of obedience Psal 128. they would neuer make vs friends in Heauen Luke 16. 9. we should neuer see poore Lazarus landed by the Angels in the bosome of rich Abraham Luc. 16. 22. Our Sauiour would neuer haue sent out his thunder of imbossibilitie against them with this lightning How hard it is for them that trust in riches to enter into the Kingdome of God wee should haue seene Abraham Isaac Iacob Ioseph Iob Dauid Hezechiah the rich Arimathaean c. either lesse religious or more poore Looke then as good ground to the Seeds-man so the honest heart when the seede of Gods benefits are committed to him puts out all the grace of God to the greatest aduantage of his glorie that he can and is neither idle nor vnprofitable in his fruit-seasons For he knowes he must giue account of euery idle word how much more of many talents or a whole life mispent in idlenesse but Gods seede brings forth in him either 30. or 60. or 100. fold and Gods talents are restored for two fiue for fiue tenne Neither can it be otherwise for he is Gods owne husbandrie and therefore to be a religious man and a childe of Abraham must needs be good husbandry because it is Gods who will alwaies blesse his owne grounds and be sure to let his Sunne shine and raine fall vpon them and water them except sometime that they may be more fruitfull after hee lets them for a while lye fallow and for a yeare or so as Dauid did lye spar'd and broken vp without any outward shew of fruite at all Now because all men are reasonable though some be not religious let vs see whether there bee not great reason for it that Religion should bee thought good husbandry and should enrich the man that is a faithfull practiser of it I am perswaded there is none but will confes that he which is the best disposed to get and to keepe the least inclined to mis-spend goods well gotten is most likely to prooue a rich man the Poet ioyns both the wayes of thriuing in one verse Non minor est virtus quā quaerere parta tueri Now if we would know what are the getting virtues they are agreed vpon to be Labour and Diligence Salomons little Ant will tell vs how much is got by Labour if we go to her Go to the Ant thou Sluggard consider her wayes and be wise Prou. 6. 6. And Salomons selfe will tell vs what is the fruite of a diligent hand Prou. 10. 4. A diligent hand maketh rich for as the Ant labours much and wisely so the Poet most elegantly describes it It nigeum campis agmen praedamque per herbas Conuectat calle angusto pars grandia trudunt Frumenta obnixè humeris pars agmina cogunt Castigantque moras Opere omnis semita ferret So the diligent hand loues to labour and goes willingly through all the vp-hils of thrift as Salomon speakes of his good houswife Shee perceiueth her merchandise is good therefore shee worketh willingly with her hands shee is early vp at it And is a wicked man of this disposition It may bee is laborious by reason of the nenecessity of his estate and the strength of his body but is hee constant in his labour does hee loue it Nay will he not presently breake out into some excesse or other and so soone spend ill what was well gotten O how hard a thing is it to see a good workman indeed almost in any calling not to haue some one secret or known vice that like a wicked vermine consumes all his labours but an honest religious hand as it sets it selfe to worke in obedience to Gods cōmand and so gaines his blessing So is it both constant in his labour and prouident to auoyde the mispences other men fall into For as hee is not drowsie in getting his liuing so is he neither drunken nor greede to spend it He remēbers Salomons counsell in the 23. of the Prouer. 20. Be not among wine-bibbers among riotous eaters of flesh for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to pouertie and drowsinesse shall cloath a man with ragges Does not our experience teach vs as the French Prouerbes goes That more men dig their graues with their teeth then are slaine with the sword that is with their ouer greedy cramming themselues but a religious man is taught to satisfie his body with moderate not to surfet his body with excessiiue diet Do not we see many a labouring man boyle his whole body in sweat all the day long onely to quench the dropsie of his throate at night with vnreasonable swilling in his day labour turned into drinke but a religious man as his hand are laborious so he hath a sober throate drinking onely to refresh his body not so till the drinke comes vp where it went down the grape of necessity he freely takes alwaies and somtimes but seldome the second grape of delight but the third of excesse luxry hee neuer touches or tastes of Besides how many great estates and rich patrimonies may wee obserue by often resorting to the house of an harlot to haue gone downe into the chambers of death as the wise man speakes and neuer to haue seene any resurrection but the body of a religious man is a member of Christ therfore cannot be made the member of an harlot thereby to consume both himselfe and his estate what shuld we be tedious in reporting what we cānot not but know That by gaming and pride in apparell and haunt of ill cōpany many a rich heire leaues his sonne a poore child as hee makes himselfe