The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 296

get work on any terms, not knowing what they are to get, but trusting and grateful; the others went proud, self-confident, mercenary. This prepares us for the strikin;:; scene which ensued at the close of the day. Those who had barely got their work begun were .forat paid, and were paid e. full day's wage. There must, of course, have been e. reason for this; it was not mere caprice, but was the result and expres.5ion of some just law. It eould not be that these )ate-hired labourers had done as much in their one hour as the others in twelve; fdt the others are conscious of having done their work well. We are thrown back, therefore, for the explanation on the hint given in the hiring, namely, that the men who bargained are paid according to their bargain; while the men who trusted got far more than they could have dared to bargain for. The principle is more easily understood, because we ourselves so commonly act upon it. It is work done with some human feeling in it that you delight in ; that of the man who works not for you, but for his wage, is the work of a hireling, with whom you are quits when you pay him what he contracted to receive. Our Lord does not e.ffirm, however, that all the last shall be :first, and the first last, but only that many shall exemplify this reversal. "Many a.re called, but few chosen." J, IT IS THE FACT THAT MANY WHO ABE FIRST IN MAN'S ESTEEM ABE LAST rn Gon's BECKONING. We see plainly enough that many who are most diligent in the Lord's vineyard have a complacency, a. consciousness that they are the good workers, which does not at all resemble the humble, trustful, self-ignoring spirit of these late-hired labourers. Perhaps they have once in their life made a great sacrifice as Peter had done, or perhaps they have quickly apprehended the duty peculiar to their own generation, whether it be ea.ring for the sick, aiding the poor, or carrying the gospel to the masses, or subscribing liberally to Church objects. Or perhaps they do the work, not for~the sake of the vineyard, but for their own sake-either that they may advance their own spiritual state, or win a good reputation, or maintain in their own minds the impression that they are indubitably good labourers. Now, if you deduct all who are working in one or other of these ways, you will come to the conclusion that "many are called, but few chosen;" many working hard, spending and being spent, and yet withal few choice workers, few who appeal to the Lord's heart and draw out his affectionate response by their lowly, unexpectant service. 'II. MANY FIRST, BUT NOT ALL THE FIRST, SHALL BE LAST. Some at least of the best-known workers in the vineyard, some who entered it early, and never left it for an hour, some who scarcely once straightened their backs from toil and dropped asleep as they came to the end of their task, knowing nothing but God's work their whole life· through, have also wrought in no bargaining spirit, but passed as humble a judgment on their -work as the least of their fellow-labourers on theirs. III. AND THERE ARE SOME LAST WHO REMAIN LAST. Not all who do little do it well; not all who enter the vineyard late enter it humbled. Mercenariness is not con- fined to those who have some sma.U excuse for it. Late entrance into the vineyard is to be on every account deprecated, and receives no encouragement from this parable rightly read. Do not think of the work of Christ as a mere extra, which can at any convenient time be added to your other work. It covers the whole of our life. AU outside his vineyard is idleness. This parable may be viewed as tbe great Physician's prescription for envy in what- ever sphere it is manifested, and may be applied in two ways. 1. Every man of us has as much at least as he deserves. Were God to say," Take that thine is," in the strictness of just and exact retribution, which of us would willingly stand upon our right? 2. The second is fourid in these words, "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" You are none the less because another is greater. You are what God sees best to make you, and what the other is he is of God's goodness. It is at God's expense, not at yours, that I\IIY man is blessed. But the teaching special to this parable is that our Lord measures our work, not solely by the amount done, nor by the skill we show in doing it, but by the spirit we are of in the doing of it. Many of us are called. Many of us are in the vineyard, and have long been so. In what spirit have we laboured ?-D. Vere. 20-28.-Salome's petition for Zebedetls sons. This strange petit.iou must han operated in a twofold way upon our Lord. On the one hand, it must have ma.de H 300 THE GOSPEL AOOORDINO TO ST. MATTHEW. loH, xx. 1-34.