A Christian Directory Volume I Part 97

[562] Homil. 10 part 2. tom. 9. pag. 150, cited before in my "Now or Never," p. 125.

[563] Nicknames themselves are the great engines of the devil, and to be avoided; it was well with the church when there was no other name but christians put by Christ's disciples on each other; though by the enemies they were scornfully called Nazarenes, and a sect, and heresy.

[564] Disc. of Happiness, p. 193.

[565] Pliny saith, that as pearls, though they lie in the bottom of the sea, are yet much nearer akin to heaven, as their splendour and excellency showeth; so a G.o.dly and generous soul hath more dependence on heaven whence it comes, than on earth where it abideth. A good saying for a heathen.

[566] Socrates c.u.m fuisset a quodam calce percussus, admirantibus illius tolerantiam dixit, Quid si me asinus calce impetisset? Num illi diem dixissem?

CHAPTER X.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THE BODY.

PART I.

_Directions about our Labour and Callings._

_t.i.t._ I. _Directions for the Right Choice of our Calling and ordinary Labour._

I have already spoken of christian works, and the duty of our callings, chap. iii. grand direct. x; and am now only to subjoin these few directions, for the right choosing of your callings: for of the using of them I must speak more anon.

_Direct._ I. Understand how necessary a life of labour is, and the reasons of the necessity.

[Sidenote: Is labour necessary to all?]

_Quest._ I. Is labour necessary to all? or to whom, if not to all?

_Answ._ It is necessary (as a duty) to all that are able to perform it: but to the unable it is not necessary; as to infants, and sick persons, or distracted persons, that cannot do it, or to prisoners, or any that are restrained or hindered unavoidably by others, or to people that are disabled by age, or by any thing that maketh it naturally impossible.

[Sidenote: What labour is necessary?]

_Quest._ II. What labour is it that is necessary? _Answ._ Some labour that shall employ the faculties of the soul and body, and be profitable, as far as may be, to others and ourselves. But the same kind of labour is not necessary for all.

In some labours, the mind is more employed than the body; as in the labours of a magistrate, a minister, a physician, a lawyer, &c.; though some in these may have much bodily labour also.

The labour of some is almost only of the mind: as, 1. Of students in divinity, philosophy, law, physic, &c. who are but preparing themselves for a calling. 2. Of some ministers, or other G.o.dly persons, who by the iniquity of the place or times where they live, may for a season be disabled from appearing among men, and labouring for any except by the mind; being imprisoned, or driven into solitude, or otherwise made incapable. 3. Of men that have some extraordinary necessity for a season, to converse with G.o.d and themselves alone; as, men that are near death, and have need to lay by all other labours to prepare themselves. Though, usually, even they that are near death should labour the good of others to the last; and in so doing they profit and prepare themselves.

The labour of some others is more of the body than the mind; as, most tradesmen and day-labourers.

And the labour of some is equally of the body and mind; as, some painful ministers, and physicians, scribes, and artificers of more ingenious professions, as watchmakers, printers, builders, &c.: some of these are fittest for one man, and some for another.[567]

[Sidenote: Will religion excuse from labour?]

_Quest._ III. May not religion excuse men from all other labour, save prayer and contemplation?[568] _Answ._ Religion is our obligation to obey G.o.d. G.o.d bindeth us to do all the good we can to others. Some men that have ability, opportunity, and a call, may be excused by religion from worldly labours, as ministers; but not from such spiritual labours for others which they can perform. He that under pretence of religion, withdraweth from converse, and forbeareth to do good to others, and only liveth to himself, and his own soul, doth make religion a pretence against charity, and the works of charity, which are a great part of religion; for "pure religion and undefiled before G.o.d and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world," James i. 27. Even when sickness, imprisonment, or persecution disableth to do any more for others, we must pray for them. But while we can do more, we must.

[Sidenote: Will not riches excuse?]

_Quest._ IV. Will not riches excuse one from labouring in a calling?

_Answ._ No; but rather bind them to it the more; for he that hath most wages from G.o.d, should do him most work. Though they have no outward want to urge them, they have as great a necessity of obeying G.o.d, and doing good to others, as any other men have that are poor.

