or, though the Pharisee should be so enamored with his dear idol, Self, as to fly from a truth that aims at pulling the dagon of self-righteousness down to the ground; yet to one, who hath _felt_ himself a sinner, and hath been made to _dread_ the requisitions of God’s justice as a bar to preclude the claims of mercy, no saying will appear so worthy of acceptation, as that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save the chief of sinners,” and that God is both “faithful and _just_,” when he extends forgiveness through his Son. 1 Tim. i. 15. 1 John, i. 9. 2. The condition of the persons, for whom the gospel feast is prepared, affords another most powerful motive to encourage our approach to it. The messengers in the parable were commanded to invite “the poor, the maimed, the halt, and the blind.” Persons labouring under bodily infirmities, here represent poor sinners oppressed with spiritual maladies, and waiting, like the paralytic at Bethesda’s pool, for a cure. Such crowd about the door of mercy; and only such will bless the hand of the great Physician. The call is general: but, to none will it be particular, or welcome, or effectual, but to those who _see_ their wants, and _feel_ their sins. The message of the gospel is manna itself for sweetness, to such as have received the sentence of death in themselves by the law. But the “_full_ soul loatheth _this_ honey-comb.” Prov. xxvii. 7. It would be deemed an insult, to spread a feast for the full; to recommend a physician, or propose a remedy to persons in health; to offer water to him that is not thirsty, or a garment to him who is already clothed; to preach liberty to him who is not bound, or to point him to a fountain who is clean in his own eyes. But, though the “whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick,” Mat. ix. 12, to such as see themselves foul and leprous, lost, and guilty, the streams of Jordan were not more efficacious to eradicate Naaman’s leprosy, than the fountain of Christ’s blood is to cleanse from sins of the deepest dye. Say not then, “I am unworthy; my sins are too enormous to be forgiven; my spiritual maladies of too long standing, and too inveterate, to be cured; and my heart of too stubborn a mould, to be softened or vanquished.” If all the enormities of Manasseh, the blasphemings and persecutions of Saul, the backslidings of David and Peter, and all the guilt of Magdalen, met in thy single person, so as to make thee a monster in iniquity; yet, all this accumulated transgression would be no more to the infinite merit of the Redeemer’s blood, than the smallest cloud to the sun’s meridian brightness, or the debt of one single mite to the treasure of an empire; than a drop to the ocean, or a grain of sand to the globe. “The blood of Jesus cleanseth from ALL sin.” 1 John, i. 7. No patient ever failed under the care of that great Physician: no indigent beggar was ever spurned from his door: no heart ever remained unsoftened under the