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1. To every minister of God there is entrusted a field and a vineyard.

2. God supplies his labourer with various implements of husbandry, with good seed and providential opportunities.

3. God makes special promises to every devoted husbandman.

4. What a blessed sight is the field and vineyard of such a labourer!

5. But consider the different picture drawn in the text. What is so affecting as the contemplation of a neglected parish? How is this to be accounted for? "This is the field of the slothful, and the vineyard of the man void of understanding."What is the people's duty, in the consideration of such a subject as this?

1. Let us all be anxious to avail ourselves of the religious privileges which we possess.

2. If it is our misfortune to have a slothful husbandman, let us not desert the Church, but unite in prayer for him and wait on God in meek submission to His will.

(F. Close, M.A.)

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KJV: I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;

WEB: I went by the field of the sluggard, by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;