My beloved Brethren, to suffer no vain terrors to deter you from one of the most important means of salvation, which his mercy has bequeathed to you; some preparation is indeed necessary: without penitence working a determination to reform; without faith lively and practical; without charity, pregnant with love to all mankind; neither devotions nor sacraments can be available. But surely it is no hard task for men who live in the profession of Christianity, to imbibe these virtues. Whether you be heavy laden with your sins, your sorrows, or your infirmities, there is a voice which calls from that altar, "come to me, and I will give you rest!" O! may the invitation not be offered in vain, but may you come to the table of your Redeemer in the bridal garment of a changed and contrite heart; may this commemoration of his mortal birth be to many of you, the date of that spiritual reformation, which shall alone insure you the benefits of his death; and may you live and grow in godliness to perform with fidelity the vows you professed at baptism, and renew at every participation in the sacrament of the Lord's supper.

SERMON X.

ON THE NUMBERS THAT ARE CALLED TO AND REJECT CHRISTIANITY.

MATT. XXII. 14.

For many are called, but few are chosen.

THE voice of religion is uniformly the voice of mercy; and this, whether her announcements relate to the final happiness of the good, or to the just but terrifying doom which sooner or later must overtake the wicked. Every person who has any acquaintaince with the human heart, or has made the slightest observation on human conduct, must be aware of a perpetual contest between the principles of good and evil; must understand something of the mixed and motley character of humanity; and must perceive that it is as necessary to work upon the fears, as it is to stimulate the hopes of men, in order to bring them under the dominion of religion and of virtue. If, as our Saviour has himself declared, it was one grand object of his mission to "call sinners to repentance," it was

at least as necessary to convince them of the hatefulness and condemnation of sin, as it was to allure them by the brilliancy and beatification of its opposite; if, as our own experience is sufficient to testify, the terror of punishment be as influential over the generality of men, as the hope of reward, it was evidently expedient, in a matter of such moment as their eternal salvation, to resort to the agency of the former. The words of my text afford us a striking instance of the wholesome severity, with which our Saviour occasionally found it necessary to instruct his followers; they bear a strong and melancholy testimony to the wickedness of the people to whom his Gospel was first propounded; and regard indeed with a most appalling aspect the depraved and negligent of every generation; They form a sort of application to the parable to which they are appended, and the substance of which I shall here relate to you.

In this parable the kingdom of heaven is likened unto a certain king who celebrated the nuptials of his son, and invited to them a considerable number of guests; when the preparations were complete, he despatched his servants to convene the party that was bidden; but of these some departed to their fields, and others to their merchandise; and the remnant only stayed to requite his hospitality by the murder of his messengers; when the Lord of the feast

heard of this last instance of atrocious ingratitude, he sent his soldiers to destroy the murderers and consume their city; and having encountered such unworthy treatment at the hands of those whom he at first preferred, he extended his invitation to the frequenters of the highways; and when these were assembled, remarking one man negligently attired and destitute of a wedding garment, he ordered his servants to cast him out and commit him into prison where there was wailing and gnashing of teeth. And the severity of this treatment our Saviour justifies, and virtually declares that it will be realized as concerns the kingdom of heaven, to which

many are called but few are chosen." My Friends, in explaining this parable, I shall briefly remark, that the royal Lord of the feast is our Almighty Father; that the marriage of the son intimates the Christian dispensation; that those who were first bidden to the nuptials represent the Jewish people, whose conduct and destiny is truly predicted under this similitude; that the attendants from the highways intimate the surrounding Gentiles subsequently called in; and that the ejected guest, who had the rashness to obtrude himself without the "wedding garment," is the unholy, disobedient, and consequently unqualified, professor of Christianity. But the application, which is so infinitely more alarming, inasmuch as it intimates the difficulty

of a Christian election, and the small number of persons who shall ultimately accomplish it, is what I propose now principally to consider.

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In the first place, there can be no doubt that our Saviour, though he meant this rigid declaration to be of general and future use, applied it mainly and particularly to the perfidious and persecuting generation which existed in Judea at the time of his advent; this will be evident by collating it with a vision seen many years afterwards by St. John, in which it was revealed to him, that of a single tribe of Judah there were seated no less than "twelve thousand souls," and after that "he beheld a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and kindred, and people, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands, ascribing with a loud voice salvation unto our God that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever." This is a very consolatory revelation, and brings the awful announcement of my text more immediately home to the Jews who were contemporary with our Saviour. Of them indeed a very small proportion could be equitably saved; they were the contemners of the Lord's entertainment, the persecutors of his servants, and finally the murderers of the son himself; unmoved by the signs and wonders he wrought among them, unappeased by the acts