14. What great demand is this, my Brethren? I give you counsel only; do I use violence? [2836] As saith the Apostle, "This I speak for your own profit, not that I may cast a snare upon you." [2837] I imagine, Brethren, that it is a light and easy thought for a father of children to suppose that he has one child more, and thereby to procure such an inheritance as thou mayest possess for ever, both thou and thy children. Avarice can say nothing against it. Ye have cried out in acclamation at these words. Turn your words rather against her; let her not overcome you; let her not have greater power in your hearts, than your Redeemer. Let her not have greater power in your hearts, than He who exhorteth us to "lift up our hearts." And so now let us dismiss her.
15. What says luxuriousness? What? "Do well to thine own soul." See also the Lord says the same, "Do well to thine own soul." What luxuriousness was saying to thee, the same saith Righteousness to thee. But consider here again in what sense the words are used. If thou wouldest do well to thine own soul, consider that rich man who wished to do well to his soul, after the counsel of luxuriousness and avarice. His "ground brought forth plentifully, and he had no room where to bestow his fruits; and he said, What shall I do?" I have no room where to bestow my fruits; I have found out what to do; "I will pull down my" old "barns, and build new," and will fill them, "and say to my soul, Thou hast much goods; take thy pleasure." Hear the counsel against luxuriousness; "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?" [2838] And whither must that soul which shall be required of him go? This night it shall be required, and shall go he knows not whither.
16. Consider that other luxurious, proud, rich man. He "feasted sumptuously every day, and was clothed in purple and fine linen;" and "the poor man laid at his gate full of sores, and desired" in vain "the crumbs from the rich man's table;" [2839] he fed the dogs with his sores, but he was not fed by the rich man. They both died; one of them was buried; of the other what is said? "He was carried by the Angels into Abraham's bosom." The rich man sees the poor man; yea rather it is now the poor man sees the rich; he longs for a drop of water on his tongue from his finger, from him who once longed for a crumb from his table. Indeed their lot was changed. The dead rich man asks for this in vain: O let not us who are alive hear it in vain. For he wished to return again to the world, [2840] and was not permitted; he wished one of the dead to be sent to his brethren, neither was this granted him. But what was said to him? "They have Moses and the Prophets;" and he said, "They will not hear except one go from the dead." Abraham said to him, "If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they believe though one go from the dead."
17. What luxuriousness then said in a perverted sense concerning the giving of alms, and procuring rest for our souls against the time to come, that so we may "do well to our souls," Moses also and the Prophets have spoken. Let us give ear while we are alive. Because there he will desire in vain to hear, who has despised these words when he heard them here. Are we expecting that one should rise even from the dead, and tell us to do well to our own souls? It has been done already: thy father hath not risen again, but thy Lord hath risen. Hear Him, and accept good counsel. Spare not thy treasures, spend as freely as thou canst. This was the voice of luxuriousness: it has become the Lord's Voice. Spend as freely as thou canst, do well to thy soul, lest this night thy soul be required. Here then ye have in Christ's Name a discourse as I think on the duty of almsgiving. This your voice now applauding, is then only well-pleasing to the Lord, if He see withal your hands active in works of mercy.
[2816] Sursum cor.
[2817] But communicants only, as alone hearing the words in the Office.
[2818] Matt. xix. 21.
[2819] Matt. xxv. 40.
[2820] Conveni Deum.
[2821] Necsalutare te quærit, cui forte egenti salutem commodando præstiteras?
[2822] Matt. xxv. 34, etc.
[2823] Convenit.
[2824] Et reficit et non deficit.
[2825] See, on the custom of festivals at the funeral of the dead, St. Augustin, Ep. 22 (al. 64) to Aurelius Bishop of Carthage and Primate of Africa, calling for their abolition. He gives an account of his having abolished them at Hippo, where he was only a Priest, in the 29th (167) Letter, to his friend Alypius Bishop of Thagaste. See also Conf. vi. 2.
[2826] Imagine.
[2827] Matt. xix. 21; Luke xii. 33.
[2828] Matt. xxv. 34.
[2829] Matt. xxv. 46.
[2830] Ps. xxiii. 6.
[2831] Ps. ii. 7.
[2832] Vide Serm. ix. 20, 21 (Ben.).
[2833] Neque enim ille decessit sed præcessit.
[2834] Fac trajectitium.
[2835] Attendant.
[2836] Guttur ligo.
[2837] 1 Cor. vii. 35.
[2838] Luke xii. 16, etc.
[2839] Luke xvi. 19, etc.
[2840] Superos.
Sermon XXXVII.
[LXXXVII. Ben.]
Delivered on the Lord's Day, on that which is written in the Gospel, Matt. xx. 1, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that was a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard."
