Luk 14:32. ἘÏωτᾷ, he beggeth) The king finds it an easier matter to prevail on himself to expend [to expose to the risks of war] an army, than to beg a peace. This begging of peace, therefore, expresses the hatred of one’s own soul, wherewith one, having utterly denied self, gives himself up to dependence on pure and unmixed grace. We may also, by changing the figure, understand peace as the avoidance of hatred on the part of his own people, which is a bad kind of peace.[152]
[152] In this view faith will constitute “the good fight,†which ought to be persevered in, and no false compromise be made with the spiritual enemy without for the sake of escaping hatred at home, i.e. among one’s friends, or for the sake of indulging self, in the indulgence of the indolence as to the spiritual fight, so natural to us: this would be saying, “Peace, peace, where there is no peace,†Jer 6:14; Isa 57:21.-E. and T.