The husbandmans calling showing the excellencies, temptations, graces, duties &c. of the Christian husbandmanThe husbandmans calling shewing the excellencies, temptations, graces, duties &c. of the Christian husbandman

A Fourth Excellency of Husbandry is, That ¹it is an harmless and deceitless Calling. There is not naturally nor usually that fraud ⟨p. 28⟩and cunning in the Husbandman, as in other men. In many Callings, deceit is half the Trade; but plain dealing is the genuine frame of the good Husbandman, Gen. 25. 27. Esau, he was a cunning Hunter, but Jacob was a Plain man, dwelling in Tents; void of dissimulation and deceit; And he, we must not lose him, he was an Husbandman in our large acceptation, for our Father Adam was not set only to dress the earth, but to keep it too, and all that fed thereon. A plain man is the very description of an Husbandman. The Statesman deals in policy, the Soldier in cruelty, the Trades-man in dissimulation; the deepest policy of the Husbandman is to get bread for his Family, and pay his Rent; his greatest cruelty is to dig into the Bowels of the earth, his cunningest dissimulation is in fraying the fowls from his Corn, and to trepan and draw in a Rivulet to water his Medow•: Those are his Designs. If he can but ensnare the Birds that harm him, he'll never over reach his B• thren that hurt him not. If he can learn cunning to sow his ground in the fittest time, he never contrives to eap where he did not sow. And so though his income be not great, yet it is as solid as it seems; he hath shorter Commons, but others have a larger reckoning; and that estate which comes too soon, seldom stays too long with any man.