XXI. refuse with flight and contempt. If the SERM. king had not asked them to the feast, they would probably have refented it as an affront; and yet, when he did, they confidered it as an injury. They all, fays the parable, with one confent, begun to make excufe. Of all thofe who were invited to the wedding, not one would come. To preserve, however, fome diftant appearance of civility, to gloss over their rudeness as well as poffible, and palliate their ingratitude, they began to make excufe. Reasons, we know, are always to be found, even for things the most unreasonable; and excuses are feldom wanting, where men have an inclination to make them. The first faid, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and fee it; I pray thee bave me excufed. And another faid, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them; I pray thee have me excufed. 1 XXI. SERM. excufed. And another faid, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. Of thefe excufes it may be observed, that they were all fuch as carried with them a fpecious external appearance. Business must be purfued, the means of life muft not be neglected; the several duties, relations, and connections of it, must be attended to. The truth of the circumftance and affertion could not, perhaps be denied, nor was the neceffity of complying with it to be disputed: the excuses, therefore, must be admitted, though at the fame time it was easy to fee that they were but excuses: another day might, no doubt, have ferved as well to see the farm, or to prove the oxen: even he that had married a wife might have fpared a few hours after his own nuptials to do his duty, and celebrate alfo the nuptials of the king's fon; but the truth was, they were, as men gene rally XXI. rally are, too deeply engaged in their SERM. own pleasures and purfuits, to afford any time or attention to thofe of others. Such was the behaviour of those who made excufes for their neglect and ingratitude; thefe, indeed, pretended to a reafon, though they had none; and wore the appearance of a virtue, though they were deftitute of the reality. Some, however, there were ftill more guilty, who threw off the mafk of hypocrify, and openly avowed their contempt. Inftead of fending back the fervants with lying and evasive answers, they fell upon them, entreated them fpitefully, and flew them. What must have been the thoughts, and how great the anxiety of the offended king, on this occafion. This was a treatment which he doubtlefs as little expected as deferved; he determined, therefore, to let them know that he had power as well as goodness. VOL. II. When G SERM. When he heard thereof, fays the parable, XXI. he was wroth; thofe who were mur therers he punished as fuch; he fent forth his armies and destroyed them, and burnt up their city then faith he to his fervants, The wedding is ready; but they which were bidden were not worthy : very unworthy indeed must fuch men have been of an honour which they thus rejected the master of the banquet, therefore, was refolved to invite other guests; Go, fays he, into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. Go out into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the balt and the blind. A heavier punishment cannot be inflicted on the proud man, than to put the low and vulgar on a level with him, and raise them to the fame degree of honour and esteem as himfelf; the incenfed king, therefore, could XXI. could not have thought on a method SERM. of refentment more proper than that which he here put in practice: he invites to his feaft the very perfons whom he knew the rich and great always held in the highest contempt; the poor, the maimed, the halt and the blind. To fee fuch men advanced to their rank, and supplying their places, would probably make them repent of their rudeness, and wifh that, instead of rejecting, they had accepted his invitation. It is one of the infirmities, to call it no worse, of human nature, that what when in our own poffeffion is in no esteem, becomes valuable when it is the property of another; and we cannot bear to see a rival, especially an inferior, happy in the enjoyment even of that for which we ourselves have no regard. Bring in, fays he, the poor, and the maimed, and the halt and the blind. These he had befides reason to imagine G 2 |