xii cepted by them.* It is not true that the labourers who began to work in the vineyard on the first hour of the day, denote those Christians who began to remember their Creator, and to render the obedience of the faith unto his Gospel with their first and earliest education. It is not true, that they who entered into this service on the third hour of the day, denote those Christians, who after a boyhood of thoughtless unconcern ahout the things of eternity, are arrested in the season ofyouth, by a visitation of seriousness, and betake themselves to the faith and the following of the Saviour who died for them. It is not true, that they who were hired '* To render our argument more intelligible, we shall briefly state what we conceive to be the true explanation of the parable. In the verses preceding the parable, Peter had stated tlte whole amount of the surrender that he and hi s fellow disciples had made by the act of following after J esus; and it is evident, that they all looked forward to some great and temporal remuneration-some share in the glories of the Israelitish monarchy-some place of splendour or distinction under that new government, which they imagined was to be set up in the world; and they never conceived any thing else, than that in this altered state of things, the people of their own country were to be raised to high pre-eminence among the nations which had oppressed and degraded them. It was in the face of thi s expectation, that our Saviour uttered a sentence, which we meet oftener than once among his recorded sayings in the New Testament, "Many that are first shall be last, and the last sltall be first." The Israelites, whom God distingui,shed at an early period of the world, by a revelation of himself, were first im·ited in the doing of his will (whi ch is fitly enough rcpresrmted by working in his ~ineyanl) to the possession of hi s favour, and the enjoyment of his rewards. Thi s offer to work in that peculiar vineyard, where God assigned to them a performance, and bestowed on them a recompense, was made to Abraham :;md to his descendants at n very early period in hi story; and a succession of prophets and righteous men were sent to renew the offer, and the communication>' from God to the world, followed the stream of ages, down to the time of the utterance of this parable, And a few years afterwards, the same offers, and the eame
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