spiritual life of the Gospel, to which Christ was now inviting him, there was not involved his own ultimate rejection from the heavenly festival. For his warning, and for the warning of all like-minded with him, the parable was spoken.

"A certain man made a great supper." Many have said, “a supper," because as a supper takes place at evening, so it was in the evening of

*See EISENMENGER'S Entdeckt. Judenthum, v. 2, p. 872, seq.-Augustine warning against a carnal interpretation, exclaims concerning this supper: Noli parare fauces, sed cor.

† Augustine (Serm. 112, c. 5): Quasi in longinqua iste suspirabat, et ipse Panis ante illum discumbebat.

time, the last hour (1 John ii. 18; 1 Cor. x. 11), that Christ came, and invited men to the fulness of Gospel blessings. But this is pressing the word of the original* too far, which is of very wide and fluctuating use: a great feast, and nothing more, is signified. Men's relish is so little, their desire so faint for the things heavenly, therefore are they presented to them under such inviting images as this, that if possible they may be stirred up to a more earnest longing after them.f-" And bade‡ many"-these were the Jews, and the latter parts of the parable oblige us to understand by those bidden, not so much the entire nation, as those who might be taken for the peculiar representatives of the theocracy, the priests and the elders, the scribes and the Pharisees, in opposition to the publicans and sinners, and all the despised portions of the people. Those other as claiming to be zealous for the law, to be following after righteousness, seemed as it were to be pointed out as the first who should embrace the invitation of Christ. The maker of the feast "sent his servant at supper-time, to say to them that were bidden, Come, for all things are now ready." Some will have that the guests, in needing thus to be reminded that the hour of supper had arrived, already began to show how slightly they esteemed the invitation; but this is a mistake,

* Acîπvov, which, as is well known, originally,—at least in the time of Homer, -meant the morning, in opposition to the evening, meal, and as little indicates the time when the meal was made as does the Latin cœna. Or even granting that deinvov in the later Greek of the New Testament had come to signify the evening meal, yet still its being the chief and most important meal in the day, was naturally what caused it here to be selected, and not the accidental circumstance of its being celebrated towards evening.

† A sermon by Gregory the Great (Hom. 36 in Evang.) on this parable begins beautifully thus: Hoc distare inter delicias corporis et cordis solet, quod corporales deliciæ cùm non habentur, grave in se desiderium accendunt; cùm verò habitæ eduntur, comedentem protinus in fastidium vertunt. At contrà spiritales delicia, cùm non habentur, in fastidio sunt: cùm verò habentur, in desiderio; tantòque à comedente amplius esuriuntur, quantò et ab esuriente amplius comeduntur. In illis appetitus placet, experientia displicet; in istis appetitus vilis est, et experientia magis placet.

Kaλeiv, like the Latin vocare, is the technical word for the inviting to a festival. (Matt. xxii. 3; John ii. 2; 1 Cor. x. 27.) It is also the word which St. Paul uses to express the union of an outward word bidding, and an inward Spirit drawing, whereby God seeks to bring men into his kingdom. The answering word in St. John is bew (vi. 44; xii. 32). They have both their peculiar fitness, in that both express how the power brought to bear on man's will is a moral power, and man a moral being, capable, though called, of not coming, if he chooses,--of resisting the attraction that would draw him, if he will. This attraction or bidding, outward by the Word, inward by the Spirit, is the kλñσis åyía (2 Tim. i. 9), kλÑOIS TOÛ Θεοῦ (Rom. xi. 29), κλῆσις ἐπουρανίος (Heb. iii. 1), ἡ ἄνω κλήσις (Phil. iii. 14), which last is not the calling to a height, but the calling from a height; not, as we have it, the "high calling," but "the calling from on high."