The First Excellency of the Calling of an 1Husbandman is, That God himself was the immediate Author of it. So saith the Text, The Lord God put him into the Garden, to Dress and to keep it. Here are his first Indentures drawn in the state of Innocency. And when he had forfeited these, and broken one material Clause therein, about eating the forbidden fruit, yet we find God again, after the fall of our Father Adam, putting him into this Calling 2again, Gen. 3. 23. So the Lord sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So that this Calling was of Gods own invention. We read Gen. 4. 20, 21, 22. who were the Fathers or Authors of this and that Calling, but the Husbandman is Apprentice to none but God. Isa. 28. 24, 26. Doth the Ploughman plough all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground?—His God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. And he must be well taught that God teaches. Let us advise, says God, what Calling shall we pitch upon for this worthy Creature? How shall we dispose most nobly of him? what employment is worthy of him that wears our Image upon him? Then falls in this excellent way of Husbandry; He shall be an Husbandman. Now it is a maxim, A summo Bono nil nisi bonum. ⟨p. 24⟩The Sun may sooner send out a Cloud, then the Chiefest Good authorize any thing, but what is excellent. As on the contrary, The sin of Lying hath this base preeminence, that it was the first-born of the Devil, He is a liar and the Father of it; He stands the first Liar on record; So our Husbandmans Calling hath this high preeminence, that God was his only Master, and he his first Apprentice. And therefore of all employments, he hath most reason to stand up for God, and depend on him.
The First Excellency of the Calling of an 1Husbandman is, That God himself was the immediate Author of it. So saith the Text, The Lord God put him into the Garden, to Dress and to keep it. Here are his first Indentures drawn in the state of Innocency. And when he had forfelted these, and broken one material Clause therein, about eating the forbidden fruit, yet we find God again, after the fall of our Father Adam, putting him into this Calling 2again, Gen. 3. 23. So the Lord sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So that this Calling was of Gods own invention. We read Gen. 4. 20, 21, 22. who were the Fathers or Authors of this and that Calling, but the Husbandman is Apprentice to none but God. Isa. 28. 24, 26. Doth the Plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground?—His God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. And he must be well taught that God teaches. Let us advise, sayes God, what Calling shall we pitch upon for this worthy Creature? How shall we dispose most nobly of him? what imployment is worthy of him that wears our Image upon him? Then falls in this excellent way of Husbandry; He shall be an Husbandman. Now it is a maxime, A summo Bono nil nisi bonum. ⟨p. 24⟩The Sun may sooner send out a Cloud, then the Chiefest Good authorize any thing, but what is excellent. As on the contrary, The sin of Lying hath this base preheminence, that it was the first-born of the Devil, He is a liar and the Father of it; He stands the first Liar on record; So our Husbandmans Calling hath this high preheminence, that God was his only Master, and he his first Apprentice. And therefore of all imployments, he hath most reason to stand up for God, and depend on him.
- 1Excel. 1. God was the immediate Author of it.
- 2Nil ta• r• gale videtur quam studium Agri colendi. Xenoph. And tells that Cyrus that great King sowed himself a Field, & set Trees with his own hand
