parted. The loss of so
much property was a small loss; the gain for the discipline of unborn
generations was unspeakably great. The overthrow of the city in which
the rebels dwelt would make children's children shudder at the thought
of apostasy. The sacrifice of a material interest in order to afford
sanction to moral laws is the highest wisdom of government, both human
and divine. This principle was adopted on the largest scale after the
first rebellion, when the earth was cursed for man's sake.

The king took his servants into his counsel. They had suffered in his
cause, and he will not conceal from them what he is about to do. "Go ye
therefore into the highways,"--the public places of resort, as well the
city's streets as the roads that traverse the country,--"and as many as
ye shall find, bid to the marriage." In the first instance the
invitation was limited to the class who had a prescriptive right to
appear at court; when these by their perversity had excluded themselves,
the king in his sovereignty extended the invitation generally to the
common people,--to persons who previously possessed no right of
admission, but who obtained the right then and there by the free act of
the sovereign.

The servants did as they were instructed. They understood and executed
their commission according to its letter: they brought in "bad and
good." As they were not instructed to institute an inquiry into the
character or social position of the persons whom they should invite,
they made no distinction; they swept the streets to fill the royal
halls.

At this point the parable becomes logically complete, and its lesson may
be exhibited apart from the addition regarding the wedding garment which
immediately follows. It will be more convenient, accordingly, to
prosecute the exposition of the earlier portion by itself, and leave the
latter portion to be treated afterwards as substantially a separate
lesson.

The parable, as far as we have hitherto read it, repeats and extends the
warnings previously given regarding the spiritual privileges which the
Jews enjoyed and abused, the judgments which had been and still would be
poured out upon the nation, and the successful proclamation of the
Gospel to the Gentiles, when the natural seed of Abraham should have in
rebellious unbelief rejected the offers of their Lord.

The marriage festival made by the king in honour of his son, points
manifestly to redemption completed in the incarnati