Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost.
The Denial and its Consequences.
" The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king who made a marriage for his son" — Matt. xxii. 2.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex. : I. History of religion. II. Mercy and justice. III. Infidelity, faith, charity.
I. Marriage: i. Proposal. i. Betrothment. 3. Ends in view.
II. Invitation : 1. Patriarchs and prophets. 2. Apostles. 3. Dives and Lazarus.
III. Call rejected : 1. Jews. 2. Gentiles. 3. Faith and charity.
Per. : Parable a lesson in faith, hope, and charity.
SERMON.
Brethren, the parable of to-day's Gospel, brief as it is, sums up the entire history of religion. It is a story of divine mercy and justice on the one hand, and of human ingratitude and its consequent punishment on the other. It deals with the one event, the incarnation, around which cluster all the other facts of sacred history. With that mystery as a standpoint, glancing into the past and again into the future, it divides the whole human race into unbelievers and believers, and the latter it subdivides into those who believe only in word and in tongue, and those who believe in deed and in truth. Believers and doers of God's will are admitted, but unbelievers and mere believers are either admitted only to be ignominiously expelled, or utterly excluded from the celestial banquet prepared for the blessed in the kingdom of the Father.
