ation. Opinion here is nothing less and nothing else than the
attitude of a fallen creature towards his Maker and Judge: one opinion
is the alienated heart of a rebel, another is the glad trustfulness of a
dear child.

If the head of a Hebrew family, on the dread night of the Exodus, had
said within himself, What shall I gain by sprinkling a lamb's blood upon
my door-posts? Or, if a conspicuous mark be necessary, may not the blood
of this animal suffice, that was killed for the use of my family in the
ordinary way? If moved by some self-confident speculations regarding the
constancy of nature, he had entered through the portals of the twilight
into that awful night, he would have perished while his neighbours were
preserved: not that a lamb's blood had power to save, but because this
man refused to take God's way of being saved, and trusted in his
own.[49]

[49] I do not attach much value to the question which has been much
canvassed here, whether the wedding garment specifically signifies
Faith or Charity,--whether it points to what the saved get from God,
or what they do in his service. To wear the garment at the feast
means that the wearer takes God's way of salvation and not his own;
to want it, means that the wanter takes his own way of salvation and
not God's. This is the conclusion of the whole matter. If you
suppose that the garment means evangelical obedience, you must
assume that faith in Christ is the root on which obedience grows;
if, on the other hand, you suppose that the garment means faith in
Christ, you must assume that it is a living not a dead faith,--a
faith that will work by love and overcome the world.

The rest may be expressed in few words. He saw there a man which had not
on a wedding garment. Here, first of all, it is not intimated that
ordinarily there is only one hypocrite in a large company of professors:
it is no part of the Lord's design in this parable to tell us whether
the false members of the visible Church are many or few. The single
point on which the Master has fixed his eye is the certainty that the
false will be detected: the parable does not reveal their numbers, but
it assures us that none of them shall escape in the crowd. If the
representation had been that a large proportion, say a half or
three-fourths of the guests, had been detected at the table without the
appropriate symbol of loving loyalty to the king, the omniscience of the
visitor, and the