Evil manners, we say, beget good laws; so, in this chapter, the murmuring of the scribes and Pharisees at the grace of Christ, and the favour he showed to publicans and sinners, gave occasion for a more full discovery of that grace than perhaps otherwise we should have had in these three parables…

Here is, I. The diligent attendance of the publicans and sinners upon Christ’s ministry. Great multitudes of Jews went with him , with such an assurance of admission into the kingdom of God that he found it requisite to say that to them which would shake their vain hopes.

We have here the parable of the prodigal son, the scope of which is the same with those before, to show how pleasing to God the conversion of sinners is, of great sinners, and how ready he is to receive and entertain such, upon their repentance; but the circumstances of the parable do much more…