Sloth had a far better head than Simple had; but what of that when he
made no better use of it? There are many able men who lie all their days
in a sad bottom with the irons of indolence and inefficiency on their
heels. We often envy them their abilities, and say about them, What
might they not have done for themselves and for us had they only worked
hard? Just as we are surprised to see other men away above us on the
mountain top, not because they have better abilities than we have, but
because they tore the fetters of sloth out of their soft flesh and set
themselves down doggedly to their work. And the same sloth that starves
and fetters the mind at the same time casts the conscience and the heart
into a deep sleep. I often wonder as I go on working among you, if you
ever attach any meaning or make any application to yourselves of all
those commands and counsels of which the Scriptures are full,--to be up
and doing, to watch and pray, to watch and be sober, to fight the good
fight of faith, to hold the fort, to rise early, and even by night, and
to endure unto death, and never for one moment to be found off your
guard. Do you attach any real meaning to these examples of the
psalmists, to these continual commands and examples of Christ, and to
these urgent counsels of his apostles? Do you? Against whom and against
what do you thus campaign and fight? For fear of whom or of what do you
thus watch? What fort do you hold? What occupies your thoughts in night-
watches, and what inspires and compels your early prayers? It is your
stupefying life of spiritual sloth that makes it impossible for you to
answer these simple and superficial questions. Sloth is not the word for
it. Let them give the right word to insanity like that who sleep and
soak in sinful sloth no longer.
We have all enemies in our own souls that never sleep, whatever we may
do. There are no irons on their heels. They never procrastinate. They
never say to their master, A little more slumber. Now, could you name
any hateful enemy entrenched in your own heart, of which you have of
yourself said far more than that? And, if so, what have you done, what
are you at this moment doing, to cast that enemy out? Have you any
armour on, any weapons of offence and precision, against that enemy? And
what success and what defeat have you had in unearthing and casting out
that enemy? What fort do you hold? On what virtue, on what grace are
you posted by your Lord to keep for yourself and for Him? And with what
cost of meat and drink and sleep and amusement do you lose it or keep it
for Him? Alexander used to leave his tent at midnight and go round the
camp, and spear to his post the sentinel he found sleeping.
There is nothing we are all so slothful in as secret, particular,
importunate prayer. We have an almighty instrument in our hand in secret
and exact prayer if we would only importunately and perseveringly employ
it. But there is an utterly unaccountable restraint of secret and
particularising prayer in all of us. There is a soaking, stupefying
sloth, that so fills our hearts that we forget and neglect the immense
concession and privilege we have afforded us in secret prayer. Our sloth
and stupidity in prayer is surely the last proof of our fall and of the
misery of our fallen state. Our sloth with a gold mine open at our feet;
a little more sleep on the top of a mast with a gulf under us that hath
no bottom,--no language of this life can adequately describe the
besottedness of that man who lies with irons on his heels between Simple
and Presumption.