' Mr Glover [Foxe] Acts and Mon. [tub nomine; also Clarke, as before.— G.] * August, de Gen. ad lit., lib. viii. cap. 8.
278 THE PRIVY KEY OF HEAVEN. [MAT. VI. 6.
saith Solomon, Pro v. xix. 15. An idle life and an holy heart are far enough asunder. By doing nothing, saith the heathen man, men learn to do evil things. It is easy slipping out of an idle life into an evil and wicked life ; yea, an idle life is of itself evil, for man was made to be active, not to be idle. The Cyclops thought man's happiness did consist in nihil agendo, in doing nothing ; but no excellent thing can be the child of idleness. Idleness is a mother-sin, a breeding-sin ; it is pulvinar diaboli, the devil's cushion, on which he sits, and the devil's anvil, on which he frames very great and very many sins, Eph. iv. 28, 2 Thes. iii. 10, 12. Look, as toads and serpents breed most in standing waters, so sin thrives most in idle persons. Idleness is that which pro- vokes the Lord to forsake men's bodies, and the devil to possess their souls.
No man hath less means to preserve his body, and more temptations to infect his soul, than an idle person. Oh shake off sloth ! The sluggish Christian will be sleeping, or idling, or trifling, when he should be in his closet a-praying. Sloth is the green-sickness of the soul ; get it cured, or it will be your eternal bane. Of all devils, it is the idle devil that keeps men most out of their closets. There is nothing that gives the devil so much advantage against us as idleness. It was good counsel that Jerome gave to his friend, Facito aliquid operis, ut te semper diabolus inveniat oceupatum, that when the devil comes with a temptation, you may answer him you are not at leisure.^
It was the speech of Mr Greenham, sometimes^ a famous and painful preacher of this nation, that when the devil tempted a poor soul, she came to him for advice how she might resist the temptation, and he gave her this answer : ' Never be idle, but be always well employed, for in my own experience I have found it. When the devil came to tempt me, I told him that I was not at leisure to hearken to his temp- tations, and by this means I resisted all his assaults.' Idleness is the hour of temptation, and an idle person is the devil's tennis-ball, tossed by him at his pleasure.
' He that labours,' said the old hermit, ' is tempted but by one devil, but he that is idle is assaulted by all.' Cupid complained that he could never fasten upon the Muses, because he could never find them idle. The fowler bends his bow and spreads his net for birds when they are set, not when they are upon the wing. So Satan shoots his most fiery darts at men, when they are most idle and slothful. And this the Sodomites found by woful experience, Ezek. xvi. 49, when God rained hell out of heaven upon them, both for their idleness, and for those other sins of theirs, which their idleness did expose them to.
It was said of Rome, that during the time of their wars with Carthage and other enemies in Africa, they knew not what vice meant ; but no sooner had they got the conquest, but through idleness they came to ruin. Idleness is a sin, not only against the law of grace, but also against the light of nature. You cannot look any way but every creature checks and upbraids your idleness and sloth ; if you look up to the heavens, there you shall find all their glorious lights constant in their motions, ' The sun rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race,' Ps, xix. 5, civ. 23 ; the winds blow, the waters run, the earth brings forth her pleasant and de-
> Some time. Greenham 'a Works form a rich folio (1601). He died 1691. — G.
Mat. YL 6] the privy key of heaven. 279
lightful fruits, all the fish in the sea, fowls in the air, and beasts in the fields and on the mountains, have their motions and operations, all which call aloud upon man not to be idle, but active. Solomon sends the sluggard to the ant to learn industry, Prov. vi. 6. The ant is a very little creature, but exceeding laborious. Nature hath put an instinct into her to be very busy and active all the summer ; she is early and late at it, and will not lose an hour unless the weather hinder. And the prophet Jeremiah sends the Jews to school to learn to wait, and ob- serve of the stork, the turtle, the crane, and the swallow, Jer. viii. 7. And our Saviour sends us to the sparrows and lilies, to learn attendance upon providence, Mat. vi. 26, 28. And let me send you to the busy bee, to learn activity and industry ; though the bee be little in bulk, yet it is great in service ; she flies far, examines the fields, hedges, trees, orchards, gardens, and loads herself with honey and wax, and then returns to her hive. Now how should the activity of these creatures put the idle person to a blush. 0 sirs ! man is the most noble creature, into whom God hath put principles of the greatest activity, as capable of the greatest and highest enjoyments ; and therefore idleness is a forgetting man's dignity, and a forsaking of that rank that God hath set him in, and a debasing of himself below the least and meanest creatures, who constantly in their order obedientially serve the law of their creation. Nay, if you look up to the blessed angels above you, you shall still find them active and serviceable ; ' are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation V Heb. i. 14. And if you look down to the angels of darkness below you, oh how laborious and in- dustrious are they to destroy and damn your precious and immortal souls ! 1 Peter v. 8.