A61391:442
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
The husbandmans calling showing the excellencies, temptations, graces, duties &c. of the Christian husbandman : being the substance of XII sermons preached to a country congregation / by Richard Steele.The husbandmans calling shewing the excellencies, temptations, graces, duties &c. of the Christian husbandman : being the substance of XII sermons preached to a country congregation / by Richard Steele.
London: printed by M.S., 1668
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
SECT. VI.1
- 1§. 6.
VI. The Sixth Abuse in Husbandry, is, Base 1or wrong ends. A man may spoil the best Calling under Heaven by managing it to poor and base ends, and ennoble the meanest Calling by Celestial aims therein. Of all men, the Husbandman should dignify his Calling by right and noble ends; for what is more contemptible than a mean man in a mean calling, and his ends meanest of all? every stroke a man takes in his honest calling is made sin, by levelling his labours to base ends. A great deal of good pains is spoiled and lost, for want of a good end. As for example; It is a low base end to get riches, to greaten your posterity, to over-top your neighbours, to make provision for the flesh; These are poor ends for a rational man, poor ends for a right Christian: A Christian man must have Christian ends. Alas! if Riches be ⟨p. 222⟩thy end, Riches shall be thy wages. If a gre• Estate be thy end, a great Estate shall be thy portion: and then what a bargain have you made […] That's a terrible Scripture, which some of the Fathers could never read without trembling, Luke 6.24. Woe unto you that ar• Rich, for you have received consolation And that may go with it, Psal. 17.14. Men […] world, […] […] their portion in •his life, whose belly thou fillest with thy […] treasures. A sad character, and a sad discharge• And this suits with no man better than a base spirited Husbandman; who is a man as it were born of the world, and buried alive therein; with hard labour he gets a poron, and an estate therein, and that is all that ever he is like to have.