Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:
Ver. 33. Planted a vineyard, and hedged it] Of all possessions, saith Cato, Nulla maiorem operam requirit, none requires more pains than that of a vineyard. Grain comes up and grows alone, Mark 4:28. Iniussa virescunt gramina, saith the poet; but vines must be dressed, supported, pruned, sheltered every day almost, John 15:2. The Church is God's continual care, αιρει, καλθαιρει, Amputat, putat, &c., Isaiah 27:3, and he looks for an answerable return of fruits,Acts 12:20. Regnum Anglia, regnum Dei, said Polydore Virgil long since. The kingdom of England is the kingdom of God. It may well be said so, since the Reformation especially; neither is there anything more threateneth us than our hateful unfruitfulness. The cypress tree, the more it is watered, the less fruitful; so many of us, the more taught, the more untoward.
And went into a far country] As the impious husbandmen imagined, who put far away the evil day. But God shall shoot at such "with an arrow, suddenly shall they be wounded," Psalms 64:7; as a bird is stricken with the bolt, while he gazeth at the bow. Morae dispendium faeneris duplo pensatur, God pays men at length for the new and the old. (Jerome.)