and to his love. It is a vineyard, because his servants labour, and indolence is forbidden. Each of us is hired, or rather created, that we may work out our salvation according to the will of God. No season disqualifies for the work of salvation; and the mercy of God can give effect to that work at any hour, however late. No age, indeed, will excuse us for standing idle; and yet it is never too late to engage in that work without which eternity is hopeless. Alas! the world is full of men who pass their whole existence in idleness; and are about to quit life without having ever learned for what end it was bestowed. Unless the great master hire and send us into his vineyard,—unless Jesus Christ himself seek us out, and send us forth, and engage us in his work,—we shall either remain sunk in indolence, or we shall work only the works of darkness. Salvation is in Christ alone; without him man is abandoned to himself, that is to impotence and darkness. When even was come, the labourers were summoned to receive their wages. We must labour throughout the day, until the evening come,-through life, until death. Happy evening, and commencement of the glorious day of eternity for those who have laboured in faith and hope, looking for the coming of the Lord from heaven, the dispenser of his Father's blessings! It is a matter of consolation to the weakest Christian to know that none who have loved and served the gracious Saviour shall be ashamed in his presence, or fail of the reward. True conversion, although at the eleventh hour, will be followed by the reward; but to defer the business of salvation until the latest season, is to put every thing to hazard. The everlasting enjoyment of God is vouchsafed to all God's labourers alike. A moment, indeed, may secure it; but it is no less madness to wait for that moment in rash presumption, than to let it pass away through distrust of God's mercy. They murmured against the goodman of the house.-Yes: these are those who murmur at God's gracious dispensation. There are, it may be, not a few whose long labour, severe austerities, and abstinence from outward sins serve only to nourish their pride, to fill them with contempt for other men, and to give them a feeling as if God were in their debt. Our best doings are but destructive of salvation, unless we refer them, in grateful lowliness of spirit, to God as their true originator,-unless we acknowledge that we are unprofitable servants, and that, in giving us our hire, God will bestow a reward, not of debt, but of grace. All his recompences are gratuitous; since they are but the acknowledgment of those services which he has himself given the will and the power to perform. The last shall be first, and the first last; for many be called, but few chosen.-Our dependence must be not on ourselves, not on our work of righteousness, but on the goodness and grace of God. God proportions his bounty, not by the order of vocation, nor by the duration of labour, nor by the difficulty of the task, nor by the greatness of the work, but by the love, the lowliness, the faithfulness with which he has himself inspired the heart. The lower the value we put upon our labour, the greater will be the hire. We have nothing that we have not received; and it behoves us always to keep this in mind. Our only title to glory is the promise of God and the truly humble will never lose sight of this; not envying the brighter graces or the higher gifts of others, but retaining the consciousness of their own unworthiness, and admiring the greater faithfulness and work of more eminent believers. Jesus Christ distributes his gifts according to his own good pleasure; and each should be content with his portion. The will and designs of God are always supremely righteous; and they are under the direction of infinite wisdom, although completely beyond the range of human reason. In the present life they are hidden from man, that he may learn not to debate with God, but to seek him in the way of faith. Let us not presume on any thing; neither let us in any wise despair. It is not by their calling, but by their perseverance, that the elect are known. It is for him who giveth after the counsel of his own will to judge concerning the state of man's affections towards himself. Our part is, under all circumstances, to walk humbly; since it is humility alone that can keep the highest in grace from becoming lowest, and that can make the lowest first. thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. e Mark x. 32. Luke xviii. 31. John xii. 12.-ƒ ch. xvi. John xviii. 28, &c. Acts iii. 13.- Mark x. 35.-i ch. iv. 21.- ch. xix. 28.- ch. xxvi. 39, 42. Mark xiv. 36. Luke xxii. 42. John xviii. 11.-m Luke xii. 50.-n Acts xii. 2. Rom. viii. 17. 2 Cor. i. 7. Rev. i. 9.-o ch. xxv. Luke xxii. 24, 25-71 Peter v. 3. -r ch. xxiii. 11. Mark ix. 35, & x. 43.-s ch. xviii. 4. -John xiii. 4.-u Phil. ii. 7.- Luke xxii. 27. John xiii. 14.-y Isaiah liii. 10, 11. Daniel ix. 24, 26. John xi. 51, 52. I Tim. ii. 6. Tit. ii. 14. 1 Peter i. 19.-z ch. 22 But Jesus answered and 21-g ch. xxvi. 2. Mark xv. 1, 16. &c. Luke xxili. 1. said, Ye know not what ye ask. 23 And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father. 24" And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. 25 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. Reader. The sons of Zebedee here mentioned were the Apostles James and John, whom our Lord called while they were "in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets." Matt. iv. 21. Their mother was probably Salome, of whom we read in Mark xv. 40; xvi. 1.—St. Mark in the parallel passage, x. 35—45, represents the Apostles as themselves making the request; that is to say, he omits the circumstance of the interference of their mother: so that, putting the two accounts together, we should say, that they themselves promoted, and perhaps originated, the petition, but it was formally addressed to our Saviour by their mother speaking on their behalf.