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SERM.
X'XVI.I
CHRISTIAN MORALITY,
VIZ. JUSTICE,
&C.
41
tavanrable
providence.
In
the sweat
of
thy
brows
shalt
thou eat
thy bread,
was
the
command given
to
Adam,
when
he was
turned out
of
paradise, and forfeited
his
property
in
the
fruits
of
Eden. But
when once
a person
gets
an aversion
to
business, when he finds a
pleasure in
sauntering and
trifles,
and
indulges idleness
and
a lazy
life;
then
he
is
tempted to
seek the
'supports and
com-
forts
of nature
by
some
practices
of
unrighteousness.
The
slothful man
will
be
clothed
with rags, unless
he
procure
better
clothing
by
fraud or
violence,
Proxy. xxiii_
21.
.
Hence it
is
that
persons
learn the
art
of
stealing,
and
possess themselves
of
the goods
or the money
of
their
neighbour
by
thievery.
They mark out
the,
houses in
the
day,
and break them
up
at
midnight for plunder.
They
remove the
ancient
land
-
marks, to
enlarge their
own
bor-
ders
;
they violently take
away
flocks,
and
feed
upon
them.
They
go
forth
to
their unrighteous
work
in
the
morning, and
rise
betimes for
a
prey.
They reap
down
the
corn
in
their
neighbour's
field,
and
the
wicked
gather
the
vintage.
They'.cause
the naked
:
to
lodge without
clothing, and take
away the
sheaf
from
the hungry.
These are
they
that
rebel against
the light, they
abide
not
in
the
paths thereof. Though God
does
not
lay
'folly
to
them,
nor
punish their crimes
by his
immediate
judgments, yet
his
dyes
are upon
their
ways,
Job
xxiv.
2
-23.
And many
times
his
providence brings
their
crimes to
light,
and
they
are punished
for
their iniquity
by
the sentence
of
the
judge.
O
what
a shame
and scan-
dal
is
it,
that
in
a nation
professing christianity,
there
should
be
such
multitudes_
trained
up
to
the pilfering trade,
-and
educated
for infamy, for
transportation
and
the
gibbet!
There are
-others, whose
hands refuse
to
labour, and
whose
temper
of
mind delights
in,
idleness,
but
they ven-
ture
not
upon
these
bolder
crimes
:
they
learn other un-
righteous arts
of
cheating and
falsehood,
and
fall
into
the
same evil
practices,
which
I
have
just
before de-
scribed
under
the
head
Of
luxury. But
when
luxury,
pride, and sloth,,
join
their
forces together, the
temptar
-tion
to
injustice becomes exceeding strong,
and there are
Í'ew
who
have
power
tó
resist
it.
Such
was
the
unjust steward,
whoni
our
hiessed.
Sa-