a poore man All which rocks of danger ill hushandry Religion the holy guide of our liues neuer suffers any that saile in Noahs Arke I meane in Gods church for want of a right steering their vessels to run foule vpon And therfore it must needs be Religion being the mother of frugalitie good husbandry to be a religious man both because the blessing of God is vpon him as we are taught by Scripture and because he is furnisht with the vertue of honest getting kept by it from the vice of vnprofitable spending But perhaps a weake Christian will bee ready to quarrel with this truth to obiect That althogh Isaac it may be had some thing left him of his father yet his father Abraham himselfe was but a poore man being stript of all his friends and the hopes of his owne inheritance and called out by God into a strange countrey when he was now seuenty yeares old his son Iacob no more worth thē his poore staffe And that Dauid was poore needy himselfe sayes as much in plaine termes I am poore needy being forsaken of father mother til God took him vp forced thogh after the best sort to beg maintenance of the rich churle Nabal and though God himself say of Iob that he was an vpright man and there was none like him in all the earth
with reproch and slander whether to such ground as is good and naturally opens her bosome to drinke in the dewes of heauen that fall vpon her and gladly receiues the Sunne beames shed from God to warm and make fruitfull the seede credited to her wombe or such ground as neuer thirsts after the watering of Apollos though as Moses speakes Deut. 32. 2. his words drop as the raine and his speech distill as the dew neuer can indure the light of heauen to shine vpon it but lies alwayes in darkenesse and in the shadowes of death yet such ground stones I should haue sayd did the diuine courage of Stephen meet with in Ierusalem Act. 7. 59. such S. Paul wrought on at Lystra Act. 14. 19. such Moses and Aaron and Iosua toyled vpon in the wildernes Num. 14. 10. such the Prophets Matt. 21 25. such the Prince of the Prophets found in his owne inheritance though he had before as we see in Esay 5. 2. pickt all the stones himselfe out of it Iohn 8. 59 What one difficultie or danger is the roughest calling assaulted with that his is not Does the plowmans labour know no end but is it as the Poet speakes of it Labor actus in orbem Quique in se sua per vestigia voluitur So is his Does the Shepheard the sun-burnt and frosted shepheard watch ouer his flockes by night strengthen the diseased set apart the sound binde vp the bruised seek out the lost rescue those that are preyed vpon so does he Marches the soldier before the face of death liues hee among the pikes of a thousand dangers walks he throgh his owne wounds and blood So does he but as the ground this spirituall plowman tils is harder so the wolues Lyons this Shepheard watches against are fiercer and the Armies he graples with of another temper then such as are made like himselfe of flesh and blood being Powers and Principalities spirituall wickednesses worldly gouernors one of whom could in a nights space strikes dead the liues of a hundred fourescore and fiue thousand souldiers at once all armed and embattayld together Isay 37. 36. Let all the Princes of valour that euer liued bring into the field their most tried and signall warriour whose face and brest stand thickest with the hononourable starres of braue aduentures if I doe not single out to encounter him one souldier that beares in his body the markes of the Lord Iesus who shall haue broken through an Iliad of more dangers and perils then he let Gath and Ascalon triumph ouer Sion once againe let it be said that a second and more noble Saul is falne vpon his high places then euer yet fell before For wee shall finde him all the world ouer in labours more abundant in iourneys more often in more perils in the city in the wildernesse in the sea more often in watchings and fastings in hunger and thirst in cold nakednesse in prison more frequent and ofter in wearinesse and death 2. Cor. 11. 23. c. Let not him therefore that sowes the earth with his labor slander the spirituall tilth of our soules with lazie thoghts alas in the times of peace contempt is the greatest haruest we reape and in the tempests of persecution our blood is the first seed is sowne in the Church But enough of this generall theame of labour Let vs now go on to III. The seueral parts of Isaacs Labour and Reward SOwing then is the matter or substance of his labour and the circumstances are three First of person Isaac a religious person sowes the next of Time hee sowes in a time of famin and dearth the last of place it is the ground of strangers the the land of the Philistims he sowes in His Reward followes his labour wherein we looke first vpon Isaac in the manner of the benefite which is by Receipt hee does not take it as a due but receiues it as a reward he makes not himselfe the Lord but the Steward of Gods gift and then we cast our eyes vpon God as the eyes of all things looke vpon thee O Lord who commends the benefit by his celeritie in giuing which was in the same yeare Secondly by Isaacs necessitie of receiuing it being now a needfull time of Famine and