"They brought in good and bad." This is a cardinal point in the method
of divine mercy, and therefore it is articulately inserted in the
picture. The scene is taken from life in the world; the conceptions
accordingly, and the phraseology correspond with the circumstances. In
society at large, and in every section of society such as the rich or
the poor, two classes are found distinguished by their moral character,
and in ordinary language designated the good and the bad. The thought
and the style of ordinary life are adopted in the parable, and every
reader understands easily what is meant. Every great community has its
virtuous poor and its vicious poor. The invitations of the Gospel come
to fallen human kind, and to all without respect either of persons or of
characters. Apart from Christ and prior to regeneration the distinction
between bad and good is only an earthly thing: in God's sight and in
prospect of the judgment, there is none good, no not one. There are not
two roads from earth to heaven: there is only one gate open, and by it
all the saved enter. It is not the man's goodness that recommends him to
God's favour: the worst is welcome through the blood of Christ, and the
best is rejected if he approach by any other way. Nor does it follow
thence that the Judge is indifferent to righteousness; that which the
unreconciled offer to him as righteousness is in his sight sin; and the
fact of offering it as a ground of justification aggravates the
offerer's guilt.
PART II.--THE WEDDING GARMENT.
We have here two parables in one. In their union and relations they
resemble the two seed-stones which are sometimes found within one fruit,
attached to each other, and wrapped in the same envelope, but possessing
each its own separate organization, and its own independent germ of
life. The parable of the prepared, offered, and rejected feast, and the
parable of the wedding garment, although actually united in the Lord's
ministry and the evangelic record, are in their own nature distinct,
whether you consider the secular scenes delineated or the spiritual
lessons which they convey.
When the wedding was furnished with guests the king came in to see them.
The representation is in strict accordance with the relations of the
parties and the customs of society both in ancient and modern times.
When a citizen entertains his equals he must himself be first in the
festal hall to welcome the guests as they successively arrive; but when
a sovereign invites subjects to his palace he appears among them only
when the company have all assembled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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