whom the householder reproved so sharply? They were laborers who were accustomed to work from their youth upwards, and they had come to the market that they might be seen and thus perhaps have a chance of being hired by some one; therefore they said: “No man hath hired us,” although we have been waiting here the whole day. What would the householder have said to them if they were lazy good-for-nothings, who seldom did any work, and had come to the market merely for the purpose of talking and chatting, and passing away the time? What would he have said if they had spent in that manner not only a day, but whole weeks and months, roaming about the streets, and making a profession of idleness through dislike for work? My dear brethren, how many idlers of the kind are there not nowadays among Christians, to whom the heavenly Householder might say with just indignation: “Why stand you here all the day idle?” Nay, why do you idle away the greater part of your lives? Do these people also expect to receive the penny, that is, an eternal kingdom, as their reward in the evening, at the end of their lives? Ah, that cannot be! The reward is promised, not to idlers, but to those who work hard, as I shall now show, and I say: Plan of Discourse as above.
FIFTY-SEVENTH SERMON.
ON THE VANITY OF THE HOPE OF HEAVEN IN THOSE WHO DO NOT KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD.
Subject.
1. Many men desire and hope to go to heaven, but they do not keep the commandments of God; 2. A still greater number desire and hope to go to heaven, but they do not keep all the commandments of God, or else they do not keep them constantly. In both cases the hope is a delusive one.—Preached on Pentecost Sunday.
Text.
Si quis diligit me, sermonem meum servabit.—John xiv. 23.
“If any one love Me, he will keep My word.”
Introduction.
This is the real proof of the genuineness of the love we bear
