A61391:94
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. I.1
- 1§. 1.
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.