This Fable does naturally enough set forth an Expostulation betwixt
Reason and Appetite, and the Danger of Running out our Lives in Dilatory
Deliberations, when we should be rather Up and Doing. In all these Cases,
’tis odds that the Paradox carries it against the true Reason of the
Thing; for we are as Partial to our Corruptions, as if our Understanding
were of Counsel for our Frailties, and manage Disputes of this kind, as
if we had a Mind to be overcome. The _Sluggard_’s Case in this Fable is
the Case of Mankind in all the Duties of a Virtuous and a Well-Govern’d
Life, where Judgment and Conscience call us one Way, and our Lusts hurry
us another. We spend all our Days upon Frivolous _Preliminaries_, without
ever coming to a Resolution upon the Main Points of our Business. We
_will_, and we will _not_, and then we will _not again_, and we _will_.
At this rate we run our Lives out in Adjournments from Time to Time,
out of a Fantastical Levity that holds us _off and on, betwixt Hawk and
Buzzard_, as we say, to keep us from bringing the Matter in question
to a Final Issue. And yet we know well enough what we ought to do, and
what not, if we would but take the Light of Reasonable Nature for our
Guide, and hearken to the Councellor that every Man carries in his own
Breast. But Men in the General are either too Lazy to Search out the
Truth, or too Partial, in Favour of a Sensual Appetite, to take Notice
of it when they have found it. They had rather be Tasting the Ease and
the Pleasures of Life, then Reforming the Errors and the Vices of it.
Does not the Voluptuary underhand in all the Liberties of a Loose and a
Lewd Conversation, that he runs the risque both of Body and Soul on the
one Hand, and Opposes all the Blessings that Attend the Duties of Virtue
and Sobriety on the other? Does not the Ambitious, the Envious, and the
Revengeful Man know very well, that the Thirst of Blood, and Affectation
of Dominion by Violence and Oppression, is a most Diabolical Outrage upon
the Laws of God and Nature, and upon the common Well-being of Mankind?
But these People are _Hearing Causes_ too, with our _Slug-a-bed_ in the
_Apologue_; that is to say, Deliberating betwixt Passion and Conscience,
till in the End, they are called away, whether to _Dinner_ or to _Death_,
it makes no Matter, for the Moral is still the same.