66 whence thou wast taken. For earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return." Psal. exxviii. David also saith: "Thou shalt eat the labours of thine own hands." The holy apostle 2 Thess. iii. St Paul giveth a commandment, that "if any man will not labour, the same should not eat," and giveth a charge that all men work with quietness, and eat their own 1 Thess. iv. bread." "We beseech you, brethren," saith he, "that ye study to be quiet, and to meddle with your business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you." Again: "Let him that stole steal no more; but let him rather labour with his hands some good thing, that ye may have to give unto him that needeth." St Paul calleth it theft for any man to live of the labour of other men's hands idly and without any certain vocation, and commandeth that all such should labour and get them some honest occupation, whereby they may be the more able both to find themselves, and also to distribute unto other that have need. Eph. iv. Examples of labour. Gen. iii. Gen. iv. Amos i. XXVI. xxix. Luke i. rao. Our first father Adam toiled in the earth, according to God's commandment, and so gat his living. Cain was a ploughman. Abel was a shepherd. Jubal exercised music. Tubalcain was a smith, and a graver in metal. Noe was a planter of vine yards. Abraham, Lot, Isaac, and Jacob were ploughmen and shepherds. Joseph was a magistrate, and a public minister in the commonweal of Egypt, under king PhaMoses was a shepherd, and kept the sheep of Jethro his father-in-law, priest of Madian. The children of Israel got their living with hard and painful labour in 1 Sam. xvi. Egypt, under king Pharao. David, before he was anointed king of Israel, was a Exod. xxviii. shepherd. All the priests and Levites of the old law, every man according to his vocation, laboured by giving attendance in the temple, by killing of beasts, and of fering sacrifices, by studying the scriptures of God, and teaching the same unto the people, &c. Amos the prophet was one of the shepherds at Therna. Abacuck the prophet travailed in husbandry. Christ himself was a carpenter. The apostles of Christ were fishers. Paul laboured with his own hands, and gat both his own living, and others' that were with him. St Luke was a physician, and (as some writeth) a painter also. Aquila was a maker of tents, of the which occupation St Paul was. Simon, St Peter's host, was a tanner. Dorcas, that virtuous woman, made garments with her own hands, and gave them to the poor. There was no good and godly man even from the beginning of the world, which hath not practised somewhat to get his living, and lived in some certain honest and godly vocation, wherein he might with a good conscience eat his bread. Mal. i. Mark vi. Acts xviii. Acts x. Magistrate. Minister. Subject. Lawyer. No man ought to live idly. Prov. xx. The magistrate is called of God to rule with the temporal sword, to be governor of the people, to promote God's word, to nourish the preachers of the same, to exercise justice, to defend the widow and fatherless, to conserve the commonweal, to banish all false religion out of his realm, and to seek the quietness and commodity of his subjects, even as a father sceketh the health and profit of his natural son. The spiritual minister is appointed of God to rule with "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God," to rebuke sinners with the law, yea, and to excommunicate them, if they be obstinate and will not repent, to comfort and cherish the weak with the sweet promises of the holy scripture, to encourage the strong, and to exhort them to go forward until they wax ancient, and be perfect in Christ's religion, to minister the sacraments, to make collections for the poor, to maintain hospitality for the relief of the needy. The subject is called of God to obey, and to be in subjection unto his superiors, and every one of them is bound by the commandment of God to live in their vocation. The lawyer in pleading and defending poor men's causes; the shoemaker in making shoes; the tailor in making garments; the merchant in occupying merchandise faithfully and truly; the school-master in bringing up his scholars godly and virtuously; the father of the household to provide for his family; the mother of the household to look upon things pertaining to the house, and to see her family well governed; and so forth in all other persons, in whatsoever state God hath called them. Every man in his vocation ought to labour, and by no means to be idle. And who so doth, God will bless his labours, and send him wherewith abundantly to live. Theo. The wise man saith: "The sluggard plougheth not for cold; wherefore he beggeth in harvest, and getteth nothing." "He that gathereth in harvest is a wise son; but he that is idle in summer is the son of confusion." Again: "He that Prov. xxviii. tilleth his field shall be satisfied; but he that is idle shall suffer hunger." Careful pen Phil. God indeed hath promised to feed us, but yet so that we ourselves labour for our living. God hath promised us salvation in Christ Jesus, yet so that we believe his promise, and labour to the uttermost of our power to frame our lives "Trust in the Psal. xxxvii. according to his blessed will. David saith not only, Spera in Domino, Lord;" but he addeth unto it, et fac bonitatem, “and do good." All our affiance and trust must be reposed in God, and all good things