Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/143

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ser. vii.]
foolish to get wisdom.
139

heavenly mansions—everlasting joys—"the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give at that day, unto all them that love his appearing."[1]

To be destitute of this heavenly wisdom, and unconcerned about obtaining it, however wise we may be as it respects things that pertain to this life, we are in the eye of God's Word, regarded as "fools" This is indeed, a mortifying epithet, but let us see whether it be not very properly applied to all those who "have not the fear of God before their eyes." If idleness, if a neglect to improve the proper season to labor, if a want of forethought to lay up provision for future necessities, be marks of folly in a temporal sense; then, the man who has the great work of his personal salvation before him, and spends all his time in matters of minor importance; who neglects, in "the accepted time," to

  1. 2d Tim. iv., 8.