A Treatise of the Vocations

“Let every man abide in that calling, wherein he was called” (1 Cor 7:20).

Two questions are discussed from verse 17 of this chapter through verse 25. First, if a man is uncircumcised when he is called to Christianity, must he be circumcised afterward? Second, if he is a bondman when he is called, must he then leave that calling? The substance of the apostle’s answer to both questions appears in verse 20. It is as though he were saying, “Let everyone continue in the calling in which he was called to Christ.” That is, let him continue in the way of life he followed when God was pleased, through the ministry of his gospel, to call him to profess the Christian religion.

I have chosen these words because I intend to discuss vocation, or calling. Few people rightly understand how to live and continue in their callings in a way that pleases God. To proceed in order, I will first explain what vocation or calling is. Second, I will set out its parts and kinds. Third, I will explain the holy and lawful use of each person’s particular calling. All these matters are touched on, in some measure, in the words of my text.

To begin with the first point: A vocation or calling is a certain kind of life, ordained and assigned to a person by God, for the common good. First, I describe it as a certain condition or kind of life. This means a particular way of leading our lives in this world. For example, a king’s way of life is to spend his time governing his subjects, and that is his calling. A subject’s way of life is to live in obedience to the magistrate, and that is his calling. A minister’s station and condition require him to lead his life preaching the gospel and the Word of God, and that is his calling. The head of a household is to lead his life governing his family, and that is his calling. In a word, the particular and honest way of life to which each person is called and set apart is his calling.

In every calling we must consider two causes: first, its author or originating cause; second, its proper purpose or end. God himself is the author of every calling. Therefore Paul says, “As God hath called every man, let him walk” (1 Cor 7:17). This is why a person’s order and manner of life in this world is called a vocation: everyone is to live as God has called him.

In a military camp, the general assigns each man his place and position. He appoints one place for the horseman and another for the foot soldier. Likewise, he gives each individual soldier his duty and position, where he must remain against the enemy and live and die. So it is in human societies. God is the general, assigning each person his particular calling and, as it were, his position. Within that calling he assigns the particular duty in whose performance that person is to live and die. Just as no soldier in a camp may leave his position without the general’s permission, no person may leave his calling unless God gives him liberty to do so.

Again, a clock made by human skill and craftsmanship has many wheels. Each has its own motion: some turn one way and some another; some move slowly and some quickly. Yet all are ordered by the clock’s regulating motion. Here is a striking resemblance to God’s special providence over mankind. His providence regulates the great world, assigning each person his motion and calling, and within that calling his particular office and function. Thus it is true, as I have said, that God himself is the author and origin of callings.

This overturns the heathen opinion that a person’s particular condition and station in this life come about by chance, or simply by his own will and pleasure. Second, what has been said teaches us that many people who persuade themselves that they have callings actually have none. Examples include those who live by usury, by playing cards and dice, by keeping gaming houses, by plays, and by similar means. God is the author of every lawful calling. But these and other such miserable ways of making a living either oppose God’s Word or have no foundation in it. They are therefore no callings or vocations from God, but ways of drawing people away from God and his ways.

As the author of every calling, God performs two actions concerning it. First, he ordains the calling itself. Second, he assigns it to the person called. This is why I describe a vocation as a certain kind of life ordained and assigned by God. As for the first action, God ordains a calling when he prescribes and commands it in and through his Word. Callings and conditions of life that have no warrant from God’s Word are unlawful.

God ordains callings in his Word in two ways. First, he commands and prescribes them specifically, as he does the most important callings in the family, the Church, and the commonwealth. Second, he establishes general laws and commandments from which we can readily determine whether he approves of other callings, even though they are not specifically prescribed in the Word.

God’s second action, assigning callings, occurs when he sets a particular person apart for a particular calling. This must be understood to apply to all callings in the world. God does this in two ways. First, he acts directly, without the help of any creature. In this way Adam was called and appointed at the beginning to tend the garden of Eden (Gen 2:15). In this way Abraham was called away from his forefathers’ idolatry and received into the covenant of grace. In this way Moses was called to be a ruler over the Israelites and to lead them out of Egypt into the promised land. And in the New Testament, the apostles were called in this way to preach the gospel.

Second, God calls through intermediaries, either people or angels. Philip, who was a deacon, was called by an angel to be an evangelist (Acts 8:26). The established callings in Church and commonwealth are ordinarily assigned through people, who act in this matter as God’s instruments. Those lawfully called by them are therefore truly called by God. Thus the elders of Ephesus, called by the apostles and the rest of the Church, are said to have been called by the Holy Spirit (Acts 20:28). We have now seen how God is the author of every calling.

I identify the purpose or end of every calling in the definition’s last words: for the common good. This means the benefit and welfare of mankind. The human body has various parts and members, each with its own use and duty. Each performs that duty for the good of the whole body, rather than for itself. The eye’s duty is to see, the ear’s to hear, and the foot’s to walk. All human societies are likewise bodies. A family is a body, as is each particular church, and so is the commonwealth. These bodies have different members: people who follow different callings and offices. The performance of their duties must promote the happiness and welfare of the rest, indeed of all people everywhere, as far as possible.

The common good consists in people not merely living, but living well, in righteousness and holiness, and consequently in true happiness. To attain this end, God has ordained and arranged all callings and, in his providence, appointed the people who are to hold them. Here, then, we must recognize this general principle: whoever uses his calling for himself, seeking only his own advantage rather than the common good, abuses it by acting against its purpose. The common saying, “Every man for himself, and God for us all,” is wicked and directly opposes the purpose of every calling or honest way of life.

So much for the definition of vocation in general. Before I discuss the particular kinds of calling, everyone must learn two general rules that belong to every calling.

Whatever anyone undertakes or does, in word or deed, he must do by virtue of his calling and keep within its scope and limits. This rule is stated in the apostle’s words: “Let every man abide in that calling, wherein he was called” (1 Cor 7:20). Their purpose is to bind people to their callings and teach them to act in everything with the warrant of those callings.

We read, “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6), and, “Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin.” Whatever is done outside the scope of a calling is not done in faith. Before a person can act in faith, he must have some warrant from God’s Word assuring him that he is called to do this or that.

When two brothers who disputed their inheritance came to Christ and asked him to settle the matter, Christ answered, “Who made me a Judge or divider between you?” (Luke 12:14). It is as though he were saying, “This does not fall within my calling. I came to accomplish the work of mankind’s redemption, not to divide inheritances.” By this he teaches us that everything we do must have the warrant of some calling.

As long as people remain within their callings, they have God’s promise of protection: “He shall give his Angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways” (Ps 91:11). That is, God’s angels will preserve you as long as you keep within the ways of your calling.

David’s example deserves our attention. By depending on God’s providence and walking in his calling, he had God’s protection when Saul twice struck at him with a spear; when he was made captain over a thousand so that the Philistines might kill him (1 Sam 18:11, 13); when Michal was promised to him as his wife in return for a hundred Philistine foreskins; when Saul commanded his own servants to kill him (1 Sam 19:1); when Saul again struck at him with a spear; when Saul sought to seize him in his own house; when Saul followed him to Naioth in Ramah; when he was absent from Saul’s solemn feast; when the priests of Nob, eighty-five people, and all the place’s inhabitants were killed (1 Sam 21:18-19); and when Saul pursued him in the wilderness of Maon (1 Sam 23:25-26).

On the other hand, anyone who goes outside his calling goes out of the way. He thereby deprives himself of the Almighty’s protection and lies exposed and defenseless before all God’s punishments and plagues. If we pay careful attention, God’s Word plainly shows the dangers faced by those who act outside or against their callings.

Samson’s strength did not lie in his hair, as people commonly think. Rather, he stepped outside his calling by breaking his Nazirite vow when he gave Delilah the opportunity to cut off his hair, and therefore he lost his strength. God promised him strength, but commanded that he remain a Nazirite to the end (Judg 13:5).

When Saul was commanded to kill the Amalekites, he acted against his calling by sparing Agag out of foolish pity, along with the best things. Samuel therefore reproved him for rebellion against God, which was like the sin of witchcraft. For this very reason God rejected him as king over Israel (1 Sam 15:23).

Jonah, called to preach in Nineveh, tried to cast off God’s calling by fleeing. But when he reached the sea, a storm tossed him about, he was thrown out of the ship, and a fish God had prepared for this purpose swallowed him.

