concerning these sins of omission, and will look somewhat more carefully and more honestly at the reason of the case, and search and try our ways with becoming diligence, I think we shall most of us perceive that we have come somewhat too near to the practice of those fools who "make a mock at sin;" that we have need to confess our neglects with a far deeper humiliation, and to tremble for our guilt far more than we have done; and that it is time to inquire how we may be better preserved from such wickedness for the time to come. Let us then look first to the declarations of God's word. Here, in the text, is a man cast into endless perdition, for nothing else but for leaving undone what it was his duty to do. We have no right to presume any worse of him than we are plainly told; and all that we are told is, that he brought his master's talent back, undiminished indeed, but not improved. It is not objected against him that he did any evil with it, but he did no good. In the book of Judges, after the defeat of Sisera by Barak, an awful curse is solemnly pronounced in the thanksgiving hymn of Deborah against the inhabitants of Meroz: "Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof." But what had these people done? They had committed no violence that we read of. They might have been very lawfully and very innocently employed, for anything that appears to the contrary; but it was, and we are expressly told so, "because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." They left the special duty of that season undone. They did not unite with their brethren in driving out the Canaanites. I will notice but one passage more to this effect. It is surely something very remarkable, that in the most explicit account we have of the day of judgment, when Christ shall make an eternal separation between the righteous and the wicked, nothing more should be specified as necessary for the conviction and condemnation of the wicked, than that they left certain necessary duties undone. Nothing is said of oppressing, or defrauding, or doing positive damage or wrong to any body: but, "I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not: and inasmuch as ye did it not, depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." It is indeed most certain, that he who oppresses the poor makes God more angry than he who only refuses to relieve him when he + Matt. xxv. 42, 46. * Judges v. 23. might; and that to do positive mischief and injury, is worse than to withhold good; but is it not abundantly clear from this passage, that omission of duty is of itself enough to ruin us; and that it surely will do so, except we repent and amend in time? Consider the reason of the case. Which of you that had a servant, whom he maintained and paid, would excuse that servant for neglecting the very work for which he was hired, because he should say, I was doing you no damage all the while. True, I have not been working, but I was neither robbing you nor speaking evil of you. I had an opportunity, indeed, of being useful to you, but I was otherwise engaged about very lawful matters, however, which concerned myself. You could very easily answer this, I suppose. You could very easily tell your servant, that so long as he received your wages, his time and his strength were none of his, but yours; and that if he was even reading his Bible, when he should have been by his contract ploughing your land, he was but a hypocrite and a dishonest man, robbing you of what you had paid him for. And why may not God say as much? Most assuredly he does say, "A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master. If, then, I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear?"* We are his, because he made us, because he feeds us, because Is it enough, then, not to he redeemeth us. blaspheme his name, if walk as to please him? we care not at all so to If he If he says, Do this—as, Scriptures, or give alms for instance, search the bountifully, or keep the Sabbath-will it suffice to say, when we have left all this undone, we were innocently enjoying ourselves, or industriously providing for our families? For is it not required of stewards that they be found faithful? Most assuredly, every opportunity of usefulness to others which we let slip; every opportunity of improving ourselves in grace and holiness which we throw away, we rob God of something. He sends us here to work, and to grow in all godly habits and tempers, keeps us here, and maintains us here for these very purposes, and we are altogether rebels against his authority, if we be not zealous of good works, constantly labouring after higher degrees of sanctification. And how can we escape? We may not fare exactly as those robbers who " stripped the poor traveller, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead."† But our condition, I think, will not be very tolerable, if we be classed, as we surely shall be, with the priest and * Malachi i. 6. + Luke x. 30. the Levite, who looked on him, and passed by on the other side. God's real servants, who love their master, are a flame of fire, burning with a holy zeal, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. But because thou art lukewarm, (saith God to the unprofitable church of Laodicea,) and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.' "And every branch in me, saith Christ, that beareth not fruit," and not only every branch that beareth bad fruit, my Father "taketh away" and of such branches he adds, "Men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." † This is the doctrine of the text and of God's word-a doctrine, one would think, which should commend itself at once to every man's conscience. But if so, it is time for us to inquire how far we ourselves are implicated in the guilt which it condemns. 1. Now it is too clear that the lives of a great many are, to say nothing worse of them, one continued sin of omission; for, setting aside their gross offences, they are all day long, and every day, neglecting that great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord." They do nobody any harm, they say, and so their consciences are very quiet. But is not this "the work of God, that ye believe on him whom He + John xv. 6. * Rev. iii. 16. |