last by the measure and size of returning his seede which was not thirty nor sixtie but a hundred fold Now if we regard either the substance or the circumstances of the words a man would thinke as the world now goes that Isaack had neither reason or neede to sowe in such a Land and at such a time as he did For that hee was exceeding rich is confest of all both by the gifts of Abimelech the King of the Philistims which he gaue him and by the inheritance of his Father Abraham which he left him and therefore what neede had he to labour We know it is the order of many men if they haue liued long in the Countrey and by their labours haue enriched themselues they forsake the fields and betake themselues to the delights and ease of the Citie and againe Citizens when they are well feathered by their trades they flye abroad straight to purchase something in the Countrey that they may there summer themselues in their bowers and arbours of pleasure they are all soone wearie of their labour euen as soone as they are enricht by it Which though it be allowable in men ancient as the Poet aduises Solue senescentem mature sanus equum Especially if not only Age but some disease and weakenesse of their bodies requires it for so God dismist the Leuites at 50. yeares old from their seruice at his Altar yet it is not so in men either able to labour or without labour vnable to liue For here wee see Isaac a rich man and now past threescore yeares old as wee may gather from the 25. verse of the former Chapter yet still labours and sowes his ground Againe let a man be but indifferently left by his Friends though hee doe liue in the Countrey yet he will as he out of his young gentilitie will please to boast scorne to follow the Plow he will keepe perhaps a Cast of Hawkes or a Kennell of Hounds and he will call them and follow them day by day but that 's all the calling he will follow Questionlesse Hawking and Hunting are both lawfull but only to make recreations of not to make callings of For he that makes the following of such sports his only calling inuerts and turns the order of God vpside downe For whereas God made all beasts naturally to serue man he spends his life in seruing and following of beasts and so makes himselfe the seruant of those creatures of which God hath made him the Lord weakely esteeming that the priuiledge of his estate and his blessing aboue others which Noah wisely laied vpon Canaan as of all other the greatest curse A seruant of seruants shall he be but Isaack thinkes it no
to run the heauenly races God hath set him with all the lesse starres of the glorious body might shed their beames vpon the Earth in the seasons of it so bring foorth hearbes and fruites for the seruice of man and beast It is indeede a naturall Truth Omne Corpus naturale quiescit in loco proprio Euery naturall body is quiescent in his owne proper place and yet wee see though all gladly rest in their owne regions and inuade not the confines of their neighbour Elements yet they are alwayes mouing and coasting about in their owne orbes and circuits thereby teaching vs to labour euery man in the circle of his owne calling and not to busie-body out abroad with other newe workes The Aire breakes not into the quarters of Heauen and yet wee see it is alwayes fann'd from place to place and neuer sleepes idly in his owne regions the reason is because otherwise it would soone putrifie it selfe and poyson vs all with the stinking breath of it did not the diuine prouidence of God driue it about the World with his Windes that so it might both preserue it selfe and serue to preserue vs which otherwise it could neuer doe And truly whether we ascend vp into Heauen or descend with Dauid into the deepe we may discerne the whole Ocean which is a farre more sluggish element then the Ayre neuer rest but euer moued either by the Windes or by a proper motion whereby naturally it ebbes and flowes to preserue it selfe sweet and wholesome for those creatures that liue in it and withall that it might by such inter-tides be the more seruiceable to the vse of man in the conueiance of commodities from shoare to shoare So that in a word euery thing moues for man should man only himselfe be idle stand still Giue mee but one example in the whole World of sloath and restiue idlenesse but one and I will giue thee leaue to keepe Holy-day and play away all thy life without sweat or labour only perhaps of a standing poole and that growes noisome that no man can endure it or of some deformed Toade and that is full swolne with rankour and poison or it may be of an idle Droane and that because it plaies in Summer dies in Winter But if wee looke vp to Heauen that will teach vs to runne the races God sets before vs with ioy and gladnesse if the holy Angels may instruct vs they will take vs out a lesson of faithfull labour both in our thoughts to God and actions to men All the Creatures of God will set vs a worke by their examples Chuse therefore whether thou wilt with thy vitious idlenesse be of a corrupted and venemous nature and so die or exercise thy selfe in the holy labours thy vocation cals thee to like the blessed Angels and all other the more noble Creatures of God And that we may see reason why wee should labour wee must know that it is both a Diuine and naturall Truth Deus Natura nihil faciunt frustra God and Nature made nothing idle It is for vs the heards of the field and the fowles of Heauen and the fish in the Seas labour to bring forth their young It is for vs the wearie Oxe is yoakt to labour and the Horse takes the bridle into his mouth to ease vs by his trauaile It is for vs the poore Silke-worm spinnes her clew and the thriftie Bee gathers her honey to the combe but as all these labour for vs so it is our labour that orders and guides them and sets them all a worke first Indeed God hath of his goodnesse made them our seruants and put our feare vpon them The feare of you shall be vpon all Creatures Gen. 9. 