we would ask—When he will be fit? or, When he will be good enough? And after he is informed that he never will be fit, never will be good enough, we would encourage him to read the great King's command to his servants to bring in the poor, the maimed, the halt and the blind—those who have no money to buy pieces of ground, nor yokes of oxen, but who yet are grateful to approach the great King's table, who calls sinners to repentance.
December Eleventh.
THE THREE EXCUSES—III. THE WIFE MARRIED.
"I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come."—Luke xiv. 20.
THERE is an infernal marriage as well as a heavenly one; and he who pleads the excuse of a marriage for non-attendance, is the representative of a class who have united evil with falsehood; and, where such a union has been effected, it never can be present with him in whom love and wisdom dwell in inseparable union. "I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come."
The Jews have rejected the Divine invitation; they have gone their way, "one to his farm, another to his merchandize." Many Christians have refused to acknowledge the union of Divinity with humanity, and will not have the Lord to reign over them.
The Jews in the parable plead the excuses upon which we have been meditating. Do we also, professing the name of Christ, neglect to avail ourselves of His gracious invitation, and plead excuses? Are our
