Ver. 1. All the publicans and sinners] Christ familiarized himself with these despised persons, and thereby much won upon them. Affability easily allureth, austerity discourageth; as it did that honest citizen, which having in himself a certain conflict of conscience, came to Master Hooper the martyr’s door for counsel; but being abashed at his austere behaviour, dared not come in, but departed, seeking remedy of his troubled mind at other men’s hands.
Ver. 2. But the scribes and Pharisees] Being sick of the devil’s disease, and doing his lusts, John 8:44.
Ver. 3. See Matthew 18:12.
Ver. 4. See Matthew 18:13.
Ver. 5. See Matthew 18:13.
Ver. 6. See Matthew 18:13.
Ver. 7. Joy shall be in heaven] Would we then put harps into the angels’ hands, ditties into their mouths? repent.
Ver. 8. If she lose once piece] One Tester. Drachma enim valebat septem denarios cum dimidio. (Breerwood de Num.) Jude 1:1. See the margin of our new translation. And sweep the house] σαροι, everrit, not evertit, as the Vulgate hath it corruptly: and Gregory with others were deceived by it in their descants and glosses, nothing to the purpose.
Ver. 9. Rejoice with me] What greater joy than to have had a hand in the conversion of a sinner from the error of his way?
Ver. 10. See Luke 15:7. The tears of sinners are the wine of angels, saith Bernard: who himself, for a certain time after his conversion, remained as it were deprived of his senses, by the excessive consolations he had from God.
Ver. 11. And he said] A third parable to the same purpose: and all to persuade us of God’s readiness to receive returning sinners. This is not so easily believed, indeed, as most men imagine.
Ver. 12. He divided unto them his living] Gr. τον βιον, his life. Our life is called the “life of our hands,” Isaiah 57:10, because it is upheld by the labour of our hands.
Ver. 13. Gathered all together] Convasatis veluti omnibus. With riotous living] Ασωτως Not caring to save any part, sibi nihil reservaus, imo seipsum non servans, being such as safety itself could not save; whence the Latins call such a man perditum, an undone person. Such were those of whom Seneca saith, that singulis auribus bina aut terna dependent patrimonia, hanged two or three good lordships at their ears. And such are those among us that turn lands into laces, great rents into great ruffs, &c. The expenses of Apicus’ kitchen amounted to more than two millions of gold. He having eaten up his estate, and finding by his account that he had no more than 200,000 crowns remaining, thought himself poor, and that this sufficed not to maintain his luxury; whereupon he drank down a glass of poison. ασωτος quasi ασωστος, unsavable. H. S. millies in culinam coniecisset. [Seneca, Moral Essays, l. 12. c. 10. (8-10) 2:453]
Ver. 14. And when he had spent all] And left himself nothing at all, praeter coelum et coenum, but air to breathe in and earth to tread on, as that Roman prodigal boasted; who had made his own hands his executors, and his own eyes his overseers, drawing much of his patrimony through his throat, and spending the rest upon harlots, who left him as bare as crows do a dead carcase. Ruin follows riot at the heels.
Ver. 15. To feed swine] Which to a Jew, that held swine an abomination, must needs be grievous.
Ver. 16. And he would fain have filled his belly] The stomach of man is a monster (saith one), which, being contained in so little a bulk as his body, is able to consume and devour all things. And no man gave him] A swinish life he had led, and now would have been glad of swine’s meat.
Ver. 17. And when he came to himself] For till then he had been beside himself, and not his own worthy. Nebulo rascal (saith one) cometh of Nabal; fool of φαυλος: ανοια et ανομια are of near affinity. Evil is Hebrew for a fool, &c. Wickedness is called the “foolishness of madness,” Ecclesiastes 7:25.
Ver. 18. Against heaven and before thee] That is, I have not only thee, but the whole heaven for a swift witness against me of mine offences and outbursts. “The heaven doth declare mine iniquity, and the earth riseth up against me,” Job 20:27.
Ver. 19. I am not worthy] So Austin, Domino, non sum dignus quem tu diligas. So another, Non sum dignus, Domino, sod sum indigens. Sense of misery must precede sense of mercy. Let God but hear such words as these fall from his Ephraims, and he will soon melt over them, Jeremiah 31:19,20 Ho 11:8. Henry the son of our Henry II, crowned by his father, and rebelling against him, died before his father at Martel in Normandy, where his father lay at siege. His father refusing to visit him (as fearing his own life), but sending his ring in sign of forgiveness, the dying prince most humbly with floods of tears kissing the same, made a most sorrowful confession of his sins: and feeling death approach, would needs be drawn (as an unworthy sinner) out of his own bed, and laid upon another strewed with ashes, where he died; which being related, the old king fell upon the earth, and weeping bitterly (like another David for his Absalom) mourned very sore. (Speed, 522.)
Ver. 20. When he was yet a great way off] Tantum velis et Deus tibi praeoccurret, You may be so will and God will run to you, saith a Father. The prodigal was but conceiving a purpose to return, and God met him, Isaiah 65:24. And kissed him] One would have thought he should have kicked him, or have killed him rather, but God is Pater miserationum, father of mercy, he is all heart. The prodigal came, the father ran; God is slow to anger, swift to show mercy.
Ver. 21. Father, I have sinned] Confess, and the mends is made. Homo agnoscit, Deus ignoscit. Acknowledge but the debt, and he will cross the book. And am no more worthy, &c.] Infernus sum, Domine, said that holy martyr, Mr Hooper, at his death. Lord, I am hell, but thou art heaven I am soil, and a sink of sin, but thou a gracious God.
Ver. 22. The best robe] That white raiment of Christ’s righteousness, Revelation 3:18; that rich and royal array, Psalms 45:14, the righteousness (δικαιωματα) of the saints, Revelation 19:8.
Ver. 23. And bring hither the fatted calf] Christ is that fatted calf, saith Mr Tyndale martyr, slain to make penitent sinners good cheer withal, and his righteousness is the goodly raiment to cover the naked deformities of their sins.
Ver. 24. For this my son was dead, &c.] So fareth it with every faithful Christian. He was dead, but now lives, and cannot be insensible or ignorant of such a change.
Ver. 25. His elder son] The self-justiciary, that is good in his own eyes, and needs no repentance.
Ver. 26. What these things meant] Hypocrites understand not the just man’s joys, nor the sweet intercourse that is between God and his people.
Ver. 27. Safe] Gr. υγιαινοντα, in health. Quod sanitas in corpore, id sanctitas in corde. The sanctified man is the only sound man.
Ver. 28. And he was angry] Christi consilium est ostendere, iniquum esse qui fratri in gratiam recepto obtrectat, etiamsi sanctitate Angelis non cedat. Calvin.
Ver. 29. And yet thou never gavest me a kid] Much less a calf. Hypocrites hold God to be in their debt, and through discontent weigh not his favours, as being never without some ailment.
Ver. 30. But as soon as this thy son] He saith not, this my brother; he would not once own him, because in poverty. Which hath devoured thy living] q.d. which you were so hasty to give unto him before your death (which you need not have done), and now he hath made a fair hand of it.
Ver. 31. All that I have is thine] In thy conceit at least. Thou holdest thyself happy howsoever, and seemeth to have one foot already in the porch of paradise. Self-deceivers will needlessly set up their counter for a thousand pounds, and will not believe but their penny is very good silver. They lay claim to all, as the madman of Athens did to all the ships that came into that harbour, as his.
Ver. 32. Was lost, and is found] Of himself he left his father; yet is he called the lost son.