ter than the trees
of the forest, but much worse. Forest trees are useful in their own
place, and for certain purposes; but a vine, if it do not bear fruit, is
of no use at all. No man can make a piece of furniture from its small,
supple, gnarled stem and branches. The wood of the vine is fit for
nothing but to be cast into the fire, and, therefore, a fruitless vine
takes rank far beneath a forest-tree; thus an apostate and corrupt
Church is a viler thing than the ordinary secular governments of the
world. Such obviously and notoriously is ecclesiastical Rome to-day.

3. Ps. lxxx. 8-15: "Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou hast
cast out the heathen, and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it,
and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills
were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the
goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches
unto the river. Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all
they which pass by the way do pluck her? The boar out of the wood doth
waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it. Return, we
beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and
visit this vine; and the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and
the branch that thou madest strong for thyself."

Again Israel is represented as a vine; but in this case the features
brought into prominence are its former flourishing condition and great
extent compared with its present desolation. By the removal of the
protecting fence, the wild beasts of the forest were permitted to
trample at will on its feeble and lowly boughs. The picture sets forth
the ruin of Jerusalem through the withdrawal of God's protecting hand,
and the consequent irruption of hostile nations.

In all these cases the vine, or aggregate of vines, represents the
privileged persons who constituted the kingdom of Israel or Church of
God, as it then existed in the world. In the first example, the
_wickedness_ of Israel is represented by the bitterness of the fruit
which the vineyard produced; in the second, the _unprofitableness_ of
Israel is represented by the want of fruit on the vine; and in the
third, the _sufferings_ of Israel are represented by the inroads of the
wild beasts upon the wide spread, tender, unprotected vine.

Our parable differs from all three as to the point where its lesson
lies. It is not a case in which a favoured vineyard pro