unt and continuity of service which now is not demanded on the one
side, and would not be rendered on the other.

It should be noticed, however, that the service which is in the parable
required and rendered, is both in character and quantity extreme. An
ordinary example of a servant's work would not have suited the purpose
of the Lord; he needed a line stretched to its utmost limits. His
purpose is to teach that the utmost conceivable amount of obedience on
man's part is not independently meritorious before God; and, in
searching among temporal things for a suitable analogy, he selected a
case in which the line stretched from one extremity to the other.

When the servant has finished his day's work on the pasture or in the
field, at his return, and before he obtain either rest or food, he is
compelled to wait upon his master at table. Even this extreme measure of
work is required by the master and rendered by the servant as within the
limits of their respective rights: the servant even in that case has
done no more than was due.

"So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all these things which are
commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants."

God has given all, owns all, has a right to all. We are his by right of
creation, and his by redemption, when we are in Christ. Christians are
not their own; they are bought with a price. Themselves, and their
faculties, and their capabilities belong to God, their Creator and
Redeemer. When they have rendered all their powers, and all the product
of these powers, absolutely up to God's will, they have done no more
than rendered to him his own. "Will a man rob God? yet ye have robbed
me" (Mal. iii. 8). It is an aggravated sin to rob God of what is his;
but it is no merit or ground of praise simply to refrain from robbing
him; and this is all that the creature's obedience would amount to,
although it were complete.

Our Master ordinarily makes our work easy; he is gentle, and easy to be
entreated. "As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them
that fear him:" but at his pleasure, and doubtless in deep ways for
their good, he sometimes lays extraordinary burdens on his own. He may
permit offences to come, trying your temper; he may permit sickness to
overtake you, trying your patience; he may permit temptations to assail
you, trying your faith even at its foundations; he may require of you
great and varied activity, trying your willingness to run at his call.
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