A. Because he who lives in the pleasures of sin is like a man out of his mind, and sa continues, till his sufferings bring him to his senses. Q. How does his father receive him? A. As God receives all penitent sinners, who see their own misery, and confess their sins. Q. What is the best robe? A. The clothing of righteousness. Q. Why does the father order a ring to be put on him? A. To signify that he is restored to honour and authority, as a son in his father's house. Q. What is meant by the shoes upon his feet? A. The preparation of the gospel of peace, without which we are not prepared for the journey of life. Q. What is signified by the fatted calf? A. The feast of the Altar, or the Christian sacrifice. Q. How did the Jews behave on the admission of Gentile Converts to the Gospel? A. They were beyond measure offended at it, as the elder brother in the parable. Q. How do they argue? A. They A. They justify themselves, and accuse the Gentiles, and are angry with God himself, as if he had used them ill. Q. What is meant by their refusing to come into the house? A. Their putting from them the word of life, and refusing to be made members of the Church of Christ. Q. And where are they now? A. They are still without the Church of God, and wandering about the field of this world. Q. What is the change made in a penitent sinner, when God hath received him? A. He is passed from death unto life, and restored as a straying lost sheep to the fold. Q. What then is a man in the state of sin and impenitence? A. He is lost and dead. THE TEXT. See Luke xv. 11, &c. XIII. THE XIII. THE CHAPTER OF THE GOOD SAMA RITAN. MAN is never found more worthless than when he boasts of his own dignity; nor more foolish, than when he is proud of his own wisdom. While he saith, I am rich and have need of nothing, God tells him, that he is poor and miserable, and blind and naked. How different are the sentiments of God and man, when man himself is the subject! So low and wretched is the condition of man by his natural birth in sin, that sometimes he is said to be sick with it, sometimes to be dead in it, sometimes to be possessed by it, like a man who is raving with an evil spirit. No words can be too strong to paint the misery of man in this world of sin and sorrow, and the dangers to which he is exposed of perishing here and hereafter. No language can be too exalted to describe the goodness and mercy which from the heaven above hath looked down upon our lost condition, and brought us to a state of health and safety under the terms of the Gospel. Nothing can be plainer than the duty arising from these considerations. If God hath so saved us, we ought ought also to save one another if we can. He who is thus wonderfully delivered, must have neither sense nor godliness, unless he is disposed to acts of kindness toward his suffering neighbour in all his wants and afflictions. When Jesus Christ had represented this case to one who consulted him; Go, said he, and do thou likewise. Such is the doctrine, and such the duty set before us in the parable of the Samaritan. There we learn that man was once in Jerusalem, the holy city, and went down from thence to Jericho, a city under a curse from God for the sin of its inhabitants: that, in the way from the one to the other, he fell into the hands of the destroyer; who, like a robber on the road, stripped him of his raiment of innocence and righteousness, and wounded him, so as to leave him half dead; dead in the spirit, his better part. We learn farther, that when the Priest and the Levite (all the religious ministrations of man) see him lying in this condition, they must pass by and leave him as they find him: for the blood of bulls and of goats, which they offer, cannot take away sin. But when the Priest and the Levite are gone by, then, that which they could not do, is done by him who cometh after upon this He pours after the law, and is the end of it for righteousness: who, while upon this work of saving mankind, was reviled as a Samaritan, and hated as an alien; yet in that Samaritan so hated and reviled, we see and acknowledge the Saviour of the world. He finds the poor wounded traveller, lying helpless earth, and has compassion on him. oil and wine into his wounds; the oil of the Holy Spirit, which healeth our infirmities, and the blood of redemption, which cleanseth us from all sin. Then he raises him up, sets him on his own beast (humbles himself, that man may be exalted) and removes him to a place of reception, even to his Church, which, like an Inn, admits all that are brought into it. There the Host, who is the minister of God, is under a charge to take care of him, and is supplied with every thing necessary to restore him and complete the cure. When our Samaritan shall come again this way, as he hath promised to do, then, at his second coming, he will reckon with the host, and repay him, and every man, according to his works. O Lord, if I am this man, so fallen, and so raised up, grant that I may know myself and thee; my own misery, and thy good ness, |