must be looked for at his hand; yet must we do that lieth in our power concerning all those things that we desire to obtain of God. Therefore Christ saith: "Take no thought." He saith not, Labour Matt. vi. not. The pensive care and thought-taking for our living, wherewith the heathen be siveness, and so greatly disquieted, we must cast away from us, and lay it upon God, which forbidden of careth for us; but as for labour, which is laid upon us of God as a cross for our sin and disobedience in Adam, we may not refuse, every man in his vocation, but joyfully take it upon us, and give God thanks that by such means, without our care and thought-taking, he will feed us according to his word. For what are all our pains, labours, and travails, if God bless them not? as the psalmograph saith: "Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, he watcheth but in vain that keepeth it." not labour, is Christ. gospellers. Chris. Methink the occasion of this dearth', wherewith we are now oppressed, is not so greatly to be ascribed unto the covetousness of certain greedy gripes, as unto our own selves, unto our own ungodliness and dissolution of life, which so live as though there were no God at all, so behave ourselves as though there were neither heaven nor hell. They which have the gospel swimming in their lips, so live clean contrary Gross to the doctrine of the gospel, as though there were no gospel at all. In ambition, in pride, in covetousness, in envy, in malice, in wantonness of life, &c., they give place to none. Another sort are so drowned in papistry, in superstition, in hypocrisy, &c., Papists. and burn with such an immortal hatred against God's word, that they can neither abide that (otherwise than it shall serve their fancy), nor the preachers of it, nor yet such as avance it. Can God do any otherwise than send his plagues where such impiety and ungodliness reign? It cometh from God's great mercies that we be not consumed, and handled as Sodom and Gomorre. But our own damnation sleepeth not, if we do not both shortly and earnestly repent and amend. Blessed Phil. Truth it is indeed, that God many times sendeth the plague of famine into the world for sin, as it came to pass in the time of that most wicked and idolatrous king And Moses, that most excellent prophet of God, Achab, and at divers other times. saith: "If thou wilt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to ob- Deut. xxviii. serve and do all his commandments, which I command thee this day, the Lord will set thee up on high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou wilt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. Blessed shalt thou be in the town, and blessed in the fields. Blessed shall be the fruit Blessings. of thy body, the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the fruit of thy oxen, and thy flocks of sheep. Blessed shall thy almary be, and thy store. shalt thou be both when thou goest out, and blessed when thou comest in, &c. The Lord shall command the blessing to be with thee in thy store-houses, and in all that thou settest thine hand to, &c. The Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, &c. The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, even the heaven, to give rain unto thy land in due season, and to bless all thy' labours of thine hand, &c. But and if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep and to do all his commandments and ordinances, which I command thee this day, then all these curses Cursed shalt thou be in the town, and Cursings. shall come upon thee, and overtake thee. cursed in the field. Cursed shall thine almary be, and thy store. Cursed shall the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy land be, and the fruit of thy oxen, and the [ So edition of 1550; folio, death.] [The edition of 1550 reads the.] Isai. i. flocks of thy sheep. And cursed shalt thou be when thou goest in, and when thou These sentences, with many other in the holy scripture, do evidently shew that the plague of famine and hunger is sent unto us of God for our sins. Eus. It is convenient therefore that we all hearken to the admonition of God, Psal. Ixxxi. given by the psalmograph, which is, that there "be no strange god" among us, nor that we "worship any other god" but him alone, which only is the Lord our God that delivered us out of the spiritual Egypt, that is, from the servitude and tyranny of Satan. If we so do, God promiseth that he will give us whatsoever we ask of him. He will feed us with the finest wheat-flour, yea, and satisfy us with honey out of the stony rock. But to obtain of God this abundance and wealth, we may worship and have no strange gods. What is meant by 2 Cor. vi. 2 These strange and new-found gods are not only idols and mawmets made of wood strange gods. or stone, which in times past the simple and foolish ignorant people worshipped as gods, but the abominable vices which reign so commonly now among us; I mean covetousness, pride, ambition, gluttony, lechery, malice, &c. These are strange gods. These must we put out of our breasts, if we will have God merciful and liberal unto us. For is this reasonable for us to serve strange gods, and to give over ourselves as bond-slaves to them, and yet to require our wages and reward of the true and only living God? "What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What company hath light with darkness? What concord