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 lust, and brutish sensuality which is cherished by an idle life.
10. Lastly, It is God'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 God'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 God 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.