Baptist Union, Autumnal Session of 386 Hindoo Newspaper on English Rule 38

Derby Baptist Occasional Preachers'

Evangelical Alliance, An. Conference of 386
Liberation Society, The

New Connexion Methodists, The
Nottingham, Mansfield-road

THE

GENERAL BAPTIST

MAGAZINE.

JANUARY, 1866.

THE PARABLE OF THE TWO DEBTORS.*

BY THE REV. SAMUEL COX.

THROUGHOUT His ministry the Lord Jesus spake "the present truth," the truth adapted to the time and the conditions of the time. His words, His parables, were suggested by the occasion on which they were spoken, and fitted into it. Hence we can only catch the full drift of His words as we acquaint ourselves with the circumstances and the persons to whom they were addressed.

This parable of the Two Debtors was spoken in the house of one Simon, a Pharisee, and in the hearing of a certain woman who was a sinner and had found in Christ the Friend of sinners. The two debtors of the parable heard the parable; he to whom little had been forgiven sat as host at the head of the table; she to whom much had been forgiven stood an uninvited guest at the feet of Christ. The story which fell from the lips of Christ was the spiritual sum and interpretation of the scene around Him. To understand the story we must glance at the scene.

Simon had invited Jesus to eat with him. We cannot tell what motive induced a Pharisee, and apparently a Pharisee of the straitest sort, to desire the company of the Nazarene who was so obnoxious to his class. It has been supposed that he was moved by gratitude, that having been healed by Christ, he desired to make Him some slight return. For the credit of humanity let us hope that that is not true. It is well nigh incredible that even a Pharisee should deal so niggardly and hardly with a benefactor as Simon dealt with Jesus. Let us rather hope that he had been struck with some passing word uttered by Him who spake as never man spake, and had resolved to examine-and as a ruler and teacher of the people he was bound to examine the claims of Jesus for himself.

But whatever the motive of the invitation, Jesus accepts the invitation -O, mark the grace and comfort of that!-and comes into the Pharisee's house. Mark the grace and comfort of Christ's acceptance of the Pharisee's hospitality, whatever its motive; for it teaches us to hope and

* Luke vii, 40-43.

No. LXVIII.-NEW SERIES, No. 25.

believe that on any invitation, however poor and unworthy, He will come to us, and come to give us as much as we can take. If there be but a single spark of holy desire burning amid manifold obstructions in our hearts, He will come and seek to fan it to a flame.

The Pharisee asks Jesus to his house, but the Sinner comes unasked into the presence of Jesus. We need not curiously inquire into her motive. It is clear and patent. Love is her inspiration, the love of one who has sinned much, and to whom much has been forgiven. It seems strange to us that a woman of her evil notoriety should be allowed to enter the guest-chamber of a rigid moralist, a strict Pharisee. But a slight acquaintance with the social customs of the East-where often the meals are all but public, and all comers welcome; where, as the lowest slave or peasant may rise to be a minister of state, our class distinctions are unknown, and the feeling of a common humanity is infinitely stronger than with us greatly detracts from the strangeness. In her earnest longing and devotion, too, she would make a way, if she could not find one, to His presence whom she loved much, and whose service was her new chief joy.

And she did love Him. He probably had spoken the first words of a pure tenderness that she had heard for many years, and taught that weary heart, weary with its long straying, to find rest.

He had shewn her the possibilities of virtue still open to her, and had lifted up a gate of hope when her dark path seemed all closed in. And she, poor outcast, is wholly won to His service. She lavishes on Him every mark of love and reverence. Standing behind Him as He reclined at table, she weeps at the memory of His redeeming goodness, her tears falling on His feet. Then the tear-stained feet must be dried, and she wipes them with her unpent hair, thin now perchance and with many a streak of premature grey. Stooping to wipe His feet, she takes courage, presses them with her polluted lips, and finds a cleansing virtue in those blessed feet which were nailed, for our advantage, to the bitter cross. It is a pathetic scene- -Is it not? and that incident of the dishevelled tresses is of a tender beauty not easily matched. "The hair," says St. Paul," is the glory of the woman," and this glory she devotes to His service whose forgiving love had made her a "woman" once more. What is highest and best in us is baser than that which is lowest in Christ, finds its true honour in subjection to Him, its true use in doing Him service. We may well give our "glory" to Him who for us gave up the glory He had with the Father before the world was.

The Lord Jesus does not shrink even from the harlot's touch and adoration. He knows what it all means; that lips which cannot speak for sighs are faltering out love in kisses; that in breaking the alabaster box and anointing His feet with the costly ointment with which she once adorned herself, she is renouncing her evil courses, seizing the kingdom of heaven with a forcible convulsive grasp; that in devoting the glory of her hair, she is devoting her whole body, soul and spirit, to His service. Jesus, the Saviour, does not shrink; but Simon, the Pharisee, does. He cannot read the thoughts and intents of the heart. He has no conception of a pollution which is not external and notorious, or of a holiness which is not formal. He is shocked, indignant-sees only the sinner in the penitent: he is perplexed and bewildered-cannot understand how any man who pretends to be religious and a teacher of religion should suffer the vile to approach him. But though he is perplexed, he does not