heart, would not entrust him with five or two talents, to increase his condemnation, but could not dispense with his doing nothing.

Ver. 19. After a long time, the Lord of those servants cometh. This is said to assure us of the certainty of his coming, and that, whether it is sooner or later, we may not make a handle of it for being slothful.

-And reckoneth with them. He has his eye upon what we are doing, though we think him absent, and his accounts, when he comes, will be very exact. Suppose it should be to-morrow, what account have you kept? Would you say, as you do now, that you have done what lay in your power? For the love of God, let the thought of this reckoning bring you to Christ without delay, to cleanse and heal you, and put you upon a new work of careful preparation for that time. And, whoever you are, never forget that you are servants.

Ver. 21. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.O sweetest of all sounds! This it is that supports and enlivens the faithful soul in all its labours and conflicts.

Ver. 24. I knew thee, that thou art an hard man.-Horrid blasphemy! and yet it lies lurking at the heart-God's work is hard-Surely he will not exact it strictly of us. But the parable says he will; and believing, or not believing it from Christ's mouth, gives us up to heaven or hell. Men's thoughts of God are generally according to their dispositions. A wicked, slothful man, is averse to the belief of a just, pure, holy God. And from hence it comes to pass, that the revelation he has made of himself is disregarded by some, and rejected by others.

Ver. 24. Reaping where thou hast not sown.-Oh! not so. All we have is of his own giving and blessing; and if he has not a full harvest from us, it is because we do not look to him for it, but set bounds to his power.

Ver. 25. And I was afraid. His fear wrought just

the wrong way; it should have put him upon action. This shows to what miserable shifts we are driven, to excuse ourselves for not doing God's work.

Lo, there thou hast that is thine. - Indeed, he had not. If you were to put seed into the hands of a servant, under a strict charge and obligation to sow it, and look well to the growth of it, you would not think it enough to have the seed returned unsown.

Ver. 26. Thou wicked and slothful servant. - Wicked, in God's account, because slothful. He had done no harm, but then he had done nothing. And how slothful! not to be full of concern for the recovery of the soul, for growth in grace, for Christ, and all his blessings.

Ver. 27. Thou oughtest, therefore, &c.- Hear this; thou oughtest; it is thy duty; this will be strictly required of thee. God has appointed thee a work, and whatever thou art, whatever else thou art doing in the world, it must not be neglected; his talent must not rust in thy hands.

Ver. 29. For unto every one that hath By diligence in improving.

-That hath not. Does not value, and improve what he has received.

Ver. 30. And cast ye the unprofitable servant.-Now stand forth with your hopes and pretensions, you who are in a thoughtless, dozing, inactive state, with respect to God and religion. Behold, your condition is damnable, and if you die in it, will consign you to outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth.

LECTURE.

My brethren, you have heard our Lord's doom upon the unprofitable, slothful servant. Are there no souls

here in this condition? Ignorant of their great work and business in the world, and unconcerned about it; and therefore ignorant, because they are unconcerned. I fear there are many, very many such in this, and all other places; thinking and calling themselves Christians, and expecting to be owned by Christ as his disciples, who never thought once in their whole lives what it is to be so, and have not so much as a Christian appearance. Would to God that, upon hearing this awakening passage of Scripture, and the sentence which was passed upon the slothful servant, you might say to yourselves, one by one, Lord, is it I? Is this my case? Am I thus thoughtless about my soul, as regardless of my spiritual, everlasting interest, as this man was; and if I die in this condition, as sure to have the same sentence pronounced upon me? Will the Lord surely come to reckon with me, and do I never think of that time, nor take any care to have my accounts in readiness for him? Do but once say this truly, and with godly fear for yourselves, and all may yet be well; it will be a happy entrance upon your great work, and God is with you in every step of it, and will enable you to bring it to perfection. But instead of this, what do you do? You put all such thoughts from you day after day, and year after year, thinking and saying that you do no harm, and that you live quietly and honestly in the world. Now if this was true, as, generally speaking, it is not, what is it, at the best, but owning and declaring that you have no weighty sense upon your minds of the necessity of caring for the soul, but are hiding your talent in the earth, and doing just nothing at all? You say again, that you have other business upon your hands, which must be minded. What! Do you mean in the first place, and to the neglect of your salvation, of Christ's work, of eternity? Do you not see at once that you are in the darkness of unbelief, and condemned out of your

own mouths? You will say farther, Must we be always poring upon our hearts; always thinking of God and heaven; always upon our knees? Indeed, my brethren, you would often think of these things when you do not, be often at prayer when you are not, if you knew and believed how greatly it concerns you to live in the faith of Christ and the fear of God, and to go to heaven when you die. Some, too, I hear saying, that they have as good hearts as the best, or that they do what lies in their power, though it is evident to all the world that they are careless and unawakened, and have no manner of concern about their salvation. But away with such vain excuses; the portion of Scripture which you have now heard lies full against them all; Christ will admit of none of them.

If, when nothing else will do, you should suppose that you have an eye to your great work under Christ, and are not unmindful of your souls, let me tell you, in few words, what that work is, and if you are seriously engaged in it, how you will be carrying it on. Your work is recovery from a state of sin and condemnation, to a sense of God's peace, and a will to please him in all well-doing. This, I say, is your work; and if you really believed it, believed that your life, your soul, your hope of seeing the face of God in heaven, your everlasting happiness or misery, depended upon it, what would you do, and how would you be carrying it on? You would not be ignorant of it; you would read the Scriptures diligently, to know, as exactly as you can, what it is; you would be in a state of prayer for a blessing upon your souls; you would attend constantly upon the worship of God in this place, and set it up in your families; you would come to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper as often as you have opportunity; you would spend no sabbaths in a thoughtless idleness; I say, you would use the means which God has appointed for your growth in

grace, and all conscientiously for this end, that you might be partakers of the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, glorify God for his mercy, live to him in obedience, and in the joyful expectation of hearing those blessed words from the mouth of your Lord, "Well done, thou good "and faithful servant." This then is your touchstone, and here you must not trifle upon the peril of your souls. Ignorance, sloth, hiding your talent, doing nothing, is unbelief, and will as certainly give you up to condemnation as downright wickedness. If, therefore, you would be approved of Christ, you must know your work under him, and apply yourselves to the discharge of it with that diligence, care, and fidelity, which he requires of you. Nothing else is conversion; and nothing else that you can plead for yourselves will stand you in any stead at the great day of accounts. If you would be Christians indeed, you must first believe what Christ has done for you, and in that faith live unto him according to the rule he has given you, and have nothing so much at heart as to be prepared for his coming.

PRAYER.

Blessed Lord, thou hast made and redeemed us to glorify thee by our willing obedience, and yield ourselves in all things to thy disposal. Thou hast appointed us our work; and, when we were lost to the sense of it, living only to our own will and pleasure, in the lusts of the flesh, or the cares of this life, thou didst send thy Son to bring it to our remembrance; to make reconciliation for our past neglect of it; to quicken us to a suitable diligence in it; to assist us in the performance of it; and whatever we do as unto thee, in truth and sincerity, thou promisest, for his sake, graciously to accept and reward it. Enable us, O Lord, to make deep search into ourselves, to consider and examine what knowledge we have of our great work,