Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

^2. See then; hear how, as I have said, “God cultivates us.” For that we cultivate God, there is no need to be proved to you. For all men have this on their tongue, that men cultivate God, but the hearer feels a kind of awe, when he hears that God cultivates man; because it is not after the ordinary usage of men to say, that God cultivates men, but that men cultivate God. We ought therefore to prove to you, that God also does cultivate men; lest perchance we be thought to have spoken a word contrary to sound doctrine, and men dispute in their heart against us, and as not knowing our meaning, find fault with us. I have determined therefore to show you, that God does also cultivate us; but as I have said already, as a field, that He may make us better. Thus the Lord says in the Gospel, “I am the Vine, you are the branches, My Father is the Husbandman.” What does the Husbandman do? I ask you who are husbandmen. I suppose he cultivates his field. If then God the Father be a Husbandman, He has a field; and His field He cultivates, and from it He expects fruit.