their Redeemer. The Wedding-garment is, therefore, that righteousness of the Saints "which is of faith," that imputed righteousness of Christ which is applied to us and to our salvation, by faith.

When the guest who had intruded himself unadorned into the feast, was questioned by the King, and asked, " Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having on a Wedding-garment," we read, that "he was speechless," and had no word of apology to utter for an appearance so unbefitting both the time and place. Yet if we consider that he was one of those whom the parable represents as having been promiscuously gathered from the highways and hedges, that he was called without warning, and probably also came without delay, we may perhaps vainly imagine that he might have had something, and something substantial too, to have urged in his excuse, and that his speechlessness arose only from confusion or from ignorance, We may falsely think, perhaps, that he might have related with force, both the condition in which he was found, and the place whence he was called; that he might have told of his poverty, his hunger and his wretchednesshis wretchedness which made him inattentive to the ceremonies of life, his hunger, which made him crave for food, and his poverty, which made him unable to buy the necessary adornings for a feast.

But though unable to buy, he need not surely, in this instance at least, have been ashamed to beg, and his own silence, as well as the liberality of the King and the custom of the country' persuade us," that if he had truly and humbly represented his wants, that garment would have been given to him as a gift, which he had neither the power to purchase nor could claim as a due.

Speechless then, and speechless from the same cause, shall we be, if ever we appear in the courts of Heaven without that righteousness of the saints which springeth of faith and of Christ. "Tis true that, like this other speechless guest, we have been invited to the spiritual table of the Lord without warning, and called without our consent from very infancy. We are spiritually poor too, and hungry, naked, and helpless and distressed. For what can be a more wretched thing than man is ? Born to misery as the sparks fly upwards, and the servant of sin by "the fault and corruption of his nature." But what of all this? There is a Saviour to hide our every fault, and á God to pray to in every need. There is a Saviour whose arm will stretch forth the hem of his holy garment to con

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* It was and is still customary in the East for the master of the feast to furnish the guest with a garment.

* See the powerful description of man's physical and moral wretchedness, in the Homily upon the Misery of Man."

ceal our failings, and to cover from wrath, with his righteousness as with a cloak, the iniquities of all who believe and repent, and bring forth fruits meet for repentance. And there is a God to pray to, who would not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and faith, and through faith and repentance to everlasting life: a God he is also, who will ever give power to those who desire in earnestness and sincerity to perform what he has commanded, and to avoid what he has forbidden. Think then with yourselves, my Brethren, what answer ye shall be able to render unto God, if any should be quesof you tioned, like the guest in the parable, concerning your want of a wedding-garment.. Is it for lack of faith that you are without it, or for lack of repentance, or for a failure in accomplishing those works of grace that belong unto repentance? Then hath it been justly withheld from your possession. For though the righteousness of Christ be a garment which must be given to every man to put on, and with which we cannot clothe ourselves withal, yet still it is a gift which will always be given to those who are endued with the requisite qualities and conditions; and those qualities and conditions will always be granted, according to the good pleasure of God's wisdom, to such as seek for them in humility, in sincerity, in the sacraments, and in prayer. Is it then for lack of ever having turned

unto God in prayer, or for want of having participated in the rights of his revealed religion, that ye are in this nakedness and necessity? Then are ye guilty indeed; for I cannot doubt but that at some period or other of his life, there is given to every man a desire and a power to pray for spiritual blessings, and the means of attending upon those sacred ordinances, which have been so solemnly appointed for the communication of grace. Is it then that you have neglected, in their proper season, to embrace and improve those golden opportunities? Speechless ye may be, but innocent you cannot. Nay, I should rather say, that speechless ye must be, from the consciousness of a sinful neglect and the certainty of a merited punishment.

There was but one, of whom our Saviour speaks as without a wedding-garment, amidst all the assembled multitudes who would have partaken of the feast. "When the King came in to see the guests, he saw there a man," a single individual, "who had not on a wedding-garment." We hear of no more than this one, and you may therefore think that there is but little reason for such awful warnings upon the subject, to the generality of mankind. But I tell you, that this one was selected by our Lord rather as a terror to others, than as any proof of the fewness of those

who shall be cast out; and I establish my saying by the words of that Lord himself. Pass on but to the verse which immediately succeeds the condemnation of this unseemly guest, and you will find it there written, that "many are called, but few chosen." Awful words are these. Many indeed are called into the covenant of grace This whole land hath been called. The hundreds around me have been every one of them calledfrequently and repeatedly called-by the reiterated, though feeble, voice of their ministers, by the continual hearing of God's word, and the recurring worship of the Almighty. Say then, ye called, are you of the chosen? Say, for you alone can answer it, do you in your hearts think you are of the chosen? Upon the fate of others I cannot, I dare not, form an opinion or express a thought. I would only commend the subject of your eternal hopes and fears to the seriousness of your daily meditations, and leave you to stand or fall to your Master, who is above all and in you all. Yet I cannot but perceive, in the obscurity which has been permitted to rest upon this, as well as upon other things, the mercy as well as the justice of God; and whilst I tremble to remember that there are few that be saved, I bless the Lord for his goodness, because, in compassion to human infirmity, he has withheld from us the dreadful knowledge of how few they be. Warned, there