November 9

The address was occasioned by the nature of his audience, and the insinuation of his enemies. "Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him"—Drunkards, adulterers, swearers, liars, Sabbath-breakers. The proverb says, Like begets like; and there is much truth in the old adage. Show me a man's company, and I will show you his character. Accordingly, "the Pharisees and the Scribes," pious souls! as if alarmed for the interests of morality, and pretending that the freedom of his conduct was incompatible with the sanctity that should distinguish a Teacher sent from God, "murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." The apparent difficulty was to be solved by an easy distinction which they were not prepared or disposed to make. Our Lord was among these sinners not because he loved their sins, but would save their souls; or, as he explained himself on a similar reproach, he was among them as a physician walks the wards of an hospital, not because he is charmed with disease, but in order to prescribe for his patients: "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." Here he has another equally striking justification. He spake this parable unto them, saying, "What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety-and-nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it"—he belabours it with his rod till it pants again? No such thing—"he layeth it on his shoulders"—complaining of the dangers he has incurred, the many weary steps he has taken, the sufferings he has endured in the research? No—but "REJOICING." Blessed Jesus, how well couldst thou say, "I am the good Shepherd!"

He not only seeks and saves—but whatever it may cost him, he does it with joy. In the anticipation of it, he "rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth, and his delights were with the sons of men." When he was actually becoming incarnate, he said, "Lo! I come to do thy will, O God. I delight to do thy will; yea, thy law is within my heart." With regard to his obtaining eternal redemption for us by his blood, he said, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" See him at the well of Sychar. The disciples had left him hungry, and had gone away into the city to buy meat. But when they returned and spread the entertainment before him, and said, "Master, eat;" he said, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of." He refers to the pleasure he had just experienced in the conversion of the woman of Samaria, and in the approaching salvation of her neighbours by her means—This was his repast: "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work."—"He layeth it on his shoulders, REJOICING."

It is the joy of success. Nothing is more mortifying than to labour in vain, especially when we take great pains, and make great sacrifices. But how pleasing and delightful is it to see the fruit of our exertions. How delighted is the soldier after his marchings, privations, hardships, conflicts, and wounds, to retire in peace, and share the spoils of victory and the applause of his king and his country? "A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world."