When Peter insisted on warming himself at the high priest’s fire, beyond the limits of his calling, it cost him a violation of his conscience. At the mere voice of a servant girl, he denied Christ with curses and imprecations.

The exorcists in Acts undertook, without a sufficient calling, to command evil spirits in Jesus’ name. Those same spirits overcame them, and they had to flee naked and wounded (Acts 19:16).

In a word, whatever judgments befall people, pay close attention to their timing and circumstances. It will be found that God’s hand brings them upon people when they have gone outside the callings he prescribed for them to keep. We must therefore always remember and carefully practice this rule: undertake nothing without first placing ourselves within the bounds of our callings.

2. Work Diligently in Your Calling

The second general rule we must remember is this: everyone must perform the duties of his calling diligently. Therefore Solomon says, “Whatsoever is in thine hand to do, do it with all thy power” (Eccl 9:10). Paul tells the person who rules to rule diligently, and everyone to attend to his office (Rom 12:8). Jeremiah says, “Cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord negligently” (Jer 48:10). What Christ says about the work of our redemption, “It is meat and drink for me to do my Father’s will” (John 4:33), everyone must likewise say about his particular calling.

There are two reasons for this diligence. First, God gives us gifts so that we may employ them in his service and for his glory in this life. Therefore Paul says, “Redeem the time,” and Christ says, “Walk whiles ye have light.” Again, “I must do his work while it is day.” We see tradespeople and travelers rise early to their business so that night does not overtake them.

Second, those who employ their gifts receive more, while those who do not employ them lose what they have. Labor in a calling is as precious as gold or silver. Therefore, under God’s law, anyone who maims another person and disables him from doing the work of his calling must compensate him for the value of his labor (Exod 21:19). Our people have a common saying to the same effect: “An occupation is as good as land.” Land may be lost, but skill and labor in a good occupation remain profitable to the end. They provide help in time of need, when land and everything else fail.

On the other hand, we must guard against two damnable sins opposed to this diligence. The first is idleness, by which the duties of our callings and opportunities to glorify God are neglected or omitted. The second is sloth, by which those duties are performed slackly and carelessly.

In the parable of the husbandman, God calls the idle into his vineyard, saying, “Why stand ye idle all the day?” (Matt 20:6). The servant who received only one talent is called an evil servant because he was slothful in using it: “Thou evil servant and slothful” (Matt 25:26). Paul gives the Thessalonians this rule: “He that would not labor, must not eat” (2 Thess 3:10). He also requires such a person to be identified by a letter as someone living in a disorderly way (2 Thess 3:14). By this he shows that sloth and negligence in the duties of our callings violate the fitting order God has established in human societies, both in Church and commonwealth.

Indeed, idleness and sloth cause many damnable sins. An idle body and an idle mind are the devil’s workshop. If the sea did not move, it could only become putrid. If the body is not stirred and exercised, it breeds diseases. The idle and slothful person is likewise a sea of corruption. When he is most idle, Satan is least idle, for then Satan is busiest drawing him into many sins.

So much for the two general rules.

We now turn to the parts and kinds of callings. They are of two sorts: general and particular. The general calling is the calling of Christianity, common to everyone who lives within God’s Church. The particular calling is the special calling belonging to particular people: the calling of a magistrate, minister, master, father, child, servant, subject, or any other calling common to all [meaning uncertain in the source]. Paul acknowledges this distinction between callings when he says, “Let every man abide in that calling, wherein he is called” (1 Cor 7:20). He means the particular and personal calling in which a person was called to become a Christian. We will consider these two kinds in order.

The general calling is that by which a person is called out of the world to become a child of God, a member of Christ, and an heir of the kingdom of heaven. This calling belongs to everyone within the Church, with no one excepted. Here I have good reason to discuss at length the calling of people to Christ and the Christian religion. But I will touch only on its chief duties, of which there are especially four.

1. Call on God in Christ

The first duty is to call on God’s name in Christ. When Saul obtained letters from the high priests to persecute the Church, Luke says that he received authority to “bind all that call upon the name of God” (Acts 9:14). Writing to the church at Corinth, Paul calls its members “Saints: and such as call on the name of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor 1:2). Through both passages the Holy Spirit teaches us that calling on God is a chief duty every Christian must continually perform. It includes both prayer and thanksgiving in the name and mediation of Jesus Christ. Indeed, this action distinguishes and separates a Christian from all other kinds of people in the world who lay claim to devotion or religion.

This shows that although everyone desires to bear the Christian name and take up this general calling, very few are truly sound Christians. Not one in a hundred can rightly call on God’s name. They can repeat the words of prayer, but they lack the spirit of grace and supplication by which they should ask for grace in Christ’s name and give thanks for benefits received. Thus many outwardly bear Christ’s name but lack its power. More than this, the prophet David makes failure to call on God’s name a distinguishing mark of the atheist who “saith in his heart there is no God” (Ps 14:9).

2. Further the Good of the Church

The second duty is to promote the welfare of God’s true Church as far as we possibly can. This is principally the minister’s duty, yet it also belongs to everyone. In the human body, the eye by seeing, the ear by hearing, the tongue by speaking, and every part by its proper function further the good of the whole body. In the same way, all who are called to be members of Christ must do everything in their power to promote the good of Christ’s whole mystical body.

Speaking in the name of the whole Church, David says, “I will procure thy wealth, and pray for the peace of Jerusalem, they shall prosper that love thee” (Ps 122:69). After humbling himself for the two grievous sins of adultery and murder, he ends by praying that God would build Jerusalem’s walls (Ps 51:18).

To build the tabernacle, the Jews brought voluntary offerings according to their ability. Some brought gold and precious stones; others brought silver and silk. Those who had nothing better brought rams’ skins and badgers’ skins. In the same way, every Christian must bring a voluntary offering to build God’s Church, his spiritual tabernacle. Each must do something, to the utmost of his power, to build God’s Church, however humble his service may be. As I have said, people foolishly imagine that this duty belongs exclusively to ministers of the Word. In truth, it belongs to everyone who professes to be a member of Christ’s body. As a member, each must do as much as he can to promote and advance the good of the whole.

We must therefore consider the means by which this duty may be performed. There are especially three.

(1) Prayer

The first means is prayer, not only for ourselves, but for the welfare of God’s whole Church on earth. Christ spoke to this effect when he saw the Jews like scattered sheep without a shepherd. He told his disciples, “Pray to the Lord of the harvest, that he would thrust forth laborers into the harvest” (Matt 9:38).

In the prayer commonly called the Lord’s Prayer, we are taught to say, “Let thy kingdom come.” Here the kingdom means both the kingdom of glory in heaven and the kingdom of grace, which is the happy and blessed condition of God’s Church on earth. Therefore Paul tells the Thessalonians to pray that God’s Word may have free passage and be glorified (2 Thess 3:1).

(2) Building Up the Church

The second means is the work of building up the Church. Paul commands the Thessalonians, “Edify one another” (1 Thess 5:11), and Jude says, “Edify your selves upon your most holy faith” (Jude 20).

God’s Church is a temple made without hands. Christ is its foundation, and every member of Christ, together with all who belong to God’s election, are living stones. Pastors and teachers are its principal builders, but all Christians are builders too.

The situation is like the building of the physical temple. Its principal builders cut and laid stones and produced intricate workmanship. Besides them, many others could neither cut nor shape the materials, yet helped the building work by carrying loads or making mortar. So it is in building God’s spiritual Church. Not everyone can square stones like a mason or build as a minister does. Yet everyone belonging to God’s Church, without exception, must lend a helping hand to advance this building.

This can be done in two ways. First, we must use every good means to draw our relatives, friends, and neighbors to love and obey true religion. Paul sets this duty before the Corinthians through his own example: “He pleased all men in all things, not seeking his own profit, but the profit of many, that they might be saved” (1 Cor 10:33). Second, we must strengthen those already called through frequent admonitions, exhortations, consolations, and every similar duty serving this end. Through these duties even the humblest person in God’s Church may build it up.

Here I have good reason to complain that this duty is neglected. In this barren and fruitless age of the world, people are so far from building up the Church that they use every means to tear it down instead. Anyone who merely sets himself to learn the duties of religion and to live according to them in some measure becomes an object of mockery, a byword, and a spectacle among the common people. This shows that the practice of building up the Church lies dead, although our general calling binds us to it.

