---

The Eternal employs fiction, as well as fact, in the revelation of His grit thoughts to man. Hence we have in the Bible, fable, allegory, parable. Fiction, used in the way which the Bible employs it, is a valuable servant of truth. It is always pure, brief, attractive, and strikingly apt. The Divine idea flashes from it at once, as the sunbeam from the diamond. The text is one of the oldest parables, and is run in a poetic mould. It is fiction set to music. "I will sing to my beloved a song touching his vineyard." Isaiah's heart, as all hearts should be, is in loving transports with the absolutely Good One, and by the law of strong affections he expresses himself in the language of bold metaphor and the music of lofty verse. Love is evermore the soul of poetry and song. This parabolic song is not only a song of love, but a song of sadness, for it expresses in stirring imagery how the Almighty had wrought in mercy to cultivate the Hebrew people into goodness, how unsuccessful He had been in all His gracious endeavours, and how terrible the judgment that would descend from His throne in consequence of their unfruitfulness. We have man under Divine culture here set before us in three aspects.

I. RECEIVING THE UTMOST ATTENTION. So much had the Eternal done for the Hebrew race in order to make them good, that He appeals to the men of Jerusalem and Judah in these remarkable words: "What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it?" What has the great moral Husbandman done towards our moral culture?

1. Look at nature. There is an intelligence, a goodness, a calm, fatherly tenderness, animating, beautifying, and brightening all nature, which is, in truth, its moral soul, that silently works evermore to fashion the heart of humanity for God.

2. Look at history. There is running through all history, as its very life, an Eternal Spirit of inexorable justice and compassionating mercy, whose grand mission it is to turn the souls of men from the hideousness of crime to the beauties of virtue, from confidence in man, "whose breath is in his nostrils," to trust in Him who liveth forever, from the temporary pleasures of earth to the spiritual joys of immortality.

3. What are the events of our individual life? Why is our life, from the cradle to the grave, one perpetual change of scene and state? Why the unceasing alternation of adversity and prosperity, friendship and bereavement, sorrow and joy? Rightly regarded, they are God's implements of spiritual culture.

4. Look at mediation. Why did God send His only-begotten Son into the world? We are expressly told that it "was to redeem men from all iniquity."

5. Look at the Gospel ministry. Why does the great God ordain and qualify men in every age to expound the doctrines, offer the provisions, and enforce the precepts of the Gospel of His Son? Is it not to enlighten, renovate, purify, and morally save the souls of men?

II. BECOMING WORSE THAN FRUITLESS. "He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes." The idea is that the Jewish people, under the culturing care of God, produced instead of good fruit the foetid, noxious fruit of the wild vine. And truly their history demonstrates this lamentable fact. From age to age they grew more and more corrupt, morally offensive, and pernicious, Thus they went on until the days of Christ. Unfruitfulness is bad enough, but pernicious fruitfulness is worse. The history of the world shows that it is a common thing for men to grow in evil under the culturing care of God. Pharaoh's heart was hardened under the ministry of Moses; Saul advanced in depravity under the ministry of Samuel; and Judas became a devil under the ministry of Christ Himself. Man growing in evil under the culturing agency of God indicates two facts in human nature.

1. The spontaneity of man's action. What stronger proof can there be that our Maker has endowed us with a sovereign power of freedom than the fact that we act contrary to His purpose regarding us, and neutralise His culturing efforts?

2. The perversity of man's heart. The disposition to run counter to Heaven, which is coeval with unregenerate souls, is the root of the world's upas. How came it? It does not belong to human nature as a constitutional element. It is our own creation, and for it eternal justice holds us responsible.

III. SINKING INTO UTTER DESOLATION (vers. 5, 6). These words threaten a three-fold curse.

1. The withdrawal of Divine protection. "I will take away the hedge thereof," etc. The meaning is, that He will withdraw His guardianship from the Hebrew people. This threat was fulfilled in their experience. Heaven withdrew its aegis, and the Romans entered and wrought their ruin. What thus occurred to the Jew is only a faint symbol of what must inevitably occur in the experience of all who continue to grow in evil under the culturing agency of God.

2. A cessation of culturing effort. "It shall not be pruned nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns." The idea is that He would put forth no more effort to improve their condition, that He would cease to send them visions and prophets. The time must come in the case of all the unregenerate, when God will cease His endeavours to improve. His Spirit will not "always strive with man."

3. The withholding of fertilising elements. "I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it." However protected the vineyard might be, and however enriched the soil, and skilfully pruned the branches, if no rain come, the whole will soon be ruined. What a terrible picture of a soul is this! — here is a soul from which its great Father has withdrawn all protection, ceased all culturing efforts, and withholds all fertilising influences! Here is hell. This subject starts many solemn reflections, and has many practical uses.

(1) It unfolds the mercifulness of God. How infinite His condescending love in taking this little world under His culturing care.

(2) It reveals the morality of life. Man is a moral being, and everything here connected with his life has a moral purpose, and a moral bearing.

(3) It explains all human improvement. God, as the great Husbandman, is here "building fences," "digging and pruning," and thus helping on the world to moral fruitfulness.

(4) It urges self-scrutiny. In what state is our vineyard?

(5) It suggests the grand finale of the world's history. There is a harvest marching up the "steeps of time."

(Homilist.)

---

---

KJV: Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:

WEB: Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill.