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earth be belaboured with culture, it yieldeth corn; but lying neglected, it will be overgrown with brakes and thistles; and the better its soil is, the ranker weeds it will produce: all nature is upheld in its being, order, and state, by constant agitation; every creature is incessantly employed in action conformable to its designed end and use; in like manner the preservation and improvement of our faculties depends on their constant exercise.

3. As we naturally were composed, so by divine appointment we were originally designed for industry; God did not intend that man should live idly, even in his best state, or should enjoy happiness without taking pains; but did provide work enough even in Paradise itself; for "the Lord God," saith the text,

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took man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it;" so that, had we continued happy, we must have been ever busy, by our industry sustaining our life, and securing

our pleasure; otherwise, weeds might have overgrown Paradise, and that of Solomon might have been applicable to Adam; "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof."

4. By our transgression and fall, the necessity of industry (together with a difficulty of obtaining good, and avoiding evil) was increased to us; being ordained both as a just punishment for our offences, and as an expedient remedy of our needs for thereupon "the ground was cursed to bring forth thorns and thistles to us;" and it was our doom pronounced by God's own mouth, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground:" so that now labour is fatally natural to us; now" Man," as Job saith, " is born to labour, as the sparks fly upward," (or, as the vulture's chickens soar aloft,"

according to the Greek interpreters.) Now "great travel," as the son of Sirach saith, "is created for every man, and an heavy yoke is upon the sons of

Adam," &c.

5. Accordingly our condition and circumstances in the world are so ordered, as to require industry; so that without it we cannot support our life in any comfort or convenience; whence St. Paul's charge upon the Thessalonians, that "If any one would not work, neither should he eat," is in a manner a general law imposed on mankind by the exigency of our state, according to that of Solomon; "The idle soul shall suffer hunger," and, "The sluggard, who will not plough by reason of the cold, shall beg in harvest, and have nothing."

Of all our many necessities, none can be supplied without pains, wherein all men are obliged to bear a share; every man is to work for his food, for his apparel, for all his accommodations, either

immediately and directly, or by commutation and equivalence; for the gentleman himself cannot (at least worthily and inculpably) obtain them otherwise than by redeeming them from the ploughman and the artificer, by compensation of other cares and pains conducible to public good.

The wise Poet (Virgil) did observe well when he said,

The sire of gods and men

Forbids our plenty to be bought with ease, And wills that mortal men, inur'd to toil, Should exercise, with pains, the grudging soil. And St. Chrysostom doth propose the same observation, that God, to whet our mind, and keep us from moping, would not that we should easily come by the fruits of the earth, without employing much art and many pains; in order thereto, there must be skill used in observing seasons, and preparing the ground; there must be labour spent in manuring, in delving and ploughing, in sowing, in

weeding, in fencing it; there must be pains taken in reaping, in gathering, in laying up, in threshing, and dressing the fruit ere we can enjoy it; so much industry is needful to get bread: and if we list to fare more daintily, we must either hunt for it, using craft and toil to catch it out of the woods, the water, the air; or we must carefully wait on those creatures, of which we would serve ourselves, feeding them that they may feed us; such industry is required to preserve mankind from starving. And to guard it from other inconveniencies, mischiefs, and dangers surrounding us, it is no less requisite: for to shelter us from impressions of weather, we must spin, we must weave, we must build; and in order thereto, we must scrape into the bowels of the earth, to find our tools; we must sweat at the anvil, to forge them for our use; we must frame arms, to defend our safety, and our store, from the assaults of wild beasts, or of more dangerous neigh

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