492 SERMONS UPON MATTHEW XXV. [SEE. XVT.
is at hand ready to light. We are always to watch and pray. If our enemy did not alarm us, yet our. Master will call us to an account for what we have done.
And consider the danger of negligence. It befalleth to the idle and negligent, as those that came after the camp in the wilderness. Amalek smote the weak and the feeble in the rear. Yea, God him- self will be angry with us. The idle and slothfnl servant is cast into utter darkness, the foolish virgins are shut out. If God, by his prophets, curseth them whom he employeth to execute his judgments — ' Cursed is he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently/ — what will become of them that are negligent in working out their own salvation ? Horses grow resty if they be not used, and impatient of a burden ; so all goes to wreck in the soul if we are idle. We should profit when we look on the field of the sluggard, Pro v. xxiii. 30, 31, 34. So will my soul be, if I let it alone. Oh ! then, shake off your sloth ; be not always resolving, never beginning the heavenly course. Nothing can be gotten, nothing kept, nothing to be enjoyed, without industry. The saints in heaven are not idle ; but are always lauding, and pfuising, and glorifying of God for evermore.
THE END OF VOL. IX.
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