Matthew 18:26

(26) Fell down, and worshipped him.—The word implies simply the prostrate homage of a servant crouching before his master.

I will pay thee all.—The promise was, under such circumstances, an idle boast, but it describes with singular aptness the first natural impulse of one who is roused to a sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. He will try to balance the account as by a series of instalments; he will score righteous acts in the future as a set-off against the transgressions of the past. In theological language, he seeks to be “justified by works.”