(3) Giving Material Support

The third means of promoting the good of God’s Church is to contribute the temporal blessings God has given us, according to our ability, for its benefit. “Honor God with thy riches,” says Solomon (Prov 3:9). We do this especially when we use them to maintain and advance true religion and the worship of God. God has given riches for other purposes, but this is the chief one.

Yet, alas, those who bear Christ’s name practice this duty very little. Many richer people spend a large part of their income on hawks, bulls, bears, and dogs, or waste it extravagantly on sports and gaming. They thus make themselves unable to do the good they should for God’s Church. People of humbler means now spend their earnings on fine clothes and lavish food, and God’s house receives less attention as a result. Every common person must now appear to be a gentleman. Sometimes a stranger can hardly distinguish the master from the servant. Excess is so great at every social level that the noblest now dress most plainly in their daily clothing.

To this duty I may also add that, by virtue of his general calling, every Christian parent should, as far as possible, dedicate some of his sons to service in the ministry, provided they have the natural gifts and inclinations suited to that calling. Hannah’s example may guide us here: she consecrated Samuel, her firstborn, to the Lord beforehand. By this means the ministry will continue, God’s Church and religion will be maintained, and his gospel will be proclaimed from age to age until the world’s end.

3. Serve Others in Love

The third general duty of Christianity is that everyone should become his brother’s servant in all the duties of love. A Christian is the freest person in the world. As God’s child in Christ, he is truly freed from hell, death, and condemnation, and even in this life he is partly freed from sin and Satan. Yet for all this, he must be everyone’s servant. How? By performing every duty of love as opportunity arises, for the common good of all people.

Pay close attention to Paul’s words: “Though I be free from all men, yet have I made my self servant to all, that I might win the more” (1 Cor 9:19). If someone says that this duty belongs to an apostle, I answer that Paul commands it equally of everyone: “Do ye service one to another in love” (Gal 5:13). For this reason God’s servants are called “trees of righteousness,” whose leaves serve as medicine and whose fruit serves as food for others, rather than for themselves. In the fear of God, then, let us take care to learn this duty. Its practice is the special ornament of Christ’s holy gospel.

4. Walk Worthy of Your Calling

Paul states the last general duty: “Walk worthy that calling whereto God hath called you” (Eph 4:1). Again, he tells servants to behave toward their masters in a way that adorns God’s gospel in everything (Titus 2:10). In the words that follow, he explains how people may adorn religion through their profession: by “denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,” and by living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. In a word, the Christian calling is the most excellent calling in the world. The person who walks worthy of it keeps a good conscience before God and is blameless before all people.

I commend this duty to everyone’s meditation and practice. We were once baptized, and in baptism we pledged ourselves to God and Christ. We are willing to hear the Word and receive the Lord’s Supper as a pledge of his mercy and love. We must therefore live as people to whom God’s mercy and love belong.

Christ pronounces “woe to them that give offence” (Matt 18:7). Indeed, it would be better for someone to be as far beneath the earth as he now stands above it than to disgrace God’s name by a wicked and undisciplined life while professing to be his servant. As Christ says, “It were better a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were thrown into the bottom of the sea.”

David prays, “Lord, take from me rebuke and shame, which I do fear, because thy judgments are good” (Ps 119:39). In the same way, we must pray, “Lord, take rebuke and shame from me, for your gospel is good.”

To walk worthy of this calling at all times, we must first depend by faith on God’s providence and mercy at all times. Second, we must turn to him daily by continually renewing our repentance. Third, we must strive to render new obedience to all his commandments.

The Particular Calling

So much for the general calling, common to everyone as Christians. Now follows the second kind of calling, the personal or particular calling. A personal calling is the exercise of a particular office arising from the distinctions God makes between people in every society.

First, I describe it as the exercise of a particular office. For example, a magistrate’s calling is to exercise the office of governing his subjects. A minister’s office is to perform the duty of teaching his people. A master’s calling is to exercise authority and government over his servants. A physician’s office is to put into practice good means of preserving life and health. In a word, in every station, the practice and performance of the particular office in which someone is placed constitute his personal calling.

Second, I add that it arises from the distinctions God makes between people in every society. This shows the foundation and ground of all personal callings. We should consider this point, which I explain as follows. In his Word, God has ordained human society in the commonwealth, the Church, and the family. It is not his will that a person should live alone, apart from others. To maintain society, he has ordained a bond linking people together, which Paul calls “the bond of peace, and the bond of perfection,” namely, love (Phil 3:14).

Although God has ordained societies and the bond joining them all, he has also appointed that distinctions should remain between people, both as individuals and in other respects. The whole body is neither the hand, nor the foot, nor the eye. The hand is one part, the foot another, and the eye another. Although the parts are linked together, distinctions remain between the members. Thus the hand is the hand rather than the foot, and the foot is the foot rather than the hand or eye. So it is in societies. Their members are distinguished in two respects.

First, they are distinguished by the inward gifts God bestows on each person. According to his good pleasure, he gives different people different gifts. Paul discusses this distinction of inward gifts throughout 1 Corinthians 12, showing the diversity of gifts God bestows on his Church, and proportionately in every society. Just as people’s inward gifts differ, their persons are correspondingly distinguished within their societies.

Second, people are distinguished by order. God has appointed that in every society one person should be above or below another. He has not made everyone equal, as though the body were all head and nothing else. He has established distinctions of degree and order, placing one above another (Rom 13:7; 1 Pet 2:13-14).

Personal callings arise from these distinctions between people, partly in gifts and partly in order. If everyone had the same gifts and occupied the same degree and order, everyone would have the same calling. But because God gives a diversity of inward gifts and outward distinctions of order, different personal callings result. This is why I added that personal callings arise from the distinctions God makes between people in every society.

We have now seen what a personal calling is. Before I discuss its kinds, there are further general rules to learn that concern all personal callings.

1. Everyone Must Have a Calling

Every person, of every degree, station, sex, or condition, without exception, must have some personal and particular calling to follow. This appears plainly throughout God’s Word. As soon as Adam was created, even in his unfallen state, God assigned him a personal calling: to tend and keep the garden. After Adam’s fall, the Lord gave him and all his descendants a particular command binding everyone to follow some calling in the Church or commonwealth: “In the sweat of thy brows shalt thou eat thy bread” (Gen 3:19).

Again, when the law was renewed at Mount Sinai, the fourth commandment did more than permit labor for six days. As I understand it, it also commands such labor of us all. God’s example is set before us to follow. Just as he rested on the seventh day, so must we. Consequently, just as he spent six days in the work of creation, so should we spend six days in our personal callings.

Paul gives this rule: “Let him that stole steal no more, but let him rather work with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth” (Eph 4:28). Christ, the head of mankind, lived with Joseph in the calling of a carpenter until his baptism. This was why the Jews said, “Is not this the carpenter the son of Mary?” (Mark 6:3). After he was baptized and, as it were, solemnly admitted to the office of Mediator, the work of our redemption became his calling, in which he both lived and died. Even God’s angels have particular callings, in that they perform his “commandments in obeying the voice of his word” (Ps 103:26). All Adam’s descendants must therefore have some calling to follow, public or private, in the Church, commonwealth, or family.

We may learn several lessons from this. First, it is a grave disorder for any commonwealth to tolerate rogues, beggars, and vagabonds. Such people commonly belong to no civil society or corporate body and to no particular church. They are like rotten legs and arms dropping from the body. Wandering from place to place, year after year, merely to seek bodily sustenance is no calling, but the life of a beast. It is therefore a condition of life directly opposed to the rule that everyone must have a particular calling. Thus the statute made in the last Parliament to restrain beggars and rogues is an excellent statute. Since it is in substance the very law of God, it should never be repealed.

Again, this overturns the way of life of monks and friars, who claim to live in a state of perfection because they live apart from human societies in fasting and prayer. On the contrary, this monastic way of living is damnable. Besides the general duties of fasting and prayer, which belong to all Christians, everyone must have a particular and personal calling so that he may be a good and useful member of some society and body. The ancient Church condemned as thieves and robbers all monks who, besides the general duties of prayer and fasting, did not also employ themselves in some other calling to provide better for their maintenance.

