Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	life_n	word_n	write_v	5,673	5	5.6270	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61391	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.	Steele, Richard, 1629-1692.	1668 (1668)	Wing S5387; ESTC R30650	154,698	309

look to him that is poor and contrite and that trembles at his word Isa. 66. 2. SECT VI. THe Sixth Inconvenience of the Calling of an Husbandman is The infelicity of a rustick unrefined Breeding and his inability to help his children with any better We are naturally like the wild asses Colt A Colt is a rude creature much more an Asses Colt and most of all a wild Asses Colt Education breaks us Breeding and Behaviour do pollish that rude mass in which man comes into the world And as in the Creation God did let in Light and put beauty upon the Original Chaos so right breeding opens a Casement into the mind and sayes Let there be Light and there comes Light let there be shape order and beauty and behold it comes accordingly And this is a great mercy to those that have it and improve it It pares off that roughness of disposition and ruggedness of carriage it moralizes it civilizes yea it almost spiritualizes the party that one can hardly discern where Nature leaves and where Grace begins Now the Husbandman seldome meets with this ingenuous breeding in so much as in respect of understanding he is rather-ignorant than knowing in Wisdom rather simple than Judicious in his Will rather surly than malleable in his behaviour rather rude and homely than smooth and polite In Learning the highest degree he hath taken is in Writing and Arithmetick and by reason of his hand-work and small estate he can seldome bring up his children further and no small pains he takes to help his children to write and read and then puts them to a Trade and it is good Mr Dods phrase gives them each a Bible and God be with them Not but that excellent Parts are somtimes found in persons and children of this rank and excellent Schollars have proceeded hence that have honoured every of the Liberal Arts and the more honourable imployments but the usual genius and breeding of the Husbandman is but rustick Quest. If you ask what Remedy there is for this Inconvenience Answ. I answer The wealthier sort must be advised to accomplish their children with better breeding that being a portion as far beyond rich●…s as the Soul is beyond the Body as an entailed estate is beyond a few moveable goods They who read the History of the Worthies of England shall find some of our greatest Divines Lawyers and Physitians had their Originals from the Plough and why may not God do as much for yours and thereby make them more publick Goods to their Generation But for your selves and for them that are born and likely to live and dye Rusticks you must make up your want of outward accomplishment with inward integrity The less smooth and pollisht you are in behaviour the more sincere and plain be you in your heart It was the Character of the Athenians that they could speak well there was the University of Learning but the Character of the Lacedemonians was that they could do well So though you cannot speak eloquently yet if you can walk uprightly and faithfully you will be Courtiers in Heaven at the last Though you cannot read a letter in the book yet if you can by true Assurance read your Name in the Book of life your Scholarship will serve Though you cannot couch your words in order to men yet if you can say your Errand unto God he will accept you If you cannot write a word yet see you transcribe the fair Copy of a godly righteous and sober life and you have done well Christ Jesus was not Magister Scholae ' sed vitae And if you never get to be good Scholars yet see you be good Christians and then you 'l fit above your Landlords in Heaven if they do not look about them And thus you see the Inconveniences of the Husbandmans Calling which I have described to be an allay to ballast him lest he should be proud of his Excellencies and forget himself lest being so well on earth he should forget Heaven And that by feeling the effects he may be sensible of the evil of our first Fall and mourn for it which hath made his labour painful his gain doubtful his troubles great and his ability small And yet if he lift up the Scales he will perceive the comforts of his Calling many and the Inconveniences few and that the Lord hath tempered his Cup with great wisdom and loving kindness and left the best for him in the bottome CHAP. V. The Temptations of the Husbandman and the Preservatives WE are now arrived at the Fifth Head which is to inquire into the Temptations incident to this Calling Paradise it self was not without them and in every Calling he must expect them There are Temptations to suffering and Temptations to sin the one mentioned James 1. 2. The other vers 13. It is cause of joy when we fall into temptations of suffering especially for Christ many account it all joy when they escape such temptations but we should rather account it all joy when we meet with them It 's cause of sorrow when we are tempted to sin though we are apt to think our selves made with such Temptations And many of these have invaded the harmless Calling of the Husbandman But to be forewarn'd is the way to be fore-arm'd and though he be assaulted yet he is not forsaken He hath a Father that will not lead him into temptation which is not only his daily prayer but his chiefest care That though his Mothers children have him Keeper of the Vineyards yet his own Vineyard may be kept SECT 1. THe First Temptation of the Husbandman is Earthly-mindedness The Earth is his Element therein is his business and there he is in danger to lose his heart as it is said John 3. 31. He that is of the Earth is earthly and speaketh of the Earth The Husbandman is sprung as it were out of the Earth and the frame of his heart is prone to be earthly and his words are much of the same subject As it is impossible to behold the Heavens above us with one Eye and Earth under our feet with the other so it is a very hard business to have the Eye of the Soul upward and the Eye of the Body downward at the same time ●…e World looks little when one is in Heaven a great way off it but while on it it looks vast and great On a Mountain whole Fields at a distance look no bigger than a leaf of this book but he that is at them finds them bigger And a small Hatt held near our Eye will hinder our sight of the Sun more than a great Mountain at a distance O Sirs the Husbandman is near the Earth and it looks great in his eye and indangers to fill the heart and all it swallows up his heart and devours his time and dulls his spirits he is ready to account these things the greatest things because they are next him and