2. But it is not our parts to vse their labours to make our selues idle but if wee would haue them labour for vs wee must be fellow-labourers with them for our selues And indeed two speciall reasons would God haue vs labour for one to keep vs from the greene-sicknesse of Idlenes which in truth is the immediate mother of all Sinne as wee may see by Dauids Tower-walke and the other for the more full enioying of our life and health For as it is labour that procures all things necessary for our life and health as meates and drink clothing housing so it is labour that preserues our health by warming our blood that it be not gellied with vnkindly colds into rheums and dispersing those ill humors which with idlenesse would grow vpon vs and by prepuring the body more delightfully both to receiue nourishment without surfet and without disquiet rest sleepe Ye see therefore there is both great reason for vs to labour if wee would enioy our health and necessitie if we would supply the wants of our own liues and example if wee would follow either the command of God or the patterne of other the most honourable creatures God hath made Now let not here the good husbandman because he as Isaac tills his ground and sowes it engrosse all labour into his owne calling and so thinking himselfe onely the true labourer quarrell with all other professions as more idle and lesse necessarie Let the good husbandman haue alwayes his due honour reserued him but let not the good husbandman thinke all other men bad-husbands because hee is good for hee may bee a bad man though hee bee a good husbandman in so thinking For as man himselfe is diuided into seuerall respects of body and soule estate and person so euery calling that is lawfully employed in the prouiding for any of these hath in it true labouring men The husbandman indeed he sees the body the shepheard cloathes it the Architect houses it and the Physitian cures it It were a labour but to reckon vp the seuerall calling that labour about the body and indeede would passe my skill to name them so about the estates of men Iudges and Lawyers and Notaries and Officers labour and about the persons of men Princes and Magistrates labour to keepe them in ciuill order and gouernment and about the soule of man the Minister of God labours I cannot stand to euidence the labour of all these callings I will onely make it plaine because the calling of a Minister is by some slighted as a matter of no great paines and sweat That II. A faithfull Minister is a great labourer I Would not willingly make comparisons betweene him and the husbandman and say his labour is beyond theirs but this I may safely say that God himselfe compares him not onely to a husbandman but to shew the greatnesse of his labour to euery calling indeed that is most sweated with industrie and toyle I know all men thinke their owne callings most laborious but whether thinke you it easier to plow vpon hard ground or vpon hard stones whether to commit your seed to those furrowes that will return you fruitfull thankes or those that for your labor will spoyle your seed requite you
wisely with our soules wee must looke to see that which is secret by that which is reuealed and that which is hid by that which is manifest Now the Grace of God if it be in vs reueales manifests it selfe Quis enim celauerat ignem Lumine qui sēper prodigitur ipse suo And our owne desperate and impenitent life is known to our selues and others sufficiently If the Sunne be risen wee shall finde him sooner by his beames vpon the tops of the Mountaines then in the Orient of Heauen it selfe and so the Loue of God is sooner discouered to rise in thy heart by the beames of Grace it there shows abroad then by the flame of it self that shines in his owne breast in Heauen If then Grace imbrighten thy heart thou maist from Grace assure thy selfe of Gods loue and thine own glorie but if thou findest in thy selfe an impenitent incorrigible heart thou mayst then iustly worke vpon thy selfe a sence of thy misery I dare not say thou art sure of GODS wrath but I must say except thou repent God change thy heart thou art yet in a fearefull and lost estate say not therefore thus God hath cast me out from his fauour therefore my heart is obdurate impenitent incorrigible For this is to argue from that thou knowest not whether God fauours thee or no but thus rather My heart is obdurate impenitent incorrigible therefore if I so continue God will surely cast mee out from his fauour and presence And this thou maist securely doe because thine owne conscience is both a witnesse and a iudge of thy life whether it be impenitent or not Again neuer argue thus God will saue mee therefore I shall bee sure to vse the meanes for that is to dispute ab ignoto For who knowes the will of God but thus rather I will bee sure to vse the meanes therefore I am sure God will saue mee and this is to dispute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 frō things knowne For who knowes not whether hee vse the meanes God hath appointed him in his word to worke out his saluation by which that thou maist be sure of hee hath giuen thee his promise his word his oath Heb. 6. 