Third, we learn that the condition of people who possess great estates and revenues yet spend their days eating and drinking, in sports and pastimes, without serving Church or commonwealth, is miserable and damnable. Some may think such gentlemen lead happy lives. The truth is far otherwise. Everyone, rich or poor, man or woman, is bound to have a personal calling in which to perform duties for the common good, according to the measure of gifts God has bestowed.

Fourth, this also requires those we commonly call serving men to have some particular calling besides attending their masters, unless they attend people of great rank and standing. Merely waiting and giving attendance is not a sufficient calling, as common experience shows. Attendants spend most of their time eating and drinking, sleeping and gaming after dinner and supper, and so prove to be among the least useful members of Church and commonwealth. When their good masters die, or they are dismissed for misconduct, they are fit for no calling because they are unable to work. They therefore turn to begging or stealing.

The attendant of Cornelius the centurion was also a soldier by calling (Acts 10:7). We should wish that gentlemen today would choose servants who could both attend them personally and perform some other suitable duty. It is good for everyone to have two strings to his bow.

2. Regard Your Calling as Best for You

Everyone must judge the particular calling in which God has placed him to be the best of all callings for him. I mean best for him, rather than best without qualification. Paul’s example sets this rule before us: “I have learned,” he says, “in whatsoever state I am, to be content and well pleased” (Phil 4:11).

Practicing this duty supports and underpins the welfare of both Church and commonwealth. It keeps everyone in his own position, working diligently within his calling. But when we begin to dislike God’s wise arrangement and think other people’s callings better for us than our own, confusion and disorder follow in every society.

Absalom, a son and subject of King David, was dissatisfied with his station and sought his father’s kingdom, saying, “O that I were judge among you” (2 Sam 15:4-5). Many conflicts and disturbances followed in the Jewish commonwealth throughout his days.

The sons of Zebedee were not content with their calling as disciples. Inflamed with a desire for honor and dignity, they sought the two chief offices in Christ’s kingdom, which they imagined would be a civil and worldly kingdom. Envy and resentment arose among the disciples as a result. Further evils would have followed if our Savior’s wisdom had not stopped them.

The bishops of the Church of Rome, dissatisfied with their ecclesiastical station, aspired to the honor of the empire. By this means they brought havoc and ruin upon the whole Church. Indeed, the very first family in the world felt the pain of this evil. Cain killed his brother Abel because he feared losing his primacy, by which he was to become priest, prophet, and ruler in Adam’s household after Adam’s death (Gen 4:5, 8).

This may well be gathered from the words of the text. When Cain began to grow angry, the Lord said, “If thou dost well, there is remission; if not, sin lies at the door” (Gen 4:7). Cain might perhaps have replied, “This is good, but my grievance remains: I must lose my right and dignity.” God answers this in the next words: “And his appetite shall be to thee, and thou shalt rule over him” (Gen 4:7). That is, if Cain does well.

Throughout history, the greatest conflicts in God’s Church have flowed from this source. The same is true in the commonwealth. Treachery, treason, and sedition arise when people are dissatisfied with their station and honors and seek higher positions. When disappointed, they grow discontented and proceed to every kind of mischief.

In a word, Church and commonwealth flourish when everyone keeps to his own calling. This will certainly happen if we consider what our callings are, recognize that God has placed us in them, and therefore judge them to be the best callings for us.

3. Join Your Two Callings

Everyone must join the practice of his personal calling to the practice of the general Christian calling already described. More plainly, every particular calling must be practiced within and together with the general calling of a Christian. It is not enough to be a Christian in the congregation and in ordinary dealings with others. A person must show himself to be a Christian in his particular calling itself.

For example, a magistrate must be a Christian both in the general sense required of everyone and in his specific work as a magistrate, exercising his office and bearing the sword. The head of a household must be a Christian when he is out in the town, in the congregation, and before strangers, and also in governing his own family, toward his wife, children, and servants. It is not enough for a woman to appear virtuous before strangers. Her virtue must also show itself privately in submission and obedience to her own husband. A schoolmaster must be a Christian both in the assembly, when he hears the Word and receives the sacraments, and in his work of teaching.

Everyone must behave this way in his particular calling. A particular calling and the practice of its duties, separated from the general Christian calling, are nothing but the practice of injustice and ungodliness. The general Christian calling, without the practice of a particular calling, is merely the form of godliness without its power. The two callings must therefore be joined as body and soul are joined in a living person.

To join our two callings more effectively, we must consider our life’s chief end: to serve God by serving people through the work of our callings. Just as God made mankind, he can preserve people without human help. Yet he chooses that people should be his instruments for one another’s good. For this reason he ordained the excellent offices of magistrates and ministers, and an almost infinite variety of occupations, all tending to preserve body or soul or both. God thus shows his fatherly care for us by employing people in his service, according to their different callings, for our good. Even a vassal or bondman must serve God by serving his master, as Paul teaches (Col 3:28).

From this one point we may learn two things. First, people profane their lives and callings when they use them to obtain honors, pleasures, profits, worldly advantages, and the like. In doing so, we live for an end other than the one God appointed. We serve ourselves and consequently serve neither God nor others.

Someone may perhaps ask, “Must we not work in our callings to provide for our families?” I answer: certainly we must. But this is not our life’s ultimate purpose. The true end of our lives is to serve God by serving people. As recompense for this service, God sends his blessings upon people’s labor and permits them to receive payment for their work.

Second, we learn how people of humble station and calling may comfort themselves. Let them consider that in serving people through poor and lowly duties, they serve God. Their service is therefore not lowly in his sight. Though their reward from people may be small, God’s reward will not be lacking. Since they serve God by serving people, they may rightly expect a reward from both. We may thus find wonderful contentment in any calling, even sweeping a house or tending sheep, if we unite our callings in practice in this way.

By this rule anyone may rightly judge himself and others. Wherever these two callings are separated, whatever the outward appearance may be, there is no substance. It also reveals a common fault in many people’s lives. They readily and willingly hear God’s Word, approve it, receive the sacraments, and profess to be members of Christ. These are all good duties of the first and general calling. But go further and examine their particular callings, and you will find quite the opposite: everything is out of order. Some are usurers and oppressors. Some buy up goods to control their supply. Some use false weights and measures; some lie and swear; some are immoral and lustful.

Such people may assure themselves that all is well because they perform some duties of their general calling. Yet because they neglect those duties in their particular callings, their lives are gravely disordered. Indeed, they follow a dangerous and lamentable course. They may possess excellent gifts, speak well, compose prayers, and hear the Word and receive the sacraments with some reverence. But if they do not practice godliness within their own callings, it is all hypocrisy. Unless they repent, the greater their gifts, the more those gifts will contribute to their deeper condemnation on the day of judgment.

Again, this rule teaches everyone the right way to reform their lives. If you wish to lead a blameless life before God and others, first consider your particular calling. Then practice the duties of the moral law and all other Christian duties within that very calling. If you want signs and evidence of your election and salvation, you must find them in the constant practice of your two callings together. Separate them in your life, and you will find no comfort, but shame and disgrace, unless you repent.

4. Reform Your Private Life First

Those who hold public callings must first reform themselves in private. When Moses went from Midian to Egypt to become governor of the Israelites, the Lord opposed him on the way because of a fault in his own household: his child had not been circumcised according to God’s law. How can someone manage public affairs for the common good if he cannot manage his own private affairs?

5. Give Priority to Your Christian Calling

A particular calling must give way to the general calling of a Christian when the two cannot be maintained together. Consider this example. A servant is bound to obey his master, either because he is a bondman or at least because he is hired to serve for wages. The master is a zealous Roman Catholic, and the servant is a Protestant. The master threatens that unless the servant agrees to attend Mass, he must either burn at the stake or carry a bundle of firewood as a religious penalty.

Seeing his master’s malicious intention, and finding himself unable to bear the ordeal of a trial, the servant leaves and withdraws for a time. The question is whether he acts rightly. The answer is that he does. In such a case he may lawfully flee from his master.

A servant bound by his personal calling to an earthly master is also bound to God by his general calling. Every person’s particular calling is subordinate to the general Christian calling. When the two cannot be maintained together, the particular must give way. We are bound to God first, and to people under God, only so far as we can also preserve our bond with God.

So much for the five general rules to be practiced in every particular calling.

To proceed, personal callings are of two sorts. The first includes those essential to a society’s foundation and existence, without which that society cannot exist. In a family, these are the callings of master and servant, husband and wife, parents and children. In the commonwealth, they are the callings of magistrates and subjects. In the Church, they are the callings of minister and people.

