These are the principal topics illustrated in both parables: the analogy, beauty, and important tendency of which must strike the mind of any person, whose eyes have been opened to see the worth of his soul, and the method by which its guilt is to be expiated and its pollutions cleansed; who is athirst for truth, and longs to experience that happiness, which only they feel, who know Christ and him crucified: by such an one, the blessings exhibited in the parable will be considered as the most gracious vouchsafement of Heaven; and the _call_ given in the text, as infinitely superior in importance, to that which would invite the most indigent beggar to the table of plenty and munificence, or raise a fettered captive from the _terrors_ of a dungeon to the splendor of a throne. Though the parable, when delivered by our Lord, had a more immediate reference to the state of the Jews; yet, as Providence hath distinguished us by a similar greatness of religious privileges; and to abuse and slight these favors is a characteristic of our guilt, as it was of theirs; since, whatever was written aforetime was written for our learning; and it is a matter that involves in it consequences of the most serious nature, whether we receive or reject that greatest of all the favors of Providence, the GOSPEL of the blessed God; I shall take occasion to enforce the important invitation in the text, by considering: I. The nature of the provision to which sinners are invited: II. The extent and freeness of the invitation itself: III. The grand argument to excite obedience to the invitation, viz. “All things are ready.”