1. Ye have heard out of the Holy Gospel a parable well suited to the present season, concerning the labourers in the vineyard. For now is the time of the material [2841] vintage. Now there is also a spiritual vintage, wherein God rejoiceth in the fruit of His vineyard. For we cultivate God, and God cultivateth us. [2842] But we do not so cultivate God as to make Him any better thereby. For our cultivation is the labour of the heart, not of the hands. [2843] He cultivateth us as the husbandman doth his field. In then that He cultivateth us, He maketh us better; because so doth the husbandman make his field better by cultivating it, and the very fruit He seeketh in us is, that we may cultivate Him. The culture He exerciseth on us is, that He ceaseth not to root out by His Word the evil seeds from our hearts, to open our heart, as it were, by the plough of His Word, to plant the seed of His precepts, to wait for the fruit of piety. For when we have so received that culture into our heart, as to cultivate Him well, we are not ungrateful to our Husbandman, but render the fruit wherein He rejoiceth. And our fruit doth not make Him the richer, but us the happier.
2. See then; hear how, as I have said, "God cultivateth us." For that we cultivate God, there is no need to be proved to you. For all men have this on their tongue, that men cultivate God, but the hearer feels a kind of awe, when he hears that God cultivates man; because it is not after the ordinary usage of men to say, that God cultivateth men, but that men cultivate God. We ought therefore to prove to you, that God also doth cultivate men; lest perchance we be thought to have spoken a word contrary to sound doctrine, [2844] and men dispute in their heart against us, and as not knowing our meaning, find fault with us. I have determined therefore to show you, that God doth also cultivate us; but as I have said already, as a field, that He may make us better. Thus the Lord saith in the Gospel, "I am the Vine, ye are the branches, My Father is the Husbandman." [2845] What doth the Husbandman do? I ask you who are husbandmen. I suppose he cultivates his field. If then God the Father be a Husbandman, He hath a field; and His field He cultivateth, and from it He expecteth fruit.
3. Again, He "planted a vineyard," as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself saith, "and let it out to husbandmen, who should render Him the fruit in the proper season. And He sent His servants to them to ask for the hire of the vineyard. But they treated them despitefully, and killed some," [2846] and contemptuously refused to render the fruits. "He sent others also," they suffered the like treatment. And then the Householder, the Cultivator of His field, and the Planter, and Letter out of His vineyard, said; "I will send Mine Only Son, it may be they will at least reverence Him." And so He saith, "He sent His Own Son also. They said among themselves, This is the heir, come, let us kill Him, and the inheritance shall be ours. And they killed Him, and cast Him out of the vineyard. When the Lord of the vineyard cometh, what will He do to those wicked husbandmen? They answered, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out His vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render Him the fruits in their seasons." The vineyard was planted when the law was given in the hearts of the Jews. The Prophets were sent, seeking fruit, even their good life: the Prophets were treated despitefully by them, and were killed. Christ also was sent, the Only Son of the Householder; and they killed Him who was the Heir, and so lost the inheritance. Their evil counsel turned out contrary to their designs. They killed Him that they might possess the inheritance; and because they killed Him, they lost it.
4. Ye have just heard too the parable out of the Holy Gospel; that "the kingdom of heaven is like unto a householder, which went out to hire labourers into His vineyard. He went out in the morning," and hired those whom he found, and agreed with them for a denarius as their hire. He "went out again at the third hour, and found others," and brought them to the labour of the vineyard. "And the sixth and ninth hour he did likewise. He went out also at the eleventh hour," near the end of the day, "and found some idle and standing still, and he said to them, Why stand ye here?" Why do ye not work in the vineyard? They answered, "Because no man hath hired us." "Go ye also," said He, "and whatsoever is right I will give you." [2847] His pleasure was to fix their hire at a denarius. How could they who had only to work one hour dare hope for a denarius? Yet they congratulated themselves in the hope that they should receive something. So then these were brought in even for one hour. At the end of the day he ordered the hire to be paid to all, from the last to the first. Then he began to pay at those who had come in at the eleventh hour, and he commanded a denarius to be given them. When they who had come at the first hour saw that the others had received a denarius, which he had agreed for with themselves "they hoped that they should have received more:" and when their turn came, they also received a denarius. "They murmured against the good man of the house, saying, Behold, thou hast made us who have borne the burning and heat of the day, equal and like to those who have laboured but one hour in the vineyard." And "the good man," returning a most just answer to one of them, said, "Friend, I do thee no wrong;" that is, "I have not defrauded thee, I have paid thee what I agreed for with thee. "I have done thee no wrong," for I have paid thee what I agreed for. To this other it is my will not to render a payment, but to bestow a gift. "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?" If I had taken from any one what did not belong to me, rightly I might be blamed, as fraudulent and unjust: if I had not paid any one his due, rightly might I be blamed as fraudulent, and as withholding what belonged to another; but when I pay what is due, and give besides to whom I will, neither can he to whom I owed find fault, and he to whom I gave ought to rejoice the more." They had nothing to answer; and all were made equal; "and the last became first, and the first last;" by equality [2848] of treatment, not by inverting their order. For what is the meaning of, "the last were first, and the first last"? That both the first and last received the same.