432 CRRIS7IAN MßRALITi, i*iZ. 7VSTtCE, &C. [S81eÑl. XXVI. viour represents in a parable, procuring himself a way of living by cheating his -Lord, Luke xvi. t, 2, á, 4. He had wasted his master's goods, and he was to be cashiered from his service. What shall I do, said he, I have not been used to work, I cannot dig; there is the sloth of the man: He had lived well in his stewardship, and was grown proud, to beg I am ashamed. Well, I can purloin no more of my Lord's estate for myself, but I can do it for his debtors ; I will cheat him in his ac- counts, and make all his debtors my friends, by cancel- ling a good part of their obligations, and then I -shall get a livelihood amongst them. O that all such practices' had been found no where but in parables! Some that have been reduced to poverty by idleness, and have borrowed boldly what they could never pay, yet wipe their mouths, and think themselves innocent and righteous] because they have not a sufficiency to make payment: Whereas, in truth,...it is their own sloth that makes them poor, and keeps them so. Some of these idle creatures waste their days in drowziness and inactivity, "'A little more sleep, a little more slumber, so poverty comes upon them like an armed man without resistance." Others are alittle more sprightly, and they spend their hours in an inquisitive impertinence, in pub- lic news and private slander',. in searching and tattling of the affairs of other persons and their families, while they -eat, and drink, and live upon, the labour of the diligent, 'and unjustly serve themselves out of the industry of their neighbour. So the worthless drone wastes the summers day in buzzing and trifling, he gads abroad, and wan- ders with We flight , 'then he-returns, and feeds upon thehoney that. the bee, has gathered, and. abuses the in- dustry of á better animal. St. Paul takes notice ofthis sort of people at Thessa- Ionica, who called themselves Christians, and reproves them with just severity: We hear there are some which talk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busy-bodies. Now them that are such, we commandand ei'hort by our LordJesusChrist, that with quietness they work, and cast their own bread: For even when we were With yvuthis we commandedyou, that if any would not work, neither should he.cat, 2 Thess. iii. 10, &c. And iri his letter to the Ephesians, he exhorts the thief to dili-
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