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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 a
little
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
the
honey that. the bee,
has
gathered, and. abuses the in-
dustry
of
á
better
animal.
St.
Paul
takes notice
of
this
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
command
and
ei'hort
by
our
LordJesusChrist, that
with
quietness they
work,
and
cast
their
own
bread:
For
even
when
we
were
With
yvuthis
we
commanded
you,
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-