made me a promise which you have not performed;" they were constrained to say, "You have given us all you promised." When we stand in the kingdom of God, we shall not find that there was one jot in one promise that has not been amply realized and fulfilled in our experience. God's promises are stronger than man's performance. We may rely upon the least promise of God more. surely, and with more unhesitating confidence, than we can rely upon the everlasting hills, or upon any created thing in the universe of God. Faithful is he that has promised; all his promises are yea and amen; and when heaven shall have passed away like a scroll, and the earth and the things that are therein shall be burned up, we shall find fulfilled what he has said, that not one jot or tittle has failed of all the promises of God.

Again, we learn that some reach higher degrees of glory than others. Certainly throughout the Bible there seems to be a promise that some, who especially abound in devo-. tedness to God, shall reach higher degrees of glory. Never, however, misapprehend me for a moment. Our right and title to heaven, is the finished work and righteousness of our blessed Lord. Nothing else, nothing instead of it, nothing added to it, nothing beside it; it is that alone.

But at the same time our justification and acceptance with God is not the close of our Christianity: it is only the commencement of it. It is elevating us to that platform, standing upon which, we can see God as our Father, and thence go forth as sons to serve him. If there be degrees of service, may there not be degrees of glory? If there be degrees of consecration below, may there not be degrees of happiness above? I do not believe that heaven is a macadamized place, a mere dead level; or that all is equality there. Fraternity there is; equality

there is not. I believe there are degrees of glory, gradations of blessedness, crowns that differ in their lustre, hearts that differ in their beats; just as one star differeth from another in glory. "They that be wise, and turn many to righteousness, shall shine as the stars in the firmament for ever and ever." And yet there shall be no merit on our part; the least particle of grace, and the loftiest and richest flood of glory, shall equally come from free grace. So that he that rises to the highest pinnacle of the highest throne in heaven, and he that worships in the same sunshine at the foot of it, shall equally feel that they were saved by grace, and shall equally sing, Not unto us, "but unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, be glory and dominion for ever and ever."

Let us learn another lesson. God is sovereign, and yet just. If he makes difference of labour below, and gives difference of reward above, there is sovereignty in that; because if one man excels another in devotedness, it is because there has been given to one man an excess of grace over what has been given to another. And yet no one will say that God is unjust. He is faithful and just to forgive;" he is sovereign to add to that forgiveness distinguished and innumerable blessings. "Just and true art thou, O King of saints." And does not this teach us, that if God is thus sovereign in distinguishing us and in making us to differ, that we should be prepared to see in the church some ministers much more devoted than others, and some people much more self-sacrificing than others; some that live more entirely and continuously for the spread of the kingdom of God, and for the truths of the gospel of Christ. And if we see it, that should not. make us envious. You must not envy one Christian be

cause he excels you in gifts and graces. You must not look with contempt upon another who has not the same gifts, and is a stranger to the full and glorious graces that you have. You must always say, "Who hath made us to differ?" "Why am I greater than this man?" "Why am I inferior to another?" The answer is, that God, in his sovereignty, has made the difference; and the inference is, that you are responsible to God, not for what a brother is, but for what you have and are before God.

All in the market-place were invited into the vineyard. So is it still. The invitations of the gospel are addressed to all; all are welcome to embrace them; and if any do not accept them, they will never forget it is their own fault, and their own fault alone. No man yet was ever able to urge at the judgment-seat, or is able to urge upon earth, "When I wished to believe in the Saviour, to renounce sin and cleave to Christ, I found a decree like a wall of brass standing in the way, and separating me from Christ." There is no such thing. No man's conscience is bad enough to make such an excuse; and those who quarrel about predestination and election being difficulties, are beginning to study at the university before they have entered the dame's school and learned the elements of reading. Let us be Christians first; let us study mysteries next. Let us see that we accept the call; and then it will be time, as the sons of God, admitted to a clearer light, to study the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Nay more; study prophecy-by all means study it; but let the preacher take care, and let the people remember that it is possible to discuss the rise and fall of kings, and the progress of that glorious kingdom into which all the kingdoms of this world shall be brought, and yet to have no lot or share in it. Nothing must supersede, nothing must lead us to postpone, our own personal acceptance of the gospel,

our own acceptance of Christ as our priest, and prophet, and king. Let us be sure of this first. This is imperative; all else is non-essential. This is personal; all else relates to things external to us. "Except ye be born. again, ye cannot see the kingdom of God."

Let me notice, in the next place, a very important and interesting truth, namely, that sinners are converted in old age. Now it is very curious that those men who dwell upon the passage, many are called, but few chosen," and interpret "many are called," as those who are merely invited, but refuse; and "few are the chosen," as those that really accept, believe that there is salvation at the eleventh hour. I find this strange inconsistency in almost all the sermons that are written on this parable, It is an inconsistency; for the passage, according to their interpretation of it, indicates no such thing as salvation at the eleventh hour. I understand all that are called, to be those that are saved;-those that are called at the first, the third, the sixth, the ninth, and the eleventh hour, to be the saved. And, therefore, I believe there is salvation and acceptance for the oldest criminal at the latest year of his pilgrimage upon earth. If you postpone the thoughts of God, the soul, eternity, until old age, calculating on this, that is a very different thing; but if at this moment I find you old—with one foot on the brink of the grave, and one foot in it-to you there is freely, fully offered, instant peace with God, just as truly, as plainly, as it is offered to the youngest man or woman upon earth. At the eleventh hour they obeyed, just as they did at the first hour; and both those called at the first, and those at the eleventh hour, entered the vineyard and laboured for God. Then what a consolation is this, that if the young are specially invited, the old are not excluded! And what a comfort is this, that one can go to the bed of the dying,

and though it should be at the eleventh hour, though it be upon the stroke of the twelfth, yet who can say that the pointing out of the Lamb of God, and the efficacy of his blood, in a minute's sermon at the bedside, may not be blessed as much as an hour's in the house of prayer; the exhibition of Christ to the expiring eye of the soul may be salvation, just as the exhibition of the serpent of brass to the closing eye of the dying man upon the field of old was instant health, strength, and recovery.

Amazing happiness! What a glorious gospel is this, that warrants one to go to the hearts that are free, and the hearts that are bound, and say to every one without exception, "Believe thou on Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Nay, it is remarkable enough, that almost every instance in the Bible of the conversion of men who had advanced in year sunconverted, was one of what seems instant conversion. In the case of the jailer of Philippi, who inquired, "What must I do to be saved?" the answer given was, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." What is added? "He rejoiced, believing in God with all his house." In the same hour the man believed the gospel, and rejoiced in the belief and the acknowledgment of that gospel. I do not think that, when a person is dying, it is right to say, "He is too old to see a minister or a Christian-(I do not much care whether it be the one or the other;) he is too ill, too far gone." Do not say that there is no hope, ast long as life lasts: but go, tell them of the instant cure for all degrees and shades of sin. Many a soul upon the very verge of the twelfth hour, has been plucked as a brand from the burning, and entered into the realms of everlasting glory. I know not what despair is with such a book in my hand as the Bible, and such a gospel as Christ's gospel in my heart. I despair of none; I