is dreaded as an enemy;
and such fear produces no obedience. You might as well sow stones in
your field, and expect them to produce bread.

It is not necessary to examine in detail the continuation of the
unfaithful servant's answer. When he had taken his ground on a sullen
plea of not guilty which threw the blame upon his Lord, it was natural
that he should endeavour to justify himself and fortify his position by
specific averments of hard treatment; but the essence of his answer lies
all in his first words, "I knew thee hard." The meaning cannot be
mistaken here. These words do not make known to us what the master's
character really was: the only thing which they determine is the
servant's conception of the master's character. The servant's conduct
is, in point of fact, regulated not by what the master absolutely is,
but by what he is in the belief and regard of the servant.

The parable represents at once, with rich pictorial effect and strict
logical exactness, the legal relation of sinful men to a righteous God,
apart from the peace that comes through the Gospel. While you think of
the Judge, recording now your thoughts, words, and actions, in order to
render unto you what you deserve in the great day, you cannot love him,
and you do not like to retain the knowledge of him in your mind. The
Bible calls him good, and perhaps your lips have pronounced him good in
your prayers and hymns; but what you really know of him in your heart is
his hardness. This hard measure expected, haunts you like a spectre, and
casts a dark shadow over your path. Whatever your ears may hear or your
lips may speak, you know God only as the disturber of your joy in life,
and the inexorable exactor of impossible penalties at last.

The natural and necessary, as well as actual result of this knowledge or
conception of the master, is the utter idleness of the servant. Tell a
criminal in chains that by his own hands he must remove yonder mountain
into the sea in the space of one year, on pain of death when the year
is done, and the certain result will be that the wretched man will
permit the appointed time to expire without removing a single atom of
its mass; but on the other hand, let it be gently intimated to some
emancipated slaves that their service in removing earth from that
mountain to the sea will please their deliverer, and forthwith they will
carry with all their might, their burden meanwhile being their delight,
because they have