some of their Gods but alass their Gods were men the most vile and wicked men and if they accounted it an honour to receive the original of their Occupations from such how much greater honour hath the Husbandman who hath the Maker of Heaven and Earth for the Author and Inventour of his Imployment SECT II. A Second Excellency of the Husbandmans Calling is That the Holy Ghost brings most Comparisons from it Most Books in the Scripture full of them Plowing Planting feeding c. The Husbandman hath scarce a Tool but it is put into the Canon of holy VVrit If the Holy Ghost would teach by a Parable he goes to the Husbandman Mat. 13. A Sower went forth to sow If Jesus Christ would threaten by a Parable the Husbandman shall be an instance Luke 20. A certain man let forth his Vineyard to Husbandmen c. If the Holy Ghost would Comfort by a Parable he goes still to the Husbandman James 5. 7. Be patient therefore Brethren to the Coming of the Lord Behold the Husbandman waiteth c. God in these descending unto us because we cannot easily ascend unto him and making use of this world to instruct us about another So that every business of the Husbandman may well be a Sermon to him seeing God himself hath taken the Text. And this I think is one Design of Parables not only to bring down heavenly things to our Understandings but to scrue up our Hearts by our sight of things below and imployment herein to heavenly thoughts and applications So that it appears a great honour that God hath done to Husbandry to inoculate it so into the Scripture and to ennoble the same by applying it so much to heavenly Uses Yea the Lord himself hath taken the Name of an Husbandman upon him John 15. 1. I am the true Vine and my Father is the Husbandman c. As the King will be free of some Company and a great honour it is unto them As King James was free of the Clothworkers Company K. Charls I. of the Company of Merchant Taylors K. Charls II. of the Company of Grocers So the King of Heaven seems to choose to be free of the Company of Husbandmen and that is much for their Honour Profit and Instruction so that he who reproaches the poor Husbandman doth in a sort reflect upon God himself who will uphold the Company of Husbandmen to the end of the world SECT III. The Third Excellency of the Husbandman is That he lives and depends most upon God From Seedness to Harvest he is bound to a constant dependance on God and from Harvest to Seedness again He wants Rain and he goes to God next he needs fair weather and to God he must go again This month he would have Frost it will cherish his Corn Another Month the Frost would spoyl his Orchard One while he should have Snow it would keep his ground as warm as Wool at another time it would starve his Cattle At one time he longs for Wind to purifie the Air at another time he is afraid of it least it beat down his Corn And this continual need sends him unto God who giveth his Snow like wool and scatt●…reth the hoary Frost like ashes who giveth his Wind to blow and the Waters flow and fitleth him with the finest of the Wheat Psal. 147. 14 16 17. So that we may say of the Husbandman as 't was said of the Land of Canaan Deut. 11 11 12. The Land is a Land of Hills and Vallyes not like E●…ypt which being a Plain depended upon the constant overflowings of Nilus to make it fruitful but this drinketh water of the Rain of Heaven a Land which the Lord thy God careth for the eyes of the Lord thy God are alwayes upon it from the beginning of the Year to the end of the Year Even so the Husbandman hath a Calling that the Lord must care for him from the beginning of the Year to the end of the Year And this is the Excellency of it They are base Callings that depend on Man though many cringing Courtiers will not think so but they are royal Callings that depend on God Servants know their wages but the Child depends and who hath the more excellent place think ye The good Husbandman exercises his Faith and Patience every day Some Callings find exercise for Corruption but this Calling finds exercise for Graces And he when he cannot pray for Grace for his Soul yet can pray for fair weather for his business Of all men he had need to learn to pray and that in earnest SECT IV. A Fourth Excellency of Husbandry is That it is an harmless and deceitless Calling There is not naturally nor usually that fraud and cunning in the Husbandman as in other men In many Callings deceit is half the Trade but plain dealing is the genuine frame of the good Husbandman Gen. 25. 27. Esau he was a cunning Hunter but Jacob was a Plain man dwelling in Tents void of dissimulation and deceit And he we must not lose him he was an Husbandman in our large acceptation for our Father Adam was not set only to dress the earth but to keep it too and all that fed thereon A plain man is the very description of an Husbandman The Statesman deals in policy the Souldier in cruelty the Trades-man in dissimulation the deepest policy of the Husbandman is to get bread for his Family and pay his Rent his greatest cruelty is to dig into the Bowels of the earth his cunningest dissimulation is in fraying the fowls from his Corn and to trappan and draw in a Rivulet to water his Medow●… Those are his Designs If he can but ensnare the Birds that harm him hee 'l never over reach his B●…thren that hurt him not If he can learn cunning to sow his ground in the fittest time he never contrives to ●…eap where he did not sow And so though his income be not great yet it is as solid as it seems he hath shorter Commons but others have a larger reckoning and that estate which comes too soon seldom stayes too long with any man Indeed in this Iron Age too much fraud is stollen under this coat offreeze but in the beginning it was not so nor yet can the Husbandman cogg and flatter and circumvent with that impudence which others have he Plowes not with the subtle Fox but with the laborious Oxe and if he cannot thereby reach a livelihood hee 'l rather fare hardly himself than deal hardly with his Brethren Here says he I might sell bad for good or less measure for full measure but so might my next Crop be blasted and if I deal deceitfully with men my Kine and Sheep might next time cast their Young and deceive me I will be just and honest sink or swim Plain dealing is my only Jewel and though by using it I dye a beggar yet shall I be one of Gods poor and then I care not