DISCOURSE XIII.

THE RECEPTION OF THE GOSPEL AMONG MEN.

"And yet there is room." LUKE XIV. 22.

On a particular occasion, our blessed Lord spake a parable to this effect: "A certain man made a great supper, and bade many. And he sent his servant at supper-time to say to them that were bidden, Come, for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse, and concluded that they could not come. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind." This order was carried into immediate execution, and the servant reported to his lord, saying, “It is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room."

In an oriental feast, it was a matter of importance to the honor of him by whom the feast was made, that the rooms should be fully furnished with guests; and, in this case, the master of the house was not satisfied till his house was filled. He therefore said to his servant again, "Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in." After searching the streets and lanes of the city, the servant was directed to go out into

the country adjoining, and constrain those whom he might there find to come in; travellers, laborers, and beggars were to be the common objects of his pressing invitation.

In this allegory we have a representation of the manner in which the gospel was promulgated. The time indicated by the sending out of the invitation, "Come, for all things are now ready,” was when Christ had finished his earthly ministry and ascended up on high; when his apostles and other disciples, in fulfilment of the commission which they had received from him, and under the operation of that power from on high with which he had endued them, went out to preach the gospel of peace to the people of his choice and his covenant.

Life had indeed been offered, and the offer had by many been accepted before; the essential objects of an efficacious faith had before been set forth, and the blood of atonement had before made a saving reconciliation for thousands and ten thousands of perishing sinners. But, when every purpose relating to the redemption of man had been actually accomplished, when the provisions of the divine mercy were no longer matters of promise, but had been actually wrought out, with peculiar propriety and force might it be said, "All things are now ready;" and the invitation, "Come," was then heard under peculiar circumstances of privilege and favor.

But they to whom this invitation was first and particularly sent, refused to comply with it. The

Jews, as a nation, their great and learned men, the teachers of their law, and the members of their grand council, began, with one consent, to make excuse. True, the expected coming of the Messiah was to them a matter of deep interest; they looked with longing desire for the promised Deliverer of Israel, but when he came, they knew him not. He was clothed in no robes of state, he bore no sceptre of dominion, he wielded no sword of conquest; he "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." He established no earthly kingdom, he conferred no mere temporal dignities and distinctions, he held out to his followers no prospects of worldly wealth and greatness. Was such a man the Messiah? Was Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee, was that man of sorrows and reproach he, of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write in such rich and lofty strains of inspiration? Was not his death, and, above all, the shameful and degraded manner of it, proof that he was a deceiver? The cross was to them "a stumbling-stone and rock of offence:" if they could have surmounted every other obstacle in the way of believing that Jesus was the Messiah, they would have been fatally arrested by that. Rather than embrace the cause of one who answered so ill their expectations and desires, they shut their eyes against the clearest evidence, and put from them not only temporal deliverance, but eternal life; they wished to be excused from placing any confidence in him, whom

they regarded as really worthy to be numbered with the transgressors.

Such being the result of the kind overtures, made to them by the God who had chosen them to be his peculiar people, such their rejection of the blessing offered to them first of all, the master of the house was angry, and not only withdrew from them the invitation which had been sent to them, but passed upon them this fearful sentence, "They shall not taste of my supper." He then ordered his servants to preach the gospel to the poor and vile, to publicans and sinners, to those who were despised for the abject meanness of their condition, or abhorred for the flagrant vices of their character. This order was promptly executed, and great numbers from the streets and lanes of the city, that is, great numbers of the obscure and degraded, both Jews and proselytes, listened to the merciful invitation, and came to the gospel feast.

Still, however, the provisions were not exhausted; the house was not filled, and the sentiment, "Yet there is room," could not but be entertained by every Christian heart, and be uttered by the lips of every one who felt compassion for the souls of men. It was not understood by the first preachers of the gospel, that their labors were to extend beyond the limits of the Jewish nation, until our Lord, by express revelation, taught them that such was his will. Then they went out of the city with a glad zeal into the highways and hedges; that is, they no longer confined their

ministry to the Jewish people, but preached the gospel to the Gentiles, whenever opportunity of so doing was afforded. In compliance with the solemn injunction of their Lord and Master, they employed all their powers of persuasion, and brought into action all the means of operating on mind and feeling which they possessed, with a view to gather the long-despised and outcast Gentiles into the embrace and privilege and hope of that covenant, which God made with Abraham and confirmed in Jesus Christ. Then it appeared, not only from an enlightened interpretation of the divine word, but from the actual operations of divine grace, that all the precious and glorious promises made to the children of Abraham, belonged, in the full extent of their spiritual meaning, to the Gentiles as well as the Jews, and that they were to be reckoned children of Abraham who walked in the steps of Abraham's faith, and they alone.

To us the gospel comes, offering the immeasurable fulness of its benefits; to us, who, in respect to the Jews, are in the highways and hedges, the invitation, "Come," is sent with more earnestness of appeal, more force of argument, more urgency of persuasion, than it carried to them: our Lord has directed his servants not only to tell us that all things are now ready, and to request our presence at his table, but to use violence of entreaty, and compel us to come in.

Are there any, therefore, in all the Gentile world who have not come to the gospel feast?