[Sidenote: Why labour is necessary.]

_Quest._ V. Why is labour thus necessary to all that are able? _Answ._ 1. G.o.d hath strictly commanded it to all; and his command is reason enough to us: 2 Thess. iii. 10-12, "For even when we are with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busy-bodies: now them that are such, we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work and eat their own bread." See ver. 6, 14; 1 Thess. iv. 11, "We beseech you, brethren--that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and work with your hands as we commanded you, that ye may walk honestly (or decently) towards them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing." Gen. iii. 19, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground." And in the fourth commandment, "Six days shalt thou labour."[569] So Eph. iv. 28; Prov. x.x.xi. 32, 33.

2. Naturally action is the end of all our powers; and the power were vain, but in respect to the act: to be able to understand, to read, to write, to go, &c. were little worth, if it were not that we may do the things that we are enabled to.

3. It is for action that G.o.d maintaineth us and our abilities: work is the moral as well as the natural end of power. It is the act by the power that is commanded us.

4. It is action that G.o.d is most served and honoured by: not so much by our being able to do good, but by our doing it. Who will keep a servant that is able to work and will not? Will his mere ability answer your expectation?

5. The public welfare, or the good of many, is to be valued above our own. Every man therefore is bound to do all the good he can to others, especially for the church and commonwealth. And this is not done by idleness, but by labour. As the bees labour to replenish their hive, so man, being a sociable creature, must labour for the good of the society which he belongs to, in which his own is contained as a part.

6. Labour is necessary for the preservation of the faculties of the mind. (1.) The labour of the mind is necessary hereto, because unexercised abilities will decay; as iron not used will consume with rust. Idleness makes men fools and dullards, and spoileth that little ability which they have. (2.) And the exercise of the body is ordinarily necessary, because of the mind's dependence on the body, and acting according to its temperature and disposition: it is exceedingly helped or hindered by the body.

7. Labour is needful to our health and life: the body itself will quickly fall into mortal diseases without it (except in some very few persons of extraordinary soundness).[570] Next to abstinence, labour is the chief preserver of health. It stirreth up the natural heat and spirits, which perform the chief offices for the life of man: it is the proper bellows for this vital fire: it helpeth all the concoctions of nature: it attenuateth that which is too gross: it purifieth that which beginneth to corrupt: it openeth obstructions: it keepeth the ma.s.s of blood and other nutritious humours in their proper temperament, fit for motion, circulation, and nutrition; it helpeth them all in the discharge of their natural offices: it helpeth the parts to attract each one its proper nutriment, and promoteth every fermentation and a.s.similation by which nature maintaineth the transitory, still-consuming oil and ma.s.s: it excelleth art in the preparation, alteration, and expulsion of all the excrement.i.tious matter, which being retained would be the matter of manifold diseases; and powerfully fighteth against all the enemies of health. In a word, it doth incomparably excel the help of the most skilful physicians and excellent medicines in the world, for the preventing of most diseases incident to man: (and consequently to the benefit of the soul itself, which cheerfully useth a cheerful and well-tempered body; and useth a languishing, sickly body, as the rider useth a tired horse, or as we use a sick or lazy servant, or a blunted knife, or a clock or watch that is out of order). I speak all this of bodily labour, which is necessary to the body, and consequently to the mind; for want of which abundance grow melancholy, and abundance grow sluggish and good for nothing, and abundance cherish filthy l.u.s.ts, and millions yearly turn to earth before their time. For want of bodily labour, a mult.i.tude of the idle gentry, and rich people, and young people that are slothful, do heap up in the secret receptacles of the body a dunghill of unconcocted and excrement.i.tious filth, and vitiate all the ma.s.s of humours which should be the fuel and oil of life, and die by thousands of untimely deaths, (of fevers, palsies, convulsions, apoplexies, dropsies, consumptions, gout, &c.) more miserably than if thieves had murdered them by the highway, because it is their own doing, and by their sloth they kill themselves. For want of bodily exercise and labour interposed, abundance of students and sedentary persons fill themselves with diseases, and hasten their death, and causelessly blame their hard studies for that which was caused by their bodily sloth. The hardest studies will do little harm to most men, if they do but by convenient, interposed bodily labour, keep all the humours in their just temperament; when by a sluggish walk now and then, instead of labour and sweat, they defraud themselves. If the world knew but the benefit of temperance and labour to the maintaining of man's health and life, and the mischiefs of excess of meat and drink, and idleness, the love of health and life would do that with them, which G.o.d's authority will not do.

8. Labour and diligence do keep the mind upon a lawful employment, and therefore keep out many dangerous temptations, and keep the thoughts from vanity and sin; and also keepeth out vain words, and preserveth the soul from many sins, which a life of idleness and sloth doth cherish. It helpeth even unlearned persons more effectually to restrain their thoughts and words from sin, than the greatest knowledge and diligent watchfulness can do in an idle kind of life.

9. Diligent labour mortifieth the flesh, and keepeth under its luxurious inclinations, and subdueth that pride, and l.u.s.t, and brutish sensuality which is cherished by an idle life.

10. Lastly, It is G.o.d's appointed means for the getting of our daily bread; and as it is a more real honour to get our bread ourselves, than to receive it by the gift of our friends or parents, so is it more comfortable to a well-informed mind. We may best believe that we have our food and provisions in mercy, and that they shall be blest to us, when we have them in G.o.d's appointed way; who hath said, "If any man will not work, neither should he eat," 2 Thess. iii.

_Direct._ II. As labour is thus necessary, so understand how needful a stated calling is, for the right performance of your labours. A calling is a stated ordinary course of labour. This is very needful for these reasons: 1. Out of a calling a man's labours are but occasional, or unconstant, and so more time is spent in idleness than in labour. 2. A man is best skilled in that which he is used to. 3. And he will be best provided for it with instruments and necessaries. 4. Therefore he doth it better than he could do another work, and so wrongeth not others, but attaineth more the ends of his labour. 5. And he doth it more easily; when a man unused, and unskilled, and unfurnished, toileth himself much in doing little. 6. And he will do his work more orderly, when another is in continual confusion, and his business knoweth not its time and place, but one part contradicts another. Therefore some certain calling or trade of life is best for every man.

_Quest._ I. May not a man have a calling consisting of occasional, uncertain works? _Answ._ He that can have no better, may do thus; so be it they are consistent works which he is able for: as a footman may go of various errands, and a day-labourer may do many sorts of works; but great variety will be a great inconvenience to him.

_Quest._ II. May a man have divers trades or callings at once? _Answ._ Yes, no doubt, if it be for the common good, or for his own, and no injury to any other; nor so inconsistent, as that one shall make him unfaithful in the other; then G.o.d forbids it not.

The question, Whether a man may change his calling, I answered before, chap. iii. direct. x.

_Direct._ III. Think not that a calling can be lawful when the work of it is sin; nor that you, or your labour, or your gain, in an unlawful calling, shall be blest. An unlawful act is bad enough; but an unlawful calling is a life of sin. To make sin a man's trade, and work, and living, is a most horrid, desperate course of life. As mercenary soldiers, that for their pay will fight against authority, right, or innocency, and murder men for half a crown a day: and those that live by cheating, stealing, oppressing, whoring, or by resetting such; or upon the sin of such: or of drunkards, gamesters, or other sensual vices, which they knowingly and willingly maintain.

_Direct._ IV. Think not that because a work is lawful, that therefore it is lawful to make a calling of it. It is lawful to jest in time and measure, but not lawful to be a jester as a trade of life. If in some cases it should prove lawful to act a comedy or tragedy, it it will not follow, that therefore it is lawful to be by trade a stage-player: if a game at cards or dice may be in some cases lawful, it follows not, that it is lawful to be a gamester by trade. The like I may say of many others.

_Direct._ V. It is not enough that the work of your calling be lawful, nor that it be necessary, but you must take special care also that it be safe, and not very dangerous to your souls. The calling of a vintner and ale-seller is lawful and needful; and yet it is so very dangerous that (unless it be in an extraordinary place or case) a man that loveth his soul should be loth to meddle with it, if he can have a safer to get his bread by. They get so little by sober people, and their gain dependeth so much upon men's sin, that it is a constant temptation to them to be the maintainers of it. And frail man, that can so hardly stand on firm ground, should be loth for a little money to walk still upon the ice, and to venture his soul in a life of such temptations; for it is twenty to one but they will prevail.

_Direct._ VI. The first and princ.i.p.al thing to be intended in the choice of a trade or calling for yourselves or children, is the service of G.o.d, and the public good; and therefore _(caeteris paribus)_ that calling which most conduceth to the public good is to be preferred. The callings most useful to the public good are the magistrates, the pastors, and teachers of the church, schoolmasters, physicians, lawyers, &c. husbandmen (ploughmen, graziers, and shepherds); and next to them are mariners, clothiers, booksellers, tailors, and such other that are employed about things most necessary to mankind; and some callings are employed about matters of so little use, (as tobacco-sellers, lace-sellers, feather-makers, periwig-makers, and many more such,) that he that may choose better, should be loth to take up with one of these, though possibly in itself it may be lawful. It is a great satisfaction to an honest mind, to spend his life in doing the greatest good he can; and a prison and constant calamity to be tied to spend one's life in doing little good at all to others, though he should grow rich by it himself.

_Direct._ VII. When two callings equally conduce to the public good, and one of them hath the advantage of riches, and the other is more advantageous to your souls, the latter must be preferred; and next to the public good, the soul's advantage must guide your choice: as suppose that a lawyer were as profitable to the public good as a divine, and that it is the way to far more wealth and honour; yet the sacred calling is much more desirable for the benefit of your souls; because it is an exceeding great help, to be engaged by our callings to have the word and doctrine of Christ still before us, and in our minds and mouths; when others must be glad to be now and then exercised in it, when their hearts are cooled by the frequent and long diversions of their worldly business; so that our calling and work is to an honest heart a continual recreation, and preserving, and edifying help to grace. So a schoolmaster's calling is usually but poor and very painful, requiring much close attendance; but yet it is of so great use to the common good, and alloweth the mind so much leisure and advantage to improve itself in honest studies, that it is fitter to be chosen and delighted in by a well-tempered mind, than richer and more honoured employments. It is sweet to be all day doing so much good.

_Direct._ VIII. If it be possible, choose a calling which so exerciseth the body, as not to overwhelm you with cares and labour, and deprive you of all leisure for the holy and n.o.ble employments of the mind; and which so exerciseth your mind, as to allow you some exercise for the body also. 1. That calling which so taketh up body and mind, as neither to allow you commixed thoughts of greater things, nor convenient intermissions for them, is a constant snare and prison to the soul; which is the case of many who plunge themselves into more and greater business than they can otherwise despatch; and yet are contented to be thus continually alienated in their minds from G.o.d and heaven, to get more of the world. Many poor labourers (as clothiers, tailors, and other such) can work with their hands, and meditate or discourse of heavenly things without any hinderance of their work; when many men of richer callings have scarce room for a thought or word of G.o.d or heaven all day. 2. On the contrary, if the body have not also its labour as well as the mind, it will ruin your health, and body and mind will both grow useless.

_Direct._ IX. It is lawful and meet to look at the commodity of your calling in the third place (that is, after the public good, and after your personal good of soul and bodily health). Though it is said, Prov. xxiii. 4, "Labour not to be rich;" the meaning is, that you make not riches your chief end: riches for our fleshly ends must not ultimately be intended or sought. But in subordination to higher things they may; that is, you may labour in that manner as tendeth most to your success and lawful gain: you are bound to improve all your Master's talents; but then your end must be, that you may be the better provided to do G.o.d service, and may do the more good with what you have. If G.o.d show you a way in which you may lawfully get more than in another way, (without wrong to your soul, or to any other,) if you refuse this, and choose the less gainful way, you cross one of the ends of your calling, and you refuse to be G.o.d's steward, and to accept his gifts, and use them for him when he requireth it; you may labour to be rich for G.o.d, though not for the flesh and sin.