The second sort includes all callings that serve the welfare, happiness, and peace of a society. These are of various kinds. Some preserve human life, such as the callings of farmer, merchant, and others. Some preserve health, such as the callings of physician and surgeon. Some serve outward peace, such as the callings of soldier and lawyer. Some provide clothing and attire for the body, and these are almost as numerous as the body’s parts. Others serve in building, such as the callings of carpenter and mason.

In a word, as many things as are necessary for a society’s welfare, so many personal callings exist that serve its good rather than constituting its essential being. Every lawful personal calling can be referred to one of these two kinds. So much for callings in general and their kinds.

The third and most important point to consider is how everyone may carry out their calling in a good and holy way. Always remember that I am speaking only of ordinary, personal callings, not extraordinary callings or the general calling of a Christian. This subject matters greatly. When a calling is carried out rightly, its duties become good works, even though those duties may be humble and lowly in themselves.

A good work requires three things: first, it must be done in obedience; second, in faith; and third, it must be directed toward God’s glory. Now, when the duties of any calling are performed in a holy way, they are done in faith and obedience and serve God’s glory greatly, however lowly the calling may be.

Take a shepherd, for example. His calling has a humble and lowly status, and its duties correspond to that status. Yet if he has grace to carry out that calling rightly, its duties are good works before God. He performs them with a conscientious desire to obey God, for God’s glory and his master’s good. The lowly status of the calling does not diminish the goodness of the work. God looks at the worker’s heart rather than the distinction of the work. A shepherd’s work of keeping sheep, performed as I have described, is in its own kind as good a work before God as a judge’s passing sentence, a magistrate’s governing, or a minister’s preaching.

We see, then, that we have good reason to investigate how everyone should rightly carry out their particular calling. Four things must be considered and done in the right use of any calling: 1. choosing a calling well; 2. entering it well; 3. continuing in it well; and 4. leaving it in an honorable and good way.

For the first point, choosing our callings, we must remember and follow three particular rules.

1. Choose a Lawful Calling

We must choose morally upright and lawful callings to pursue. Paul says, “Let him that stole steal no more: but let him rather labour and work with his hands, the thing that is good” (Eph 4:28). Here the Holy Spirit instructs us to choose morally upright callings. Moreover, all the duties of our callings must be done in faith, and there can be no faith unless the calling is morally upright.

For better guidance in choosing such a calling, we must observe this general principle. Every calling that serves to uphold and maintain the three distinct orders of society, namely the Church, the commonwealth, or the family, rests on the moral law. It is therefore lawful and may consequently be held, practiced, and enjoyed with a good conscience. Conversely, if a calling harms any of these three orders, either as a whole or in any part, it is unlawful.

2. Choose a Suitable Calling

Everyone must choose a suitable calling to pursue. The calling must fit the person, and the person must fit the calling. This rule is as necessary as the first. When people occupy callings that are unsuitable for them in any society, it is like a joint being out of place in the body.

In choosing callings, we must consider two groups: adults and children. Adults choose suitable callings for themselves by testing, judging, and examining what they are suited and able to do, and what they are not. Everyone must examine two things: first, their inclination; second, their gifts. Regarding inclination, they must consider what desire they have for a calling and in which calling they most desire to glorify God. Regarding gifts, they must examine which calling their abilities best suit.

After examining both inclination and gifts, a person may find that both point together toward the same calling. They may then say that this is their calling, because they prefer it and are in every way best suited to it. For example, someone educated in schools of learning wants to know what his calling should be. He examines his inclination or desire and finds that it points most strongly toward the ministry of the gospel. He also examines his gifts and finds that his knowledge and ability to speak are suited to it. Such a person may safely say that the ministry is the calling for which he is set apart. Others may reach the same conclusion about themselves in other callings.

Yet many people judge their own inclinations and gifts with partiality. The best course is therefore to seek advice and help from others who can guide them and judge these matters better than they can themselves.

As for children, parents have a duty to choose suitable callings for them before directing them toward any particular station in life. To judge more accurately which callings suit their children, parents must observe two things: first, their inclinations; second, their natural gifts.

Regarding inclination, every child, even in the earliest years, favors one particular calling over another. Some are more drawn to music, some to trade, and some to liberal learning; one prefers this, another that. From this, parents can form some judgment of their children’s inclinations and promise. The Athenians followed this practice. Before placing their children in a calling, they brought them to a public place where instruments of every kind were laid out. They observed which kind of instrument delighted each child and afterward directed the child toward the corresponding art, with good results. Christians would do well to follow the heathen in this or any other commendable practice.

Second, the natural gifts parents must observe in their children belong either to the body or to the mind. Children who excel in bodily gifts should be trained for callings carried out through physical labor, such as manual trades. Those who excel in gifts of mind should be directed toward fields of knowledge practiced through understanding and learning.

The signs of a child suited to learning are a love of learning, a love of work, a love of praise, and an intellect neither too quick nor too dull. An excessively sharp intellect in a child is like a penknife that cannot slice a large loaf but serves only to cut a quill.

We must also notice an important distinction among gifts of mind. There are two kinds of understanding: active and passive. Active understanding not only grasps things invented by others but can also invent things for itself. Passive understanding grasps things devised by others but can invent things for itself only with great difficulty. Everyone, young and old, has one of these kinds of understanding. Children who excel in active understanding should be set apart for the greatest callings in the Church and commonwealth.

The philosopher Democritus chose Protagoras as his pupil because he showed intelligence in skillfully tying a bundle of sticks. Athanasius, the famous bishop, was first put to learning because he was found by the seashore acting as a minister among a group of children like himself. He examined and baptized them according to the solemn order used in the congregation. Origen, the famous scholar, used to question his father Leonidas about the meaning of Scripture when he was a child. He also asked tradesmen about the reasons for things and the use of their tools and instruments. These examples show, to some extent, how parents may judge which calling suits each child.

All parents must be warned here that neglecting this duty is a great and common sin. Most care only that their children can earn a living. They give no thought to whether their children live well and serve God in a suitable calling. In truth, parents can do no greater wrong to their children and human society than to direct them toward unsuitable callings. This happens when they put a child suited to learning into a trade or some other bodily service, or, conversely, put a child best suited to a trade into learning. It is like using toes to feel instead of fingers, walking on hands instead of feet, and putting the body’s members out of their proper places. This is the second rule.

3. Choose the Best Suitable Calling

Anyone suited to several callings must choose the best. Paul plainly teaches this in the next verse of this chapter: “Art thou called, being a servant? care not for it; but if thou mayest be free, choose it rather” (1 Cor 7:21). Here he advises that a bondservant who has the choice of freedom should accept it rather than remain in bondage.

Again, Paul tells the Corinthians to desire spiritual gifts, “especially that they may prophesy” (1 Cor 14:1). Here he gives us this rule: in choosing gifts, we must strive for the best. If we must seek the best gifts, then, by the same reasoning, we must seek the best callings.

This provides a particular rule for all young students in universities. Those educated in the schools of the prophets want to know which particular calling is best for them, since they are free to become schoolteachers, physicians, lawyers, or ministers of God’s Word. According to this general rule, Paul shows that they must choose the best calling. If their gifts are sufficient, they should give first place to the calling of a prophet or teacher and choose it above all others. Learned professions must have the first place. So much for choosing a calling.

Once we have chosen a calling, we must consider how to enter it well. Several points about entering a calling require examination. The first concerns the manner of entry. Everyone must enter in such a way that they can truthfully say in conscience, “God has placed me in this calling,” however lowly the calling may be.

Thus Paul says, “As God hath called every man, so let him walk” (1 Cor 7:17). Christ our Savior did not publicly undertake the office of Mediator until he was baptized. At his baptism, his Father’s voice from heaven called him to it, saying, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” Immediately afterward he began to teach and preach and to show himself to be the true Messiah by performing the duties of a king, priest, and prophet.

Since Adam’s fall, no calling on earth has been free from afflictions and troubles. Yet sufficient comfort eases them when our conscience can tell us that God himself placed us in our callings. When our conscience cannot say this, that comfort is gone.

