A guide to godliness or a Treatise of a Christian life showing the dutiesA guide to godlynesse or a Treatise of a Christian life shewing the duties

§. Sect. 1 That we cannot continually be exercised in the works of our callings.

§. Sect. 1 That we cannot continually be exercised in the workes of our callings.

The chief end for which God hath created, redeemed, and doth preserve and sustain us, is, that we should serve him, and the principal means whereby he is worshipped and served, are the general and religious duties of Christianity, and the special duties of our callings. In which regard, it were much to be desired that we could spend our whole times in the performance of them, and esteem it our meat and drink to do the will of our heavenly Father, and our chief delight, to exercise our selves continually ¹in these duties. But because this is impossible, in regard of humane frailty and weakness, therefore hath God graciously permitted, yea enjoined unto us some time of intermission and cessation from these labours, wherein we may refresh our selves, and repair our decayed strength, exhausted and spent in these Christian exercises, that so we may be the better enabled and fitted to return unto them again with renewed vigour, reassume our task, and perform our duties in them with more ability and dexterity. And these are the times which are allotted to recreation, taking of our repast by eating and drinking, and composing our bodies to rest and sleep. For that we cannot always labour in the duties of Christianity and of our callings, nature it self teacheth us, and the experience of our weakness, which maketh us to sink under this burden, if we never lay it aside; and the example of our Saviour Christ himself, who though in his divine nature he were omnipotent and needed not to rest, yet as he was man, who had taken upon him, not only our nature, but our infirmities ²