Sermon 1
SERMON 1.
*Luke XIII. 6, 7, 8, 9.*He spake also this Parable: A certain man had a Fig-tree planted in his Vineyard, and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he to the Dresser of his Vineyard, behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree and find none; cut it down why cumbereth it the ground. And he answering said to him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, & dung it. And if it bear fruit, well; and if not, then after, that you shall cut it down.
The occasion of this short and pithy parable, is declared in the beginning of the chapter. Our Savior had [illegible] (Chap. 12.) preaching a solemn sermon in the audience of a multitude; and after it, some of the company make report to him, of a bloody act of Pilate upon some Galileans: he knowing their hearts, and perceiving what improvement they made of it, in censure and not in self-application; reflecting upon themselves as being warned hereby: he therefore instructs them in the proper use which was to be made of that and such other providences as sometimes fall out tacitly reprehending them for rash judgment, in concluding those to have been unparalleled sinners: giving them to understand, that in these ways of divine dispensation, the judgments of God were unsearchable, and his ways past finding out. That, though God sometimes makes some sinners notable examples of his awful severity, even in this world; yet there are as bad as they, if not worse, spared in the day of his patience; and that therefore the best use the living can make of such exemplary providences, is to consider themselves, see how much they deserved it; that it was mere sovereignty that made others and not them the monuments of this severity; that this was a loud call to repentance, and if they did not improve it to that end, though they did now escape, yet ruin and destruction would ere-long fall upon them: and farther to set forth the great peril they were under, he [illegible] joins this parable. It was therefore nextly referred to the present state of the Jer[illegible], to shew them upon what a precipice they then stood, and what danger they then lay open to, notwithstanding the present lenity they were partaker's in. But, because what is written, is written for our instruction, there is a profitable improvement to be made of it by us.
One design of Christ's parables is, by clothing spiritual things with earthly language, to accommodate them the more to human understandings, and to shew the rationality of them, by resembling them to such things as among men are accounted highly rational; and so to insinuate into the affections.
The scope of this parable is to shew what is the true and proper standing that men have in the visible church, under all the privileges therein conferred upon them. Men are apt to mistake themselves in this, and to grow secure, but Christ would have them to know the thing as it is. The parable is only proposed, the reddition is left to our meditation, and is easily gathered from the occasion. The application is nextly personal; for the design is to express the state of the Fig-tree, and not of the Vineyard.
The principal heads to which the matter of the parable may be reduced, are these:
1. The subject about which it is spoken; A Fig-tree which a certain man had planted in his Vineyard, verse 6.
2. The barrenness of this Fig-tree taken notice of particularly by the Owner, ibid. And he came, &c.
3. The deliberation of the Owner with the Dresser about it, verse 7. in which,
1. His complaint against it; these three years, &c.
2. The advice he gives to him that dressed it, Cut it down why cumbereth it the ground.
4. The intercession of the Dresser for the fig-tree, verse 8, 9.
These may be spoken to in their order; and several weighty and seasonable observations may be made upon each of them.
1. The subject of which the parable is spoken: A certain man had a Fig-tree planted in his Vineyard. The spiritual meaning of these parabolical expressions is to be enquired after: and here; What is meant by the certain man? What by the Vineyard? What by the Fig-tree? And what by its being planted in the Vineyard?
1. By the certain man, is certainly intended God, being to deal with men as men, he resembles himself to a man; and it is not limited to this or that man in particular, but expressed of any man, under such a respect; to shew that it is of universal consideration; and it is sure, that God not only challenges a propriety in all the world as his; but more particularly in his church, as standing under special relation to him: and therefore,
2. By the Vineyard we are to understand the visible church. It is not to be restrained to the church of God's elect, and effectually called; for though his elect do till conversion abide unfruitful, yet all his called ones do bring forth fruit to him; but here is a tree in the Vineyard that bears none, and is supposed never so to do. I know Grotius, to favor his Arminian notions, interprets the Vineyard to mean the world, and the Fig-tree the nation of the Jews; but, though a particular church, is sometimes resembled by a plant, as a vine (Psalm 80) and an olive (Romans 11) and the members of it to so many branches; yet the world is no where, that I know of, called in Scripture God's Vineyard, but the visible church often (Isaiah 5, beginning, 27).
3. By the Fig-tree we are to understand particular professors, that are related to the visible church; for Christ is here speaking to men personally, upon occasion of those persons who came to such untimely ends: and it is not unusual in Scripture, to express persons severally under the notion of plants, see (Psalm 52:8).
4. By its being planted in the Vineyard, we are to conceive, men's enjoying of the privileges and benefits which are in the visible church, and God's singular care expressed to them, in bestowing of these advantages on them; which, what they are, may be after considered.
I shall make some glances on this part of the parable, it being introductory to the main design in those things that follow.
And there are two observations here:
