ontains two parables.
The saving of the lost is represented in the first division as it is
seen from God's side, and in the second as it is seen from man's. In the
first, the Saviour appears seeking, finding, and bearing back the lost;
in the second, the lost appears reflecting, repenting, resolving, and
returning to the Father.

The two parables which constitute the first division are generically
coincident, but specifically distinct. Both represent the side on which
the sinner is passive in the matter of his own salvation, and the
parable of the prodigal alone represents the aspect in which he is
spontaneously active; but while the first two agree in their main
feature, they differ in subordinate details. The second goes partly over
the same ground that has already been traversed by the first, and
partly takes a new and independent track of its own.[80]

[80] Recognising in the lost coin mainly a repetition of the same
lesson which the lost sheep contained, but justly anticipating from
the mere fact of a repetition, that the second will present some
features which were not contained in the first, Dr. Trench finds the
expected difference in this,--that "if the shepherd in the last
parable was Christ, the woman in this may, perhaps, be the Church."
After suggesting as an alternative that the woman may represent the
Holy Spirit, he remarks that these two are in effect substantially
identical, and finally rests in the conclusion that it is "the
Church because and in so far as it is dwelt in by the Spirit, which
appears as the woman seeking her lost." This able expositor speaks
with evident hesitation when he represents the Church as the seeker
here; and accordingly we find him with a happy inconsistency
affirming in a subsequent paragraph that "as the woman, having lost
her drachm, will light a candle and sweep the house, and seek
diligently till she find it, even so the Lord, through the
ministrations of his Church, gives diligence to recover the lost
sinner," &c. I am willing to accept the phraseology of this
sentence, but it is obviously at variance with the view which he had
previously presented, and to which he recurs in the close, that in
this parable it is the Church which seeks the lost, while in the
preceding parable it is the Saviour. Further, if he maintain that
the woman seeking the lost coin represents the Lord seeking sinners
through the ministrations of the