And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
Ver. 19. He saith unto them, Follow me] And together with his word there went forth a power inclining them to follow, whereby it appears that they were not only of the many that are called, but of those few that are chosen, Luke 6:13; Matthew 22:14; "The Lord knoweth who are his," saith St Paul. But this knowing of his is carried secret, as a river underground, till by effectual calling he separates them from the rest, till they can "call upon the name of the Lord and depart from evil," 2 Timothy 2:19. This when they are once taught of Christ they must be acting; when he hath tuned and touched us, we must make music, and while the Spirit embreathes us, we must turn about as the mill, and follow the Lamb wheresoever he goeth, as these disciples did, Revelation 4:4 .
And I will make you fishers of men] Of live men, Luke 5:10, ανθρωπους ζωγρων, as fishers desire to catch fish alive, because they are more vendible: an apt metaphor, wherein, 1. The world is compared to the sea, for its unsettledness, tumultuousness, the oppression that is in it (the lesser fish being devoured by the greater), and the sway that Leviathan, the devil, bears there, Psalms 104:26; Psalms 2:1,12. The Church is compared to a boat, because it is continually tossed with the waves of affliction, as Noah, Jonah, the disciples, Paul, and those seafaring men, "that stagger like a drunken man," and all their cunning is gone,Psalms 107:27; Psalms 3:1,8. The fish to be caught out of this sea and to be brought into this ship are men, John 1:42; Matthew 8:24. Nature hath, as it were, spawned us forth into this worldly sea; where we drink iniquity like water, wandering confusedly up and down, till caught and cast into the fish pool for the Master's use and service. Unwittingly we are caught, and unwillingly we are kept, as fishes labour to get out of the net and would fain leap back out of the boat into the water. 4. Ministers are fishers. A busy profession, a toilsome calling, no idle man's occupation, as the Vulgate conceit it, nor needless trade, taken up alate, to pick a living out of. Let God's fishermen busy themselves as they must, sometimes in preparing, sometimes in mending, sometimes in casting abroad, sometimes in drawing in the net, "that they may separate the precious from the vile," &c., Jeremiah 15:19; Matthew 13:48; and no man shall have just cause to twit them with idleness, or to say they have an easy life, and that it is neither sin nor pity to defraud them.