hoped) will be offered up to God for those also whose duty it is to labour among you in the word and doctrine, that utterance may be given unto us, that at all times, and in all respects, we may speak the truth boldly as we ought to speak.*

* See Eph. vi. 19, 20.

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SERMON XVIII.

SINS OF OMISSION.

MATTHEW xxv. 30.

"Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

THESE words are the conclusion of our Saviour's parable of the talents. In the language of the parable, outer darkness means hell; which is called outer darkness with an awful propriety of speech. For, in that region of sorrow and of torment, the light of God's countenance never shineth. It is the place of everlasting destruction from his presence; and therefore of separation from all possibility of good. It behoves us, who are still upon our trial for eternity, very seriously to examine into the character of the person who is represented as being adjudged to this dreadful doom. For God has one rule for

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all; and if our behaviour be the same as this man's was, the same, no doubt, will our condemnation be.

Now the individual so fearfully condemned in the text, is denominated by his Judge, who passes sentence against him, an "unprofitable servant." If, however, we will look back to the former part of the parable, we shall see more particularly what is laid to his charge: "A certain man travelling into a far country, called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey." Upon his return, after a long absence, he called his servants together in order to reckon with them, or inquire what improvement they had made of the portions with which they had severally been entrusted. The two first, it appeared, had been very careful of their master's interests, and very faithful in their occupation of his property; for they had both of them doubled the sum they had received by trading. was well and though they had neither of them done any more than was their bounden duty, yet, in his great kindness, their lord was pleased highly to commend and munificently to reward them: "Well done," he says to each, "good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over

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a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things enter thou into the joy of thy lord." But the third servant, who had received the one talent, acted very differently. He made no improvement of his portion at all, and never attempted to make any. Upon being called to account, he says, "Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth lo, there thou hast that is thine." He did not embezzle or waste his master's property; he brought it back as it was; and thus he vainly thought, or pretended to think, that he had done nothing worthy of blame. But he forgot the relation in which he stood to him who had entrusted him with the talent: he forgot that he was a servant, bound to labour for his lord; and that he had left his duty undone altogether; and so had, in fact, received the maintenance and the wages of a servant for nothing. His lord, however, was not to be mocked and imposed upon. He does not stop to refute the insolent aspersion which the servant had cast upon his character to cover his own idleness, but only notices it so far as to show, that had it been ever so true, it would not at all have palliated his crime, and he condemns and passes sentence upon him at once: "Thou wicked and slothful

servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

The lord of these servants is Almighty God, and the servants are ourselves. From the case of him who was condemned for his unprofitableness, we learn this plain doctrine, -That the leaving of our duty undone is of itself, even if we had nothing else to answer for, quite sufficient to cast us into condemnation; and that it surely will do so, except we repent and turn, before the day arrives in which God shall call us to a reckoning.

This is a truth, however, which few people consider so deeply as they ought; and therefore there is the more need to insist upon it. We are not wont to think much of sins of omission; and are very seldom duly conscious how deeply we are implicated in the guilt of them. If, as we are used to speak, we have done no harm to-day, we go to rest very quietly, without recollecting at all how many privileges we have neglected; how many opportunities we have let slip. But if we will hear what God declares in his word