on the
whole land, was a human usurpation or a divine mission, they had
obviously no right to sit in judgment on the credentials of Jesus. When
on this point they were condemned out of their own lips the Lord, rising
now more into the stern dignity of judge when his ministry was drawing
to a close, advances against the discomfited and stunned hierarchs, with
another, another, and yet another stroke, unveiling the hypocrisy of
their religious profession, predicting the consummation of the crime,
the murder of the Father's well beloved, which they were already
cherishing in their hearts, and denouncing finally the doom which in the
righteous government of God should fall upon themselves and their
city.[39] Such are the occasion, the places, the object, and the nature
of the three parables which Jesus spoke that day in the Temple, and the
Evangelist Matthew has recorded in this portion of the word. The first
is the parable of--

[39] "He now constrains them, in the first parable, to declare their
own guilt; and, in the second, to declare their own punishment; and
as they had now decided to put Him to death, He describes to them,
in the third parable, the consequences of their great violation of
the covenant and ingratitude,--the destruction of their ancient
priesthood, and the triumphant establishment of his new kingdom of
heaven among the Gentiles."--_Lange in loc._

X.

THE TWO SONS.

"But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the
first, and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard. He answered and
said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came
to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go,
sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father?
They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say
unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of
God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness,
and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed
him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye
might believe him."--MATT. xxi. 28-32.

From this parable, in connection with that of the labourers in the
vineyard, we incidentally learn that among the cultivators of Palestine
in those days there was the same admixture of large and small farms
which prevails in our own land. In order to provide for the struct