Now Steele gives us advice on choosing a calling.
Firstly Steele advises that in choosing a calling:
(i) both disposers and disposed must agree to choose a calling that is lawful;
(ii) the employment or calling we choose must be suitable or fit.
Secondly Steele teaches us that proper dispositions and views are equally necessary with a suitable choice of an employment. Thus we should:
(i) let a sincere love and reverence of God and desire of his acceptance and favour through Christ Jesus, be the governing spring and motive of all your actions;
(ii) in dependence upon the help of God, let your religious principles be accompanied with steady resolutions;
(iii) have humility and faithfulness as most necessary to procure esteem from those we serve and respect from all mankind;
(iv) let the study of the sacred scriptures constantly employ some part of your leisure hours;
(v) let humble, earnest prayer to God for his grace and favour, be as the constant breath of your souls.
I appreciated the counsel to love God in all decisions: 'Let a sincere love and reverence of God, and desire of his acceptance and favour through Christ Jesus, be the governing spring and motive of all your actions. When the mind is devoted to God, and bent on pleasing him, wey have the strongest security against presend guilt and folly, and future misery and punishment. If we sincerely serve him, he will surely bless us ; he will interest himself in our concerns, support us under our difficulties, give us the direction of his wisdom, and the consolations of his grace, and preserve us from a thousand follies and miseries, by which those are overtaken, who make worldly gain or their own lusts and vicious appetites, the governing principles of their lives.'
If you earnestly love God in all things, you can't go wrong.
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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