-The sitting on the right hand, and on the left, may have reference to the common practice of princes, or, more particularly, as some suppose, to the seats of honour in the Sanhedrim. Our translators have not been happy in their rendering of part of the 23rd verse. Indeed, the words which they have inserted in italics, without authority or any good reason, appear to give even a false complexion to the sense; as though our Saviour were here asserting that it is not his office to distribute rewards and honours in his kingdom! The simple translation of the Greek is this;-"To sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, except to them for whom it is prepared of my father," or we may retain the word but in this sense, "is not mine to give but, &c." Our blessed Lord merely affirms that he will not make any arbitrary or capricious choice of favourites;-and that, in dispensing his blessings and rewards, he will act, as in all other cases, in accordance with the will and ordinance of the Father who sent him. As God, his will is one with the Father; as man, it is in complete subordination and submission. Therefore as Mediator, God and man, Christ will give rewards only according to the wise and holy purpose of the Father; and we know that it is his purpose to give them, not to persons who may possess certain privileges, or stand in a certain visible connection with the Redeemer or his church, but to those who shall be fitted to receive them,-to those who shall be (so to speak) entitled to them, according to the covenant of grace. READER.-Our blessed Lord's prophetic declaration of his sufferings and death is here repeated for the third time, (see chap. xvi. 21; xvii. 22, 23). It sounds like a knell ringing at solemn intervals in the Gospel, preparatory to the closing scene of our Saviour's deep humiliation.-Our minds may well be affected with a sense of the voluntary character of our great sacrifice, from the deliberate manner in which Jesus faced and met his sufferings. Let the eye of our faith contemplate the picture which these few verses exhibit ;-the man of sorrows, not only accompanying his disciples, but heading them, leading the way, in this most eventful journey towards Jerusalem.-St. Mark, in the parallel passage, (chap. x. 32— 34,) sets this circumstance in a striking point of view. He says, "They were in the way going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus went before them; and they were amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid. And he took again the twelve, and began to tell them what things should happen unto him."-May we bear upon our hearts a devout and affectionate remembrance of this mournful journey As disciples of the blessed Saviour, may we see him going before us in our journey, through life and death to the heavenly Jerusalem! Then came to him the mother o Zebedee's children, &c.-There are many points in this narrative from which we may derive instruction. Here we perceive undue solicitud on the part of a parent, and its failure Doubtless it is one part of a parent' happy duty to offer up prayers on be half of their children. They should, as it were, go with them to Jesus. But they should remember that their prayers for their children, as well as for themselves, ought to be "according to the will of God." And they may learn, from this history, not to be supremely anxious for their obtaining earthly dignity or power. Here also we fear that we discover a worldly spirit and an ambitious turn of mind, on the part of James and John. Alas! they do not appear to have rightly understood the nature of our Saviour's kingdom, and they were disposed to mix up with it their favourite ideas of earthly pomp and power, even after having witnessed on the mount of transfiguration that exhibition of our Saviour's glory which might well have cast all worldly splendour for ever into the shade! How fondly man's heart cleaves to things present and temporal! How earnestly should we pray that God would continually make us to love that which he promises, as well as enable us to perform that which he commands. But here we have, more particularly, a specimen and type of ambition, ecclesiastical ambition, -a love of preeminence and power in the church. Sad, pestilential spirit—which, although solemnly denounced by Christ, has existed, to the present day, with lamentable consequences, among Christian churches! These Apostles were ignorant of the true nature of their request (ye know not what ye ask), and of their own weakness and inability to do and suffer all that the grant of it would involve (We are able).—When we read of the life and sufferings of our holy and blessed Lord, let us think of him as addressing to ourselves that inquiry-Are ye able to drink of my cup? And then let us remember, for our comfort and direction, that although we are not able to do this of ourselves, yet we can do all things through Christ, by his Spirit, strengthening us. The Lord Jesus gave strength to these weak disciples to do and suffer much for his sake. St. James was put to death by Herod, Acts xii. 2; and St. John was banished to Patmos, Rev. i. 9. The extravagant and ambitious views of these disciples gave occasion to great discontent and jealousy among their brethren. When the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. They ought, perhaps, to have pitied them ;-but one evil often leads to another. And not a few of the animosities, heart burnings, and divisions which have arisen in Christian churches, may be traced to some aspiring and ambitious pretensions on the part of spiritual rulers,-to some acts of aggression or usurpation, which have aroused the indignation of men, and excited them to acts of severe and uncharitable recrimination. - How plain and pointed is our Saviour's rebuke of this ambitious and domineering spirit! How solemnly does he assure us that this worldly desire of rule, distinction, and preeminence is totally inconsistent with |