17. 18. his writings by his Secretaries the Prophets which are the conueyances of thy heauenly inheritance he hath signed thē with two indeleble seales imprinted into thy flesh by baptisme and into his owne by his Passion and death the appointed infallible witnesses to testifie his deed His spirit thine owne thy faith and thy loue Rom. 8. 16. 1 Iohn 3. 14. and 1 Iohn 5. 10. so that although thou beest now on earth yet when thou hast thy euidence for heauen so surelie made ouer to thee thou canst not but bee most secure and sure of thy right and title if thou hast once receiued them and still keepest them in thine heart being regenerate and borne anew Vse therefore the meanes GOD hath appointed thee and then attend assuredly his promised blessing For all such promises of GOD haue some condition or other alwaies eyther implied or exprest If thou labour God will prosper thee if thou vse the right means God appoints he wil enrich thee onely the difference betweene the conditions of spirituall and temporal blessings is that he hath giuen many wicked men power in themselues to performe the condition required for these vnder-benefits but the conditions of glory which are the graces of Repentance Faith and Loue hee reserues in his owne power to bestow vpon whom only it pleaseth him being not the Steward of other mens goods as Man is but the Lord of his owne Sowe therefore the seeds of Labour and of Grace in thy Youth and looke for a haruest in thine age of sufficiency and glory But to returne to the labour which Isaac imployed his time in which was Sowing the ground wee may from thence learne that VIII Husbandry hath beene an ancient and honourable meanes of life LET not good husbandry sowing the ground and pasturage of cattell bee counted an abiect and reprochfull course of life which hath alwaies beene so ancient and honorable a meanes to keep life in the world It is true indeed Man in the nobilitie of his birth was not borne at first to this seruiceable attendance vpon the earth for both the heathen people had this tradition among them as the Poet sings nec non vllis Saucia vomeribus per se dabat omnia tellus And the word of God tels vs as much in the first of Genesis that the earth of it selfe brought forth euery seed after her kind without the labour and industrie of man and till for our sinne it was accursed by God still continued to bee selfe-fertill and to feed her children without their labour Mans speciall vocation then being the study of the creatures wherein he might behold as in so many small mirrours the wisdome and power and glory and goodnesse of God which kinde of diuine meditations Dauids Psalmes are euery where sweetly tuning to his Harp as in the 104. 19 Psalmes c. We were all borne in our innocence students of diuinitie That was the first vocation of our humane nature but the next was husbandry For so the first borne child of the nature the strength and heire of the world that was a Ruler ouer his brethren as God himselfe calls him Gen. 4. 7. was a manner of the earth and his brother Abel a shepheard to feed his flocks Neither did the world many thousand yeares after shake off this honourable simplicitie of life If wee looke into the 13. and 8. of Genesis wee shall there finde Abraham a great heardsman to liue after that fashion of life although his house were more like a Court then a Family hauing 318. trained seruants all men of armes to attend him Gen. 14. 14. and being in the estimation of those among whom he dwelt a great Lord and mighty Prince Genes 23. 6. Not long after Iob an Ismaelit as some of the Ancient thinke but as others with more ground of Scripture 1. Chro. 1. Gen. 25. one of his seede by Keturah succeeded him both in the manner of his life in the dignity of his estate nor was it a miracle to see rich mens daughters vnacquainted with new tires and most fashionable dresses busie thēselues in laborious and not curious needle work but it was ordinary in that old world to meete young and beautifull Rahel tending her fathers sheepe and watering the flocke and Rebecca with a pitcher vpon her shoulder drawing water both for her owne vse and to water the Camels of Abrahams seruant an office that our nice virgins who dresse vp themselues like so many gay silke-worms would thinke scorne of and in the second of Exodus the 16. and 17. verses we shall finde in the field seuen daughters of the Prince of Midian filling the troughs to water their fathers flockes whereof Zippora Moses wife was one It was the answer of the