To know certainly that God has called us to a particular calling, we must have two things: gifts for the calling from God, and authorization from people. First, God gives those he calls adequate and suitable gifts, such as knowledge, understanding, skill for particular tasks, and the like. Through these gifts he enables them to perform the duties of their callings. Conversely, those who enter a calling while wholly unable to perform its duties were never called by God.

Second, people must be set apart for their particular callings by the appointment of those whom God has left on earth as his instruments to order and assign callings. God has deputies to allot people their offices in every society. Parents and masters direct the people in private households (Num 30); church governors appoint people to ecclesiastical callings; magistrates and others in authority in the commonwealth appoint them to civil callings. Anyone who would truthfully say that God has placed him in a particular calling must also have this outward calling from people.

Remember here that appointments to all callings, especially public ones, should involve testing of gifts and impartial selection. In the early Church, not even deacons were admitted without proper and sufficient testing (1 Tim 3:10).

Several abuses must therefore be rebuked. The first is buying, selling, trading, and exchanging civil offices. Where a calling is put up for sale, little or no testing or selection takes place. Someone who buys an office must say that his money called him rather than God. Those who save money to buy offices had better take warning beforehand. The saying is true: “He that buys the seat must sell justice.” Where justice is sold, the poor are oppressed, and everything falls into ruin.

The same applies to selling church benefices that carry responsibility for the pastoral care of souls, and indeed to distributing and granting them indiscriminately. Buying or selling church benefices is not, strictly speaking, Simon’s sin, for he sought to obtain the gifts of the Holy Spirit with money. Nevertheless, this buying is a grievous sin, directly contrary to the order God has established for entering any calling.

Even the heathen complained that such trading and exchanging of positions ruined states and commonwealths. The emperor Alexander Severus says, “It is necessary that he who buys must sell. I will not allow buyers and sellers of offices: if I allow them, it is because I cannot condemn such. For I am ashamed to punish him that buys and sells.” Seneca says, “This buying is the spoiling of provinces,” and adds, “He who buys must necessarily sell.” Justinian complains that his dominions “are robbed and plundered, because men take gold for offices,” and he strictly forbids the practice.

So much for entering a calling in general. Certain questions about it now follow.

Question 1: The Calling of the First Reformers

If, as I have said, those who enter any calling, especially a public one, must first be equipped with gifts from God and then set apart by people after proper testing and examination, we must examine a question the Papists commonly raise. What calling did the first preachers of the gospel and founders of our Church have? This question needs an answer. If they had no calling, neither do we who follow them.

I give two answers.

(1) Their Existing Callings

They received from the Roman Church itself the callings by which they restored Christ’s gospel. They were either priests or teachers in the schools: Wycliffe in England, Luther in Germany, John Hus and Jerome of Prague in Bohemia, Oecolampadius at Basel, Peter Martyr in Italy, and others. These and many others were ordained either in Popish churches or in schools. There they were solemnly bound by oath to perform the duties of their callings with a good conscience, refuting error and maintaining the ancient apostolic faith. Therefore, if this calling has any weight in silencing our opponents, we say that the first restorers of the gospel in our times received their original callings from them.

Objection: These men all broke their oaths by preaching against the Church of Rome, to which they had sworn allegiance.

Answer: By their ordination oaths, they were bound only to the catholic and apostolic Church, not to the present Church of Rome. The words “the Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome,” which now appear in the oath’s wording, were not so strictly used in former times. They have been pressed more strongly only in recent times.

(2) Extraordinary Calling in Some Respect

My second answer is that many of them had callings that were extraordinary in some respect. I say “in some respect” because I distinguish the teaching office from its exercise. Their office was ordinary. Their exercise of that office in purifying and restoring true religion was extraordinary, however. It was extraordinary in relation to the abuse of God’s order in the Roman Church, rather than in relation to the true order God had established in his Word.

I explain it this way. God calls people extraordinarily when he does not bind himself to the ordinary laws of calling laid down in his Word. He does this in three ways. First, he calls by his own immediate voice. This was how Abraham was called, and Moses at the bush. All Christ’s apostles were called immediately in this way, as was Paul after Christ’s ascension. Second, God calls extraordinarily through the ministry of his creatures. Elisha was called by Elijah (1 Kgs 19), Aaron by Moses, and Philip by an angel’s message to baptize the eunuch (Acts 8:26). Third, God calls through a special prompting and extraordinary inspiration of the Spirit.

We have examples of this third way in God’s Word. Philip, whose first calling was to be a deacon, went to Samaria, preached the gospel, and first established God’s Church there. He did not receive this calling from the apostles, for they did not know of his preaching (Acts 8:14). Nor should we think that he undertook this work on his own initiative. In all likelihood, therefore, he was called by a special prompting of God’s Spirit.

Again, when the Church at Jerusalem was scattered, men from Cyprus and Cyrene came to Antioch without any outward calling and preached there (Acts 11:20). They undoubtedly did so through the prompting of the Holy Spirit, as appears from the fact that God’s hand was with them. I say the same of Luther and the rest. A special prompting of God’s Spirit stirred them and moved them to restore the gospel to its former purity, as they did.

Objection: Some will say that this teaching opens the door to all heretics and deceivers. They too may claim extraordinary promptings and so mislead and deceive God’s people.

Answer: Certain distinctive signs enable us to distinguish an extraordinary calling from the devil’s illusions, through which he enlists heretics to deceive the world.

[1] Failure of Ordinary Calling

Extraordinary calling has no place unless ordinary calling fails. There are two particular occasions when God calls people extraordinarily. The first is the founding and planting of the Church. For this reason the apostles and evangelists were called extraordinarily. The second is when God’s Church has been disfigured and universal apostasy prevails. Then there is no place for ordinary calling, so God calls people extraordinarily to restore the Church to its former condition.

We cannot expect the reform of a brothel to come from those who live in it unless the circumstances are extraordinary. We must think the same of reforming a heretical and apostate Church, as the Church of Rome undoubtedly is.

[2] Apostolic Doctrine

We can recognize those who are extraordinarily called by the doctrine they teach. It must be the very doctrine of the prophets and apostles. Anyone who claims an extraordinary calling but brings another doctrine has been deceived by the devil, rather than called by God. Thus Moses taught us to judge true and false prophets by their doctrine rather than their miracles (Deut 13:3).

When the scribes and Pharisees asked Christ by what authority he did these things, he answered with a similar question. Was John’s baptism, meaning his ministry and doctrine, from God or not (Luke 20:4)? If his doctrine was from God, then so was his calling. Consequently, Christ’s calling was also from God, because John’s office was to testify about him.

[3] Life and Conduct

They can also be recognized by their lives and conduct. Christ foretold that false prophets would come in sheep’s clothing while inwardly being ravening wolves (Matt 7:15). How, then, will we recognize them? The answer is by their fruits: by their lives as well as their doctrine. Their office is to teach by example as well as by doctrine.

God gave the men he called to restore the gospel integrity of heart and life along with sound judgment. In mercy, the Lord joined these together to confirm the truth of their calling. Anyone who teaches sound doctrine but produces fruits contrary to it is, in that respect, a false prophet, however true his doctrine may be.

[4] Exceptional Gifts

God equips those he calls extraordinarily with gifts beyond the ordinary measure: knowledge, zeal, wisdom, steadfastness, courage, and other gifts that serve the duties of extraordinary callings. We find this true of the first ministers of the gospel, especially Luther. God notably armed him with boldness and courage to withstand the whole Church of Rome.

In our age, some upstarts have claimed to be Elijah, John the Baptist, and Christ. This last sign has exposed them. When their gifts were examined, they proved far inferior to those of many ordinary people.

If we put all these signs together, it will readily appear that at least some of the first preachers of the gospel in this last age may truly be said to have received extraordinary callings from God. First, they preached at a time when no appearance of a true Church could be seen and a general apostasy had spread over the world. Second, they renewed the very doctrine of the apostles and prophets. Third, they adorned their doctrine with godly lives and conduct. Finally, all or most of them were richly equipped with sufficient knowledge, wisdom, zeal, and courage to carry out their callings and professions.

Objection: The Papists say there was nothing extraordinary about these men because they could not confirm their doctrine by miracles.

