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Many persons read this parable of the talents, I believe, very much as if it related only to gifts external to the person; or, if to gifts that are personal, to such only as are called talents in the lower and merely man-ward relations and uses of life, such as the understanding, reason, etc. But the great Teacher's meaning reaches higher than this, and comprehends more, namely, those talents which go to exalt the subject in its God-ward relations. The main stress of His doctrine hinges, I conceive, on our responsibility as regards the capacity of religion itself; for this, in highest pre-eminence, is the talent, the royal gift of man. In pursuing the subject presented, two points will naturally engage our attention.

I. THE CAPACITY FOR RELIGION IS A TALENT, THE HIGHEST TALENT WE HAVE. We mean by a talent, the capacity for doing or becoming something, as for learning, speaking, trade, command. Our talents are as numerous, therefore, and various as the effects we may operate. We have talents of the body, too, and talents of the mind, or soul. All those which can be used, or which come into play, in earthly subjects, and apart from God and religion, are natural; and those which relate immediately to God, and things unseen as connected with God, are religious. The religious talents compose the whole God-ward side of faculty in us. They are such especially as come into exercise in the matter of religious faith and experience, and nowhere else.

1. The want of God — a receptivity for God.

2. Inspiration — a capacity to be permeated, illumined, guided, exalted by God or the Spirit of God within, and yet so as not to be any the less completely ourselves.

3. The spiritual sense, or the power of Divine apprehension.

4. The capacity of religious love.

5. The power of faith a power of knowing God. Their true place and order in the soul is —

(1) At the head of all its other powers, holding them subordinate.

(2) All the other talents fall into a stunted and partially disabled state when they are not shone upon, kept in warmth, and raised in grade by the talents of religion.

(3) All the greatest things ever done in the world have been done by the instigations and holy elevations of the religious capacity. This, therefore, is the real summit of our humanity.

II. THE RELIGIOUS TALENT OR CAPACITY IS ONE THAT, BY TOTAL DISUSE AND THE OVERGROWTH OF OTHERS, IS FINALLY EXTIRPATED. Few men living without God are aware of any such possibility, and still less of the tremendous fact itself. On the contrary, they imagine that they are getting above religion, growing too competent and wise to be longer subjected to its authority, or. incommoded by its requirements. The teaching of Scripture, "To him that hath shall be given," etc. This spiritual extirpation is referable to two great laws or causes.

1. To the neglect of the talent or capacities of religion. All living members, whether of body or mind, require use or exercise. It is necessary to their development, and without it they even die.

2. To the operation of that immense overgrowth or over-activity which is kept up in the other powers. Is it wrong to assume that your religious senses were proportionately much stronger and more active in childhood than it is now?Thus onward the thoughts that crowd upon us, standing before a subject like this, are practical and serious.

1. How manifestly hideous the process going on in human souls under the power of sin. It is a process of real and fixed deformity.

2. There is no genuine culture, no proper education, which does not include religion.

3. Let no one comfort himself in the intense activity of his mind on the subject of religion. That is one of the great things to be dreaded. To be always thinking, debating, scheming in reference to the great question of religion, without using any of the talents that belong more appropriately to God and the receiving of God, is just the way to extirpate the talents most rapidly, and so to close up the mind in spiritual darkness.

4. Make little of the hope that the Holy Spirit will at some time open your closed or consciously closing faculties.

5. This truth wears no look of promise, in regard to the future condition of bad men.

6. How clear is it that the earliest time in religion is the best time. The peculiar blessing and the hopeful advantage of youth. A great share of those who believe embrace Christ in their youth.

(H. Bushnell, D. D.)

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KJV: For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.

WEB: "For it is like a man, going into another country, who called his own servants, and entrusted his goods to them.