“What exceeding great reason we have to admire the grace of God towards us, that He should so lay out Himself to provide such a feast for our souls. God has not provided this feast for those that are rich, that are able to recompense Him by inviting Him again, nor for them that are able to make any recompense at all; but those that are poor and have nothing to pay.
We were in a famishing miserable condition when the King invited us to the marriage feast of His Son, and not only so, but to be His bride. God did not make this feast for those that were excellent and worthy to be invited to such a royal feast, but for those that were filthy, that were loathsome creatures clothed in rags, or rather naked, and defiled with filth.
He did not invite those that were happy already, but poor beggars that were scattered, wandering in the highways and dwelling under hedges, those that were halt and lame and blind. Such all naturally are, but God sends forth His messengers, and calls many such to His houses, and washes them from their filthiness and clothes them with white raiment, adorns them with robes as King’s children and makes them to sit down at His table. O, what reason have we to admire the wonderful grace of God!”
-–Jonathan Edwards, “The Spiritual Blessings of the Gospel Represented by a Feast,” Sermons and Discourses: 1723-1729, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 14, Ed. Kenneth P. Minkema (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 289.
