For understand--if any of
you fancy that you can sin without being punished--that the prodigal
son is punished, and most severely. He does not get off freely, the
moment he chooses to repent, as false preachers will tell you: even
after he does repent, and resolves to go back to his father's house,
he has a long journey home, in poverty and misery, footsore, hungry,
and all but despairing. But when he does get home; when he shows
that he has learnt the bitter lesson; when all he dares to ask is,
'Make me as one of thy hired servants,' he is received as freely as
the rest. And it is worth while to remark, that our Lord spends on
him tenderer words than on those who are lost by mere foolishness or
ignorance. Of him it is not said, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found
him,'--but, Bring out the best robe, for this my son--not my sheep,
not my piece of money, but my son--was dead, and is alive again; he
was lost, and is found.
In this is a great mystery; one of which one hardly dares to talk:
but one which one must think over in one's own heart, and say, 'Oh
the depth of the riches and of the knowledge and wisdom of God! How
wonderful are his judgments, and his ways past finding out. For who
hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor? Or
who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him
again?' Who indeed? God is not a tyrant, who must be appeased with
gifts; or a taskmaster, who must be satisfied with the labour of his
slaves.
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