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Some preachers teach morality without showing its vital connection with the gospel. Some fall into the opposite error, and fail to exhibit the ethical side of the gospel.

I. THE FIELD OF THE SLUGGARD TEACHES THAT IT IS WRONG TO ABUSE WHAT WE REGARD AS OUR OWN. The sluggard might contend that the garden was his own. The assumption is unfounded, and even blasphemous.

1. It is a sigh of gross disloyalty to God, who prefers an absolute claim to our life and service.

2. It involves a serious loss to our fellow-creatures, because the wind carries the seeds of our neglect into our neighbour's garden. Apply to moral influence.

II. THE POSSESSION OF ADVANTAGES, SO FAR FROM ABSOLVING US FROM THE NECESSITY OF LABOUR AND SELF-CULTURE, RENDERS THEM MORE NECESSARY. The area of our responsibility coincides with the area of our possessions.

1. The cultivation of the body is a sacred obligation.

2. The mind is a vineyard that ought to be cultivated.

3. There is, too, the vineyard of the heart.

III. NEGLECT, AS WELL AS WILFUL WICKEDNESS, MOVE IN THE DIRECTION OF DESTRUCTION. Observe that not only was the soil covered with noxious growths, but the means of protection were destroyed.

IV. GOOD MEN WILL LEARN FROM THE FOLLIES AND MISERIES OF WICKED MEN. Such instruction is gathered by observation and reflection. The two principal methods of acquiring wisdom. Observation collects facts, reflection arranges and applies them, converting them into solid nutriment for mind and heart.

(Preacher's Magazine.)

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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;