Edwin Sandys on idleness

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Reformed Covenanter

Cancelled Commissioner
We may not be idle; We are created unto good works which God hath prepared that we might walk in them. We are redeemed and bought with a price, not to do nothing or to live as we list, but to serve him which hath redeemed us. Our Saviour could in no wise abide idleness, Why stand ye still? Saint Paul would have all men to be stirring, Let every man walk. Not one is excepted, not one can be dispensed withal, Whosoever he bee that will not labour let him not eat. For it is good that every man should eat his bread in the sweat of his brows. And work in the wise man’s judgment is even as needful for men as meat. There is no such bane to a common wealth or kingdom, no such poison to the manners of every particular man as idleness is.

Examples we have too many in all ages. Idleness in David was a cause of lewdness: so that it is not good no not for Princes to be idle. Idleness was the root of all that filth in Sodom. Israel in the absence of Moses being idle, fell to feasting, dancing, and idolatry. And therefore seeing that such as be idle are subject to so many noisome temptations: S. Jerome’s counsel is this, See thou be always doing somewhat that the devil may find thee occupied: he that is out of good exercise is easily snared of the devil. And idleness, saith S. Bernard, is the mother of toys (he might have said of vices) and the stepdame of virtues. Amasis king of Egypt made provision by Law against idleness, once a year calling every man to a reckoning what he had gotten, and what he had spent. ...

For more, see Edwin Sandys on idleness.
 
See also:

"Homily against idleness" article.

"St. Bernard calleth it the mother of all evils, and stepdame of all virtues ; adding moreover, that it doth prepare, and as it were, tread the way to hell-fire" (7)

(Attached below)
 

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