But forasmuch as he had not to pay
Every sinner is insolvent; sinful man has run out the whole stock
of nature, and is become a bankrupt, and has nothing to offer by
way of composition; nor has he any righteousness to answer for
him, nor any works of righteousness which deserve that name: and
if he had, these are nothing in point of payment: for a debt of
sin cannot be discharged by a debt of obedience; since God has a
prior right to the latter; and in paying it, a man does but what
is his duty. Sin being committed against an infinite God,
contracts the nature of an infinite debt, which cannot be paid
off by a finite creature. Christ only was able to pay this debt,
and he has done it for his people; and without an interest in his
blood, righteousness, and satisfaction, every debtor is liable to
be cast, and will be cast into the prison of hell, there to lie
till the uttermost farthing of the ten thousand talents is paid,
which will be to all eternity. We see what a sad condition sin
has brought men into; it has stripped them of their estates and
possessions; it has reduced them to want and beggary; it exposes
them to a prison; to the just resentments of their creditor; to
the wrath of God, and the curses of the law; and what little
reason there is to think, yea, how impossible it is, that a man
should be able to merit anything at the hands of God, to whom he
is so greatly indebted: he must first pay his debts, which is a
thing impracticable, before he can pretend to do anything
deserving the notice of God; and even was he set free, and clear
of all his debts, and entered upon a new life of obedience, and
this strictly attended to, without contracting any debts for the
future, yet all this would be but what is due to God, and could
merit nothing of him; see ( Luke 17:10 ) ( Romans 11:35
) . We see also from hence, how much the saints are obliged to
Christ Jesus, and how thankful they should be to him, who became
a surety for such insolvent creatures; has paid all their debts
for them, and procured for them every blessing of grace they
stand in need of: but think, O sinner, what thou wilt be able to
say and do, when God comes to reckon with thee, and thou hast
nothing to pay, nor any to pay for thee, or be thy surety; a
prison must be thy portion ever.
His Lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife and
children, and all
that he had;
according to the Jewish laws, in such a case: of a man's being
sold, or selling himself when poor, see ( Leviticus
25:47 ) , for the law in ( Exodus 22:3 ) ,
referred to by some as an instance of this, respects the selling
of a man for theft, and not for debt. Of the selling of a man's
wife for the payment of his debts, I do not remember to have read
any law concerning it, or instances of it; but of children being
taken for bondmen by the creditor, for their father's debts,
mention is made, ( 2 Kings 4:1 ) . These
children, by the Jewish writers {i}, are said to be the children
of Obadiah, who contracted the debt to feed the prophets in a
cave, when they were persecuted by Jezebel; and the creditor,
according to them, was Jehoram, the son of Ahab, who lent him
money on usury for this purpose, in his father's time; and now
Obadiah being dead, he takes his children for the debt, and makes
them bondmen; see also ( Nehemiah 5:5
) . There seems to be an allusion to this practice, in ( Isaiah 50:1 ) , and it
was not only the custom of the Jews to come upon children for the
debts of parents, but of other nations: with the Athenians, if a
father could not pay his debts, the son was obliged to pay, and
in the mean while to be kept in bonds till he did {k}: and as
Grotius, in ( 2 Kings 4:1 ) proves
from Plutarch and Dionysius Halicarnassensis, children were sold
by the creditors of their parents, as in Asia, at Athens, and at
Rome. Now this expresses the state of bondage, sin, as a debt,
brings men into; they become slaves to their own lusts, vassals
of Satan, and in bondage to the law; and also the ruin and
destruction it exposes them to; as, the curse and condemnation of
the law, the wrath of God, eternal death, even the destruction of
body and soul in hell:
and payment to be made
by punishment, which will always be making, and never finished.
This order of the king was not intended to be executed, as the
sequel shows; but declares the will of God, that the sad and
woeful condition of man should be set before him by the ministers
of the word; signifying what his state is, how deserving of
vengeance, and what must be his portion, if grace prevent not:
the view of which is to vindicate the rights of law and justice,
to express the sinner's deserts, and move him to apply to the
Lord for grace and mercy, which effect it had.