Thus far I have been speaking of what are called the advantages of this place in our common language. That argument, which Butler has so nobly handled, in one of the greatest works in our language, the resemblance, namely, between the course of things earthly and that of things spiritual, is one which we should never fail to notice. We can discern the type, as it were, of the highest truth of our Lord's sayings in the experience of our common life in worldly things. When he tells us, speaking of things spiritual, that "many are called, but few are chosen;" that "whoso hath, to him shall be given; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath,"--although the highest truth contained in these words be yet, in part, matter of faith, for we have not yet seen the end of God's dealings with us: yet what we do see, the evident truth of the words, that is, in respect to God's dealings with us in the course of his earthly providence, may reasonably assure us of their truth no less in respect to those dealings of God which as yet are future. I began, therefore, with reminding you of the truth of the words of the text with regard to worldly advantages; that even here, on this small scale, the general law holds good; that more things are provided for us than we will consent to use; that, in short, "many are called, but few are chosen." But it were ill done to limit our view to this: we are called to much more than worldly advantages; and what if here, too, we add one more example to confirm our Lord's words, that "many are called, but few chosen?" Now here, as I said, it is very true that God's choice is as yet not a matter of sight or of certainty to us; we cannot yet say of ourselves, or of any other set of living men, that "few are chosen." But though the full truth is not yet revealed, still, as there is a type of it in our worldly experience, so there is also a higher type, an earnest, of it in our spiritual experience: there is a sense, and that a very true and a very important one, in which we can say already, say now, actually, in the life that now is; say, even in the early stage of it, that some are, and some are not, "chosen."