And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.
Ver. 43. Verily I say unto thee] See the infinite love of Christ to penitent sinners, in that when he hung upon the tree, and was paying dear for man's sin, he rejected not this malefactor's petition. Shall he not hear us now that all is paid and finished?
Today shalt thou be with me] This is not every man's happiness. A pardon is sometimes given to one upon the gallows; but whoso trusts to that, the rope may be his hire. It is not good to put it upon the psalm of Miserere Sorrow and the neck verse (saith one), for sometimes he proves no clerk. Most deal with repentance as country people do with physicians, -love not to have to do with them till they fear they are gasping the last breath. The mole begins not to see till he be at point of death: Oculos incipit aperire moriendo, quos clausos habuit vivendo, saith Pliny. The serpent stretcheth not himself out straight till he hath received his death's wound. But what if God should say to such lingerers, as the crab in the fable did to the dying serpent, At oportuit sic vixisse, " It is too late now, you should have lived so?"