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

SECT. III.¹

1. 1§. 5.

III. The Third Temptation of the Husbandman ¹is, Forgetting God, and Depending upon second Causes. His Calling lying among the Creatures, at some distance from God, he is prone by trading with things seen, to forget things unseen; like a man in a Mill, cannot hear the voice of God, for the clacking and noise it makes. It is the peculiar happiness of the Minister, that his very Calling lies about God; He dwells at Court every day; he needs do little else, but contemplate God, and persuade others to him. But the Husbandmans business lies much among the Creatures; He must study the Earth, as well as the Heavens; and you know, the hired Servant •hat are out in the fields, may more easily forget their Lord, than they who wait on him in his chamber. There are many in the world, that have little else to do, but think of God and their Souls; but the Husbandman he hath many things to think on, many things to care ⟨p. 70⟩for besides: and the Moon of the world doth interpose and hide from him, the sight and beams of the Sun of Righteousness: and because God is out of sight, he is too much out of the mind of the Husbandman. If the year be fruitful, he is ready to give the honour thereof to the goodness of the Ground, or to the skilful husbandry thereof. If it be unfruitful, he is apt to conclude such and such a thing was the cause, not looking to the First Cause, the Mercy, or Justice, or Providence of God, which doth order and govern the growing of every grass pile, and the blasting of every single ear of corn upon the earth: But none saith, where is God my maker, who giveth Songs in the night? Job 35. 10. When the rain distils, and makes the fields to smile, dow readily does the Husbandman cry out, O the sweetness of this rain! but how unready is he to break forth and say, O the sweetness of that God that gives it! And to help on this neglect of God, most languages have made those words Impersonals, that signifies Rain, Snow, and the like, which must have no Nominative case;—It Rains, it Freezes, &c. as if men were loth to acknowledge God, in those peculiar works of his Providence. When this part of his field misses, he is far proner to take notice of the badness of the Earth, than of the Anger of Heaven. When his Cattle miscarry, his eye is quicker upon the improvidence of his Servants, than on the Providence of his Master in Heaven.