ght is this, that though
thy sin be very great, though thou hast a past life round thy neck enough
to sink thee for ever out of the sight of God and all good men; a youth
of sensuality now long and closely cloaked over with an after life of
worldly prosperity, worldly decency, and worldly religion, all which only
makes thee that whited sepulchre that Christ has in His eye when He
speaks of thee with such a severe and dreadful countenance; yet if thou
confess thyself to be all the whited sepulchre He sees thee to be, and
yet knock at His gate in all thy rags and slime, He will immediately lay
aside that severe countenance and will show thee all His goodwill.
Notwithstanding all that thou hast done, and all thou still art, He will
not deny His own words, or do otherwise than at once fulfil them all to
thee. Ask, then, and it shall be given thee; seek, and thou shalt find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto thee. And with a great goodwill, He
will say to those that stand by Him, Take away the filthy garments from
him. And to thee He will say, Behold, I have caused all thine iniquity
to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment.

GOODWILL, THE GATEKEEPER

'Goodwill.'--Luke 2. 14.

'So in process of time Christian got up to the gate. Now there was
written over the gate, _Knock_, _and it shall be opened unto you_. He
knocked, therefore, more than once or twice, saying, May I now enter
here? when at last there came a grave person to the gate, named Goodwill,
who asked him who was there?' The gravity of the gatekeeper was the
first thing that struck the pilgrim. And it was the same thing that so
struck some of the men who saw most of our Lord that they handed down to
their children the true tradition that He was often seen in tears, but
that no one had ever seen or heard Him laugh. The prophecy in the
prophet concerning our Lord was fulfilled to the letter. He was indeed a
man of sorrows, and He early and all His life long had a close
acquaintance with grief. Our Lord had come into this world on a very sad
errand. We are so stupefied and besotted with sin, that we have no
conception how sad an errand our Lord had been sent on, and how sad a
task He soon discovered it to be. To be a man without sin, a man hating
sin, and hating nothing else but sin, and yet to have to spend all His
days in a world lying in sin, and in the end to have all that world of
sin laid upon Him till He was Him