ius, sciens et
voluntarius."

The conversion of a sinner is, on the contrary, represented by two
different pictures. You cannot convey a correct conception of a solid
body by one picture on a flat surface. The globe itself, for example,
cannot be exhibited on a map except as two distinct hemispheres. To the
right you have a representation of one side, and to the left a
representation of the other; the two pictures are different, and yet
each, as far as it goes, is a true picture of the same globe. In like
manner, the way of a sinner's return to God is too great and deep for
being fully set forth in one similitude. In particular its aspect
towards God and its aspect towards men are so diverse that both cannot
be represented by one figure. On one side the Redeemer goes
spontaneously forth to seek and bear back again the lost; on the other
side the wanderer repents, arises, and returns. Here, accordingly, you
see the shepherd following the strayed sheep, and bringing it back on
his shoulders to the fold; and there you see the weary prodigal first
coming to himself, and then coming to his Father. The first picture
shows the sovereign self-moving love of God our Saviour; and the second
shows the beginning, the progress, and the result of repentance in a
sinner's heart.

These two similitudes represent one transaction: first, you are
permitted to look upon it from above, and you behold the working of
divine compassion; next, you are permitted to look upon it from below,
and you behold the struggle of conviction in a sinner's conscience,--the
spontaneous return of a repenting man. Here is revealed the sovereign
outgoing of divine power; and there in consequence appears a willing
people (Ps. cx. 3). It is not that one sinner is brought back by Christ,
and another returns of his own accord: both features are present in
every example. Of every one who, from this fallen world, shall have
entered the eternal rest, it may be said, and will be said in the songs
of heaven, both that the Lord his Redeemer, of His own mere mercy, saved
him, and that he spontaneously came back to his Father's bosom and his
Father's house.[74]

[74] It is interesting to notice that the same twin doctrines which
the Master here exhibited in parables were afterwards taught in the
same relation by his servants. Take two examples, one a brief bold
allegory, and the other an autobiographic fragment, both from the
fervent heart and through the f