And

he expected they would reverence. they said, "He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let his vineyard unto other husbandmen; which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.

MRS. M.
GEORGE.

"And how was this fulfilled?'

The Roman armies came and destroyed the temple at Jerusalem, and the people were scattered all over the world and have never been a nation since, but have been a persecuted and wandering race.'

EMILY.

But what means the vineyard being let out to other husbandmen? I suppose it means the Gospel being preached to the Gentiles.'

MRS. M. 6

Yes, their being brought in, and having the Church of Christ planted amongst them; while the Jews, who had formerly been the chosen people, were, for having rejected the Lord of the vineyard, cast out of it. In the chapter that precedes this parable, our Lord most awfully foretells the destruction of the Jewish Church and nation, but it is certain that he will never

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leave himself without a Church on earth; when therefore the Jews, amidst whom he had planted his Church, persecuted and killed its ministers and its great Head himself, it was rooted up and planted amongst the Gentile nations. You will find a striking prophecy of its destruction in the fifth chapter of Isaiah, from the first to the sixth verse, which passage nearly resembles the parable we have been considering.'

EMILY.

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Oh mamma, I suppose the vine that is spoken of in the eightieth Psalm, means the Jewish Church.'

MRS. M. It does, my dear, read the description of it from the eighth to the twelfth verse; "Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it; thou preparedst room for 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."

GEORGE. I will read the two next verses; that passage must relate to the destruction of that Church. 66

Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they that go by pluck off her grapes? The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it."'

MRS. M. In the second chapter of Jeremiah and the twenty-first verse also, and again in Exodus chap. xv. verse 17, you will find it foretold, and in various other passagès; but you have seen enough to shew you how exactly the ancient prophecies agree with our Saviour's parabolical description of the establishment of the Church and its subsequent overthrow. Upon the Pharisees &c. condemning themselves, "Out of their own mouths," saying that the wicked husbandmen should be miserably destroyed, Our Lord further illustrates the Parable, by pointing out to them who it was that was meant by the son; that it was he who had been foretold in the one hundred and eighth Psalm and twenty-second verse, saying, "Did ye

never read in the Scripture, "The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner." Matt. xxi. 42.

EMILY. I remember reading to you the other day, mamma, about Jesus Christ being the chief corner-stone.'

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MRS. M. Yes, that Head which rules; that chief corner-stone which joins together the whole Church of God, was rejected by the Scribes and Pharisees, who are designated as the builders; but was received and embraced by the Gentiles: "The kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." "Here is the vineyard let out to other husbandmen." The prophecies foretelling all these circumstances are so numerous, that it would be vain to attempt searching them out at present: but our Lord himself so plainly foreshows them in the Parable, that the priests and the Pharisees were enraged against Him, and from that time sought to lay hold on Him; "But they feared the multitude, because they took him for a Prophet."

EMILY. 'Well, mamma; you say that God planted his Church among the Jews; but they having rejected the great head of that Church, it was rooted out and planted among the Gentiles. What do you mean when you speak of the Church now? Do you mean the Church of England?'

MRS. M. In common conversation, when I say the Church, I may probably mean the Church of England; but that Church, which was first among the Jews and afterwards amidst the Gentiles, is not confined to any Church on earth, though all true and faithful members of the Church of England are within its pale. It means the whole body of believers; all who under the dominion of Christ as their great head, bound together by Him as the chief corner-stone,-derive from Him all their comfort, all their hope; for as the body and all its members derive nourishment and support from the head, without which the other parts could not for a moment exist, so out of Christ there can be no salvation.' EMILY. Mamma, I know a text about

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