A61398:61
The trades-man's calling being a discourse concerning the nature, necessity, choice, &c. of a…
The trades-man's calling being a discourse concerning the nature, necessity, choice, &c. of a calling in general : and directions for the right managing of the tradesman's calling in particular / by Richard Steele ...
London: printed by J.D. for Samuel Sprint, 1684
Title page typeset from the transcription.
THE Tradesman's Calling. › Chapter 2: Of the Necessity of a Particular Calling.
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.
2. You should bewail your present Unusefulness as a sore Affliction, and also the Sins that have brought it upon you; and endeavour to employ your selves some way, as far as possibly you can. None, except such as are under acute Sickness or Pain, but might be doing something for their own or others Good: and a willing Mind would break through small, yea, great Difficulties, rather than sit and signify nothing in the World. And so much for the Proof of this Proposition about the Necessity of a Calling, which may be improved,
2. You should bewail your present Unusefulness as a sore Affliction, and also the Sins that have brought it upon you; and endeavour to imploy your selves some way, as far as possibly you can. None, except such as are under acute Sickness or Pain, but might be doing something for their own or others Good: and a willing Mind would break through small, yea, great Difficulties, rather than sit and signify nothing in the World. And so much for the Proof of this Proposition about the Necessity of a Calling, which may be improved,
1. By way of Conviction and Reproof of three sorts of guilty Persons:
(1.) Of the Begging Friars, and such Monks as live only to themselves, and to their formal Devotion; but do employ themselves in no one thing to further their own Subsistence, or the Good of Mankind. Some such sprang up of old, who used ⟨p. 22⟩to plead the Sixth of Matthew against all worldly Care and Labour; and who interpreted that of the Apostle, 2 Thess. 3. 10. If any Man will not work, neither let him eat, of spiritual Work and Labour: Which the Learned Augustin largely confutes by the Context. But what would he have said, if he had lived to see such swarms of Drones, dividing their time between a dull Chapel and a warm Refectory, covering a Life of Sense with a Visor of Religion? At the first, these People both prayed hard, and laboured hard, and not only maintained themselves, but helped the Poor; but they are since degenerated into a public Grievance. And yet they have the Confidence to boast of this their Course as a State of Perfection, which in very deed, as to the Worthiness of it, falls short of the poorest Cobbler, for his is a Calling of God, and their's is none.