If any question might be entertained about those who have only the light of conscience to guide them, and have not heard of the direct relation of succour and support which God is ready to give to those who depend upon Him, there can be no doubt of the complete freedom of every human being, who hears the message of the Gospel, to accept it. You may put it aside, you may decline to accept it on the ground of disinclination, or because you consider the historical evidence insufficient, but you will be the first to admit that in doing so you exercise your discretion and consciously choose the course which you take. Nay, leaving all metaphysical discussion about the freedom of the will, I put it to you simply, Can you not, if you choose, come to Christ now? Oh, hear counsel and receive instruction: is not the Spirit pleading with you, counselling, teaching, warning you? Do not harden your heart, do not turn away. Attend to Christ now, admit Him now, that you may be wise in your latter end.[516] FOOTNOTES: [496] Eccles. xv. 11-20. [497] James i. 13-15. [498] Prov. xix. 2. [499] Prov. xii. 15. [500] Prov. xv. 22. [501] Prov. xix. 20. [502] Prov. xi. 14. [503] Prov. xx. 18. [504] Prov. xxiv. 5, 6. [505] Prov. xx. 5. [506] Prov. xix. 21. [507] Prov. xix. 23. [508] Prov. xix. 16. [509] Prov. xix. 8. [510] Prov. xix. 27. [511] Prov. xiii. 13. [512] Prov. xix. 29. [513] Prov. xxi. 30. [514] Prov. xxi. 31. [515] Prov. xvii. 11. [516] Prov. xix. 20. XX. _IDLENESS._ "After the autumn gathering the slothful does not plough; he asks in the harvest, and there is nothing."--PROV. xx. 4. We have already in the sixth lecture caught a glimpse of the sluggard, and in the ninth we have seen in passing that diligence in work is enjoined by the teacher; but we must give a more concentrated attention to this subject if we would realize the stress which this book of Wisdom lays on work as the grand condition of life in this earnest world. They who will not work have no place in an order of things which is maintained by work, and in which the toil itself is the great discipline of character and the preparation of joy. It is no churlish or envious spirit which pronounces a doom on the idle, but it is the very necessity of the case; that idleness which in moments of excessive strain we so eagerly covet is, if it is accepted as the regular and continuous state of the soul, a more ruinous and miserable curse than the hardest labour. By a law which we all break at our peril, we are required to have an honest end and a strenuous occupation in our life; and we are further required to labour diligently for the end, and to spare no pains to achieve it. We have many faculties lying dormant, and we must wake them into activity; we have many gifts half used or not used at all; we must turn them all to account, if we would be wholesome, happy, and in the true sense successful.