How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?
Ver. 12. Doth he not leave the ninety and nine] I am not, saith a divine, of their fond opinion that think the angels are here meant by the ninety-nine sheep, as if they were so infinite in number beyond the number of mankind: a yet, without question, they are exceeding many, and that number cannot be known of us in this world, Daniel 7:10; Psalms 68:17; "The chariots of God are 20,000, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them as in Sinai," &c., that is, those myriads of angels made Sion as dreadful to all her enemies as those angels made Sinai at the delivery of the law. But the application of this parable makes it plain, that the hundred sheep are God's elect little ones; all which are set safe by Christ upon the everlasting mountains, and not one of them lost, Joh 10:27-29 Matthew 24:31; Mat 24:36-41
a Theophrastus, 99 oves vult esse angelos qui non erraverunt, unam perditam, genus humanum.