[It is a duty we owe to ourselves : we are, by the very necessities of our nature, constrained to " obtain our bread by the sweat of our browd." We owe it to our families : for " if a man provide not for his own household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel e. We owe it to the poor : for if we have enough for ourselves, yet are we enjoined to work with our hands the thing that is good, that we may have to give to him that needethf." We owe it to the Church. No man is to be supported in idleness : " for God has ordained, that if a man will not work, neither shall he eatg." We owe it to our God: we are to be " not slothful in business, at the time that we are fervent in spirit, serving the Lordh." In truth, "whatever our hand findeth to do, we should do it with all our might1."
It is of great importance that this matter should be well understood. Religion does not supersede our civil or social duties : it regulates them, and suggests the proper motives by which we are to be actuated in the performance of them : but it does not dispense with any : it subordinates them, indeed, to the duties which we owe immediately to God; but it incul- cates and enjoins them, as necessary in their place, and as truly acceptable to God himself. We must " render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things which are God's."]
But an attention to spiritual concerns is of greater and more indispensable importance —
[The labour which pertains to them is incomparably more worthy of an intelligent and immortal being, than that which relates to the things of this life. I would not undervalue the occupations of the student in the pursuit of science, or of the artisan in the execution of his work, or of the peasant in the labours of the field. All are good in their place ; but all may be performed by a heathen, no less than by a child of God. But the exercises of humiliation before God, of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, of an entire consecration of our souls to the service of the Deity ; in a word, fellowship with God, and with his Son Jesus Christ, is a work in which an angel may engage, and in the performance of which the highest archangel
would be honoured — ■ The fruit also of spiritual labour
infinitely excels all that can be reaped in the field of nature. The statesman, the philosopher, the merchant, the mechanic, have doubtless a rich reward of their labours : but it is a reward which an atheist may enjoy ; and which, to whatever extent it is enjoyed, " perishes with the using :" it is all but
<i Gen. iii. 1(J. e 1 Tim. v. 8. f Eph. iv. 28.
s 2 Thess. iii. 10, 12. '■ Rom. xii. 11. > Eccl. ix. 10.