ight to boast over the hypocrite, and
the hypocrite has no right to boast over the blasphemer. In either case
it is a body of sin, but there is a shade of difference in the colour of
the garments. The one pretends to a goodness which he does not possess;
and the other confesses, or rather boasts, that he is destitute of
goodness. They measure themselves by themselves; and therein they are
not wise. The one thinks his smooth tongue will save him; and the other
counts himself safe because he has not a smooth tongue.

We come now to the ultimate _act_ of either son. The first, after
flinging a blunt refusal in his father's face, repented of his sin. The
turning-point is here. A change came over the spirit of the man, and a
consequent change emerged in his conduct: his heart was first turned,
and then his history. The honesty of his declaration--the absence of
duplicity in giving his answer, would not have justified him before
either God or man. He repented; he turned round. He grieved over his
sin; he was sorry that he had disobeyed his father. Repentance
immediately brought forth fruit after its kind. He went into the
vineyard, and laboured there with a will all day at the kind of work
which he knew would please his father. These two things go always in
company, and together make up the new man--they are the new heart and
the new life.

The grieved father would weep for joy, as he looked up the precipitous
hill-side on which the terraced vineyard hung, and saw there the head
and hands of his son glancing quickly from place to place among the vine
plants. Thus there is joy in heaven--deep in the heart of heaven's
Lord--over one sinner that repenteth. Among the vines that day work was
worship: the resulting act of obedience--fruit of repentance in the
soul, was an offering of a sweet-smelling savour unto God.

The other son promptly promised, but failed to perform. The first was
changed from bad to good, but the second was not changed from good to
bad. No change took place in this case, and none is recorded. It is not
written, that having promised, he afterwards repented and did not go.
His promise was not true; at the moment when it was made, the youth did
not intend to work, and therefore it required no change of mind to
induce him afterwards to spend the day in idleness.

This son represents, in the first instance, those Pharisees who were
then and there compassing the death of Jesus. They ostentatiously
professed th