our gave him a commission to preach the Gospel beyond the
boundaries of Israel, saying, "Depart, for I will send thee far hence
unto the Gentiles, they gave him audience unto this word, and then
lifted up their voices and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth,
for it is not fit that he should live" (Acts xxii. 21, 22). In this
inveterate prejudice of the Pharisaic Jews against the admission of
persons or communities other than themselves into the privileges of
Messiah's kingdom, we see the reason why the Lord gave his parable the
turn which it takes in the extraordinary conduct of the elder brother.
Counting that the kingdom belonged exclusively to themselves, the Jewish
hierarchs violently resented every suggestion that pointed to the
reception of strangers. It was to them that this series of parables was
addressed; and to them, in immediate relation to their stupid and
impudent cry, "He receiveth sinners!"

But we have not exhausted this portion of the lesson when we have
pointed out that those whom the elder brother represents fret proudly
and peevishly against the admission of their neighbours into the
kingdom: by that very fact they unconsciously but surely demonstrate
that themselves have not entered yet. The spirit that in regard to self
is satisfied, before God unhumbled, and towards men unloving, has no
part with Christ: this is the proud whom God knoweth afar off, not the
meek whom he delights to honour.

Ah, woe to the man who serves God as that son served his father, with a
mercenary mind and an unbroken heart,--who thinks his obedience
praiseworthy, and would be surprised if it should go without reward. The
elder son was lost as well as the younger; but as far as the parable
reveals his history, he was not like him found again: he, like his
brother, went astray; but unlike him, refused to come back. The father
was grieved as much by the sullen, dry, hard, cold, dead formality of
his elder son, as by the prodigal wastefulness of the younger, without
getting the sorrow balanced by a subsequent joy. Whited sepulchre! what
will thy residence in the house, and thy constant and punctilious
profession avail thee while thou art planting daggers in thy father's
heart, and nursing vile hypocrisy in thy own? It is the empty open
vessel that gets itself filled when it is plunged into a well of living
water; the vessel that is full and shut, although it is overflowed by
rivers of privileges, does not receive and