hath Christ with Belial? Either what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? How agreeth the temple of God with idols?" "Know ye not," saith St Paul, "how that, to whomsoever ye commit yourselves as servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether it be of sin untə death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" "Every one that doth sin is the servant of sin," saith Christ. We must first of all be God's servants, before we flatter ourselves with the obtaining of the good things promised by God; or else we deceive ourselves. If we be once the servants of God, and faithfully continue in his service, then may we be bold to ask of him our wages, and to persuade ourselves that all the comfortable histories and sentences which we read in the holy scriptures pertain unto us; otherwise we have no more to do with them than the Turk or the Jew. And if we receive any good thing at the hand of God, being not his servants, we reserve it, as all other infidels do, unto our damnation. Rom. vi. John viii. Phil. I confess, neighbour Eusebius, all this to be true which you have now spoken. Neither meant I, by talking so much of God's gentleness and liberality, and by alleging all these comfortable histories and sentences, to stablish the idolaters in their idolatry, the wicked in their wickedness, the covetous worldlings in their covetousness, the proud in their pride, the lecherous in their lechery, the idle bellies in their idleness, &c.; and yet notwithstanding to look for all those good things at the hand of God which belong unto his servants, as he witnesseth by the prophet; but to declare for your comfort and mine, that so many as give themselves over to God, believe in him, fear to the godly, him, serve him, and live according to their vocation, shall never perish for hunger, the ungodly. but at all times have whatsoever is necessary for them. And if any should chance to famish (which seldom or never happeneth), God suffereth them so to do, partly that Isai. lxv. The merciful promises of God be made and not to [Not is supplied from the edition of 1550.] [3 This word, though not clearly printed in the edition of 1550, seems there to be receive.] he may the sooner call them unto his glory, partly that their death may turn unto the greater damnation of such unmerciful monsters as suffered the servants of God to perish for hunger. Theo. We know your godly intent, brother Philemon, neither doth our neighbour Eusebius otherwise take the matter. And I for my part thank you right heartily for your godly admonitions, freely confessing that I am much edified by your talk, and strongly enarmed against the darts of poverty and hunger, whensoever they shall go about to oppress me. Chris. We all confess no less. Eus. I spake that I spake to this end, that men should not flatter themselves with the sweet and comfortable promises of God, when they live in all wickedness and abomination; which promises pertain not unto them, but unto the faithful servants of God, which shall enjoy no less at the hand of God than he hath promised. If they will enjoy the like commodity, they must do the like service. They must away with their strange and new-found gods, I mean pride, covetousness, gluttony, whoredom, malice, &c., and serve the only true and living God. Psal. xxi. Phil. Well, neighbours, to knit up your talk with few words, ye have heard how beneficial God is to them that put their trust in him, and live according to their vocation; so that those that be faithful need not to despair of comfort, seem the scarceness of things so great that it bringeth present death almost with it. For in that dearth and penury the faithful man that casteth his care on God, and hangeth wholly on his fatherly providence, may well say with the psalmograph: "If I walk in the Psal. xxiii. midst of the shadow of death, I will not be afraid of any evil, for thou art with me." God is ever present with his people in all their tribulation, and he will undoubtedly deliver them, and save them harmless. This now remaineth, that when ye come among the poor needy Christians, ye comfort them with these sweet scriptures that ye have heard, which without all doubt shall greatly quiet their minds, and refrain them from attempting any unlawful redress of things after this. Again, according to your ability relieve their poverty with your riches. Exhort your rich neighbours likewise to be beneficial to the poor, as the faithful stewards of God, remembering that unto that end God hath endued them with their possessions. Pray unto God that he may give unto the covetous worldlings a merciful and liberal heart, that after this they may no less willingly seek the profit of their neighbours, than hitherto they have sought their own private lucre and singular commodity. To conclude, pray unto God that every one of us may so live and so frame our life according to his will, that he may vouchsafe to bless us, and send us necessaries for our living, that we may the more freely, and with the more quiet minds, "serve him in holiness and right- Luke i. eousness all the days of our life." Well, neighbours, I pray you take the pains to shall take your part of such homely fare as I have. the ofter ye come, the more welcome shall you be. come into the parlour with me. Ye Eus. We thank you, most gentle neighbour Philemon; and praised be the Chris. Amen. Give the glory to God alone. |