Answer: First, their doctrine did not then need confirmation by miracles. When it was first proclaimed, the miracles performed by the prophets and apostles had sufficiently confirmed it. Second, extraordinary men do not always confirm their callings by miracles. John the Baptist and various Old Testament prophets never performed any miracles. Third, the gift of working a miracle may be given to an enemy of God and his Church. Even the greater gift of prophecy may be given to such a person. Balaam and Caiaphas both prophesied, yet they were declared enemies of Christ and his Church. Moses plainly says that false prophets coming among the people would perform miracles to test them (Deut 13:2). Working a miracle, therefore, does not always confirm an extraordinary calling.

Question 2: An Improper Entrance

The second question is this: if someone enters a lawful calling with an evil intention and by evil means, what should be done?

Answer: He should not abandon his position. Instead, he should repent of entering it wrongly and perform its duties diligently and with a good conscience. He should then await further approval from both God and people. Once he has obtained this in some measure, he may continue in his calling with a good conscience. Subsequent approval and acceptance remedy the defect in his entrance, though they do not justify that wrongful entrance.

A prince, such as William the Conqueror, enters a land or kingdom and seeks through war and bloodshed to subdue its people and make them his subjects. This wrongful entrance does not make him a lawful king. Every lawful king is placed in office by God and by those appointed under God to establish princes over themselves according to the laws and customs of their respective kingdoms. Yet suppose the people willingly submit to this usurper and consent to be his subjects, while the king likewise agrees to govern them by good and wholesome laws. He has now become a lawful prince, though his entrance was tyrannical.

This principle answers another question about the callings of our Church’s ministers. Some say that our Church is no Church, our ministers are no ministers, and the preachers of the gospel are the worst of all. They base their opinion on the claim that we have not entered our callings and ministry rightly and lawfully according to God’s Word.

To answer them, suppose that all the preachers and ministers in the Church of England had been unlawfully called and even lacked the very substance of a true calling. No one can speak or think this with a good conscience. Yet even on that supposition, there could still be a true Church of God among us and lawful preachers of the Word. They could receive subsequent acceptance and approval from both God and people, and subsequent acceptance remedies a wrongful entrance.

Indeed, it is evident that our ministers have approval from both God and people. First, God enables them to teach the true and wholesome doctrine of the prophets and apostles. This is one particular sign distinguishing a true prophet from a false one. Second, God gives them grace to adorn their doctrine and profession with reformed lives. Third, God’s hand is with them: he blesses their labors to convert many souls to himself throughout this land. Through this, God has, as it were, signed and sealed his approval of our callings.

The Corinthians questioned whether Paul was an apostle. Paul himself answered that even if he was not an apostle to others, he was to them, because he had been the minister through whom they were converted (1 Cor 9:2). If this is a sound argument for proving an apostle’s extraordinary calling, it certainly serves even more strongly to prove an ordinary minister’s calling.

Question 3: Seeking a Calling

The third question is whether someone preparing to enter a calling may lawfully offer himself and take steps to enter it.

Answer: Paul answers this question when he says, “He that desireth the office of a Bishop, desireth a worthy work” (1 Tim 3:1). He teaches us here that desiring an office is not unlawful. Certainly, some desires for positions and callings are unlawful. This is so when people seek them from vanity and greed, for pleasure or profit. Yet there is no offense when they desire or seek them from a conscientious wish to fulfill a duty toward God and people.

If the desire for an office is lawful, expressing that desire through upright and lawful means is also lawful. People may therefore use such means to enter callings suited to them, provided they have sufficient gifts to fulfill the duties and submit to examination and selection according to lawful order.

As soon as God had touched the prophet Isaiah’s tongue with a coal from the altar, Isaiah was ready to go at God’s call. When the Lord said, “Whom shall I send?” he answered, “Here am I, send me” (Isa 6:6, 7, 8). Following this holy prophet’s example, anyone whom God has equipped with gifts may show himself willing to enter an office if he can obtain a calling to it.

Here, then, is a lesson for those educated in the schools of the prophets. As soon as they are able to perform ministers’ duties, they should show themselves willing and ready to undertake this calling in a godly way. Without question, many are at fault here. Although sufficiently gifted, they devote themselves entirely to private study and show no willingness to undertake any ministerial calling for which they are suited. Seeking a calling in God’s Church for profit is unlawful. Yet seeking a calling is not unlawful in itself, provided the intention is upright, the means are good, and God’s glory is truly intended.

Question 4: Holding Two Callings

The fourth question is whether someone may enter two callings at once.

Answer: We must distinguish: in some circumstances he may, and in others he may not. A person may enter two callings in three cases.

First, he may do so when God himself has appointed the two callings to be joined. Thus Melchizedek was both a king and a priest, performing both offices so that he might be a vivid figure of Christ our Savior (Heb 7:1). By God’s appointment, the high priests who succeeded Aaron were civil judges as well as priests. Jehoiada the high priest was regent of Judah during Joash’s childhood. By virtue of that regency, he killed Athaliah, the usurping queen (2 Kgs 11:15).

This is no wonder. The Levites were the lawyers of the commonwealth, and the Scriptures were the Jews’ established laws. No one was therefore as well suited to be a judge as a priest or Levite. Similarly, in this land, lawyers expert in its laws are the people best suited to judge both civil and criminal cases. For this reason, among the Jews, carrying out the priestly office while administering civil justice was not so great a burden.

Second, two callings may be combined when entering both at once does not oppose the Word and serves the common good. Thus Eli in the kingdom of Israel was a priest by one calling and a judge by another. Samuel was both a prophet and a judge. Moses was a prophet and a civil governor, indeed a prince. In those times, both orders were so corrupt that ordinary men sufficient to fulfill either calling separately could not be found.

Third, two callings may be permitted when joining them neither hinders either one nor harms the common good. Thus a man may lawfully be both the head of a household and a merchant, or practice any other trade. We have examples of this in God’s Word. Abraham was the head of a large household and, within it, a prophet and a priest who offered sacrifices. By another calling he was also a mighty prince and a great warrior. The same may be said of the patriarchs. They governed their households and were also princes who bore the civil sword, as Judah’s example shows.

There were two reasons why they could hold both offices. First, God’s Church was then very small and contained within one family. Second, religious doctrine consisted of a few principal points and was passed orally from person to person.

Paul likewise had one calling as an apostle and another, at the same time, as a tentmaker. He did this because of the poverty of the Church at Corinth and to silence false apostles who would have accused him of profiting from the gospel. In a similar case of necessity, I do not doubt that ministers of the gospel today may take other callings. Always remember, however, that these must neither hinder their principal callings nor give offense to others.

I now come to the second part of my distinction: there are three cases in which people may not enter two distinct callings at once. First, they may not do so if God has separated those callings by his Word and commandment. Second, they may not do so if practicing one hinders practicing the other. Third, they may not do so if combining them harms the common good.

On these grounds, Christ our Savior, being the Church’s teacher, refused to judge an inheritance dispute between two brothers (Luke 12:13, 14). Likewise, because the apostles had to perform the duties of their own callings, they refused to undertake the office of deacons (Acts 6:2).

From this I conclude that towns, corporations, and societies should take care, as far as possible, not to place several responsibilities and offices of different kinds, each weighty in itself, on one person’s shoulders. Performing them all divides his attention, and divided attention disables even the most capable person from fulfilling one office. The wider someone opens his hand to receive grain from a heap, the less he holds. Similarly, the more someone stretches himself to hold the greatest number of offices, the fewer he will fulfill.

Question 5: Practicing Two Trades

A further question is whether it is lawful to enter two trades at once.

Answer: It is lawful, provided the trades do not hinder each other, combining them does not harm the common good, and the person’s aim is the common good rather than sordid gain. Nevertheless, this is disadvantageous in a populous commonwealth, since people then have difficulty earning a living through one another. Yet if one calling is insufficient to support a household, a second may be added under the conditions already stated.

Question: May someone hold two farms at once?

Answer: Some have thought this undesirable. In truth, one might just as well ask whether it is lawful to have two coats at once. In a commonwealth, everyone need not be equal in wealth. Some must be above others, and some below. Therefore, those who hold several farms, whether by inheritance or by honest purchase, may lawfully enjoy them. So much for entering a calling well.

The third main point to consider is continuing well in a calling. This consists in consistently practicing the duties and doing the work of that calling. Two points must be considered here: first, what work belongs to our callings and what qualities it must have; second, how that work must be done.

1. The Work to Be Done

The work of our callings must have three qualities. First, it must properly belong to our callings. Second, it must be useful. Third, it must be necessary.

