hought more than we could exhaust, and deeper than we could
ever fathom. But on this I will not attempt to enter. I will rather take
that view of the text which concerns us here; I will see in how many
senses it is true, and with what feeling we should regard it.

"Many are called, but few are chosen." The direct application of this
was to the parable of those invited to the supper; in which it had been
related, how a great multitude had been invited, but how one among
them--and the application as well as the fact in human life, require
that this _one_ should be taken only as a specimen of a great
number--had been found unworthy to enjoy the feast prepared for them.
They had not on the wedding garment; they had not done their part to fit
themselves for the offered blessing: therefore they were called, but not
chosen. God had willed to do them good, but they would not; and
therefore, though he had called them at the beginning, he, in the end,
cast them out.

We have to do, then, not with an arbitrary call and an arbitrary choice,
as if God called many in mockery, meaning to choose out of them only a
few, and making his choice independently of any exertion of theirs. The
picture is very different; it is a gracious call to us all, to come and
receive the blessing; it is a reluctant casting out the greatest part of
us, because we would not try to render ourselves fit for it.

I said, that we would take the words of the text in reference to
ourselves, for here, too, it is true, that many are called, but few are
chosen. It is a large number of you, which I see before me; and if we
add to it all those who, within my memory, have sat in the same places
before you, we shall have a number very considerable indeed. All these
have been called; they have been sent here to enjoy the same advantages
with each other; and those advantages have been put within their reach.
They have entered into a great society which, on the one hand, might
raise them forward, or, on the other, depress them. There has been a
sufficient field for emulation: there have been examples and
instructions for good; there have been results of credit and of real
improvement made attainable to them, which might have lasted all their
lives long. To this, they have been all, in their turns, called; and out
of those so called, have all, or nearly all, been chosen? I am not
speaking of those, who, I trust, would be a very small number, to whom
the trial has failed ut