of
self-righteousness mingle in your offering, you will be lowest in the
Master's esteem, and least in the day of reward; whereas, although you
be last in point of time, and least in point of service, if you receive
all from Christ's mercy, and render all in love to Christ, you will be
higher in the end than some who seemed more energetic and successful
workers.

"For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder,"
&c. This picture will illustrate the truth which has been declared; the
householder represents Christ, the vineyard his kingdom, and the
labourers his servants. The main lesson of the parable concerns, not the
way of redemption, but the service which the redeemed render to their
Lord. The wages of the labourer represent the rewards which Christ
confers upon his servants, but this must be taken with certain
explanations and limitations, especially these two,--(1.) That the
reward is partly a thing now begun, and partly something that is
completed in heaven; (2.) That the value of the reward depends
essentially on the disposition of heart with which the workman receives
it.

It is not necessary to determine whether the labourers who were first
hired, and who laboured all the day, represent the Jews under the first
dispensation, or those in the Christian Church who individually are
converted in early youth, and continue in Christ's service throughout a
long life, or those who, from special talent, or zeal, or opportunity,
do and suffer most for the Lord and his cause. The all-day labourers may
represent all these classes, each in turn, and especially the last. We
must not understand exclusively by "the first" those who began first in
point of time. The term indicates rather those who are first in the
sense of being chief or greatest; it points especially to those who were
first in rank as having endured the greatest amount of loss, and done
the greatest amount of work in Christ's cause. In the parable it is true
those who were first sent into the vineyard, in point of time, were
chief among the labourers as to the quantity of labour contributed, but
the time is only an accident. The matter truly brought into view is not
the time, but the quantity of work. Time is here employed simply as a
measure of quantity, for it is obviously assumed throughout that all the
men performed equal amounts of labour in equal times. It conduces
greatly to a clear conception of the whole lesson when you think of