(1) Work Proper to the Calling

The first quality follows Saint Paul’s rule: “Live in peace.” How is this to be done? He answers, “by doing his own business” (1 Thess 4:11). Saint Peter gives the same rule, requiring “that no man suffer as a busybody in other men’s matters” (1 Pet 4:15). In both places, the Holy Spirit teaches us first to find out what work properly belongs to our own callings, and then to do it. The farmer must attend to farming, the minister to preaching, and so on.

This one point exposes several faults that commonly appear in people’s lives. The first is attending to other people’s affairs while neglecting our own. We have an example in John 21:21-22. Our Savior Christ said to Peter, “Peter follow thou me.” But Peter, paying little attention to his own duty, felt compelled by curiosity to ask what John must do. Our Savior rebuked him: “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is it to thee?”

This is a common fault in the world. People who give little attention to the duties of their own callings and perform them carelessly are nevertheless very ready to discuss and inquire into other people’s circumstances and lives. It is food and drink to them. A good report about someone receives no attention, but an evil report is caught at its first rebound. Such reports spread like wildfire. All this comes from idle curiosity, which is condemned here as the ruin of every community.

These busybodies resemble people who read books only to find their faults. They are like the spider that crawls through the whole garden only to gather poison. But those who fear God must learn to know their own business and direct their conversation and thoughts toward it.

This rule also condemns the curiosity of those who undertake the duties of other people’s callings. As I showed earlier, this is a dangerous sin. Uzzah was killed for touching the ark, though he intended only to keep it from falling, because he had no calling to do so. Fifty thousand of the people of Beth-shemesh died for looking into the ark of God without a calling to do it. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram likewise insisted on claiming the calling and office of Moses for themselves.

Third, this rule condemns the study and practice of casting horoscopes and predictive astrology. Through these practices, many people attempt, on false grounds, to discover what will happen to others in life or death. These are things God does not intend to have known before they happen. In a word, this rule condemns everyone who fails to perform the duties of his own calling diligently and with a good conscience.

(2) Useful Work

The second quality is that the work of our callings must benefit both those who do it and the commonwealth. The law of nature teaches this. This second quality gives us grounds to blame several kinds of people.

First is the tradesman who makes his living by producing foreign and foolish fashions in clothing. These serve no purpose except to be displayed as flags and banners of folly, pride, or lust. All such fashions are condemned by God’s word, and even by the light of nature. Those who make and sell them therefore cannot be free from blame. Indeed, their offense is greater: without inventors of these empty novelties, the fashions would not be so commonly worn.

Second, the alchemist deserves rebuke for spending his time and resources trying to turn inferior metals into gold. This is, in truth, impossible. Turning one kind of created thing into another kind, as the different metals are, would be a kind of new creation. What people say, or rather dream, about the philosopher’s stone is only an imagined notion. It can be found nowhere except in Utopia. There is no doubt that one day an account must be given of the good time wasted in looking for it.

(3) Necessary Work

The third condition is that our actions must be necessary. We must consider the nature and quality of the work belonging to our callings. Every calling has two kinds of work. Some duties are principal: without them, the calling cannot be maintained. Others are secondary and do not constitute the essence of the calling. We must especially devote ourselves to the principal work.

For example, a minister’s work includes reading and preaching God’s word. Reading is the less necessary work, while preaching is the principal one. He must therefore devote himself especially to preaching. We could go through all people’s callings in this way and identify many failures.

Magistrates in towns and incorporated communities carry and draw the sword to maintain peace and civil order. This is well done, since it belongs to their calling. Yet it is not their principal duty. They commonly fail to use the sword to urge people to keep the commandments of the first table, practice pure religion, and observe the Sabbath. This is the magistrate’s main duty, for he bears the sword especially for the good of people’s souls.

The head of a household must care for the souls of his household as well as their bodies. Care for their souls is his principal duty, and most householders fail in it. They commonly undertake the lesser duties and leave the principal one undone. They care for the bodies of their wives, children, and servants while neglecting the means by which their souls may be saved. This directly contradicts the rule before us, which requires the principal duties to be practiced first. All careless and ignorant heads of households must therefore be warned to take special care to provide for the salvation of everyone under their government.

This also exposes the fault of many students preparing for the ministry. They begin by studying the church fathers and other ancient writers. Their first and principal duty, however, is to become soundly instructed in God’s word and firmly grounded in the main points of religion. Then they will be able to distinguish truth from falsehood and know what should and should not be done in matters of both faith and conduct. Once this good foundation has been laid, those other helps may be added with good results.

By necessary work I also mean work that, after due consideration, is both lawful in itself and appropriate to our calling, and suitable for the person doing it in the circumstances. If doing it is inadvisable, it must be left undone, even though it is otherwise lawful.

Question: Does an Unlawful Entrance Invalidate the Work?

Before proceeding, we must consider a necessary question. Are the works and actions of a calling invalid when performed by someone who entered that calling unlawfully? That is, should we regard them as actions never done?

Answer: Things done may have two kinds of faults: a fault in the work or a fault in the worker. A fault in the work occurs when the action itself is performed wrongly. The fault may concern either its substance or its circumstances. If the fault concerns its substance, the action is indeed invalid and must be regarded as not done.

A fault in the worker occurs when someone who has not been lawfully called performs an action belonging to a lawful calling. When the fault lies in the person doing the work rather than in the work itself, the action must not be regarded as invalid or set aside as nothing.

For example, suppose someone lawfully called to the ministry baptizes infants in the name of the Father and of the Virgin Mary. Here the fault lies in the action, and specifically in the substance of baptism. This is therefore no baptism, but a profanation of God’s ordinance. Now suppose instead that baptism is administered by someone who has been called, though unlawfully. If the fault lies only in the man and not in the action, that baptism must not be regarded as invalid.

The general agreement of theologians, as well as the laws and established practices of kingdoms, supports this doctrine. Particular examples make it plain. Augustus Caesar, a Roman emperor, invaded the kingdom of the Jews and made it a province. He thus became king of the Jews through intrusion rather than lawful means. Nevertheless, his actions and commands were regarded as those of a king. The Jews did not set them aside, but all obeyed them. When he commanded that the whole world, including the Jews, should be taxed, they submitted to his command. Even righteous Joseph and Mary went to their own town to be taxed.

Caiaphas was honored as high priest among the Jews. Although he entered office through corruption and bribery, his official actions were not regarded as invalid. They were treated as actions actually done. Our Savior Christ therefore allowed himself to be accused, arraigned, and judged before him. He was also willing to enter the temple and worship God according to the Jewish practice, even before Caiaphas himself.

Many of the scribes and Pharisees, who were the teachers of the Jews, did not receive their calling through succession from Aaron. Their teaching was also partly heretical. They held some things contrary to the foundation, including justification by works. Nevertheless, because they sat in Moses’ chair, our Savior Christ told the Jewish church and his disciples to hear them insofar as they taught Moses’ doctrine.

It is therefore clear that, where there is no fault in the work, a defective calling in the worker does not invalidate the action. The worker sins by entering unlawfully and is not to be approved in that respect. Yet the actions he performs in the calling he has entered remain actions of that calling. Although he has been wrongly called, he stands in the place of someone lawfully called.

We must distinguish someone who has been called, though unlawfully, from someone who has no calling at all. Actions performed without any calling are indeed invalid. But where there is a calling, an improper entrance does not make the action void. Whoever denies this truth overturns the government of kingdoms, churches, states, and every kind of society.

What has been said also resolves a question about baptism. Many of our ancestors were baptized by priests who celebrated Mass and received no baptism except in the Church of Rome. Was that baptism sufficient, or must they be baptized again?

My answer is this. The Roman priest is a minister of Antichrist rather than of God and Christ insofar as he offers Christ as a real sacrifice for the living and the dead, which is the chief part of his office. Nevertheless, because he has been and is appointed by people to baptize, and stands in the place of a lawful minister, his action is not void. Although he is not a minister lawfully called to baptize, neither is he merely a private person. He stands between the two: someone called, though wrongly, through people’s ignorance and oversight. Consequently, in the act of baptizing, he stands in the place of a right and lawful minister.

Again, some people, moved more by feeling than judgment, argue in this way: “There is no right and lawful calling provided for ministers in the Church of England. Therefore we have no sacraments or true preaching of God’s word among us. Our sacraments are only sacraments in appearance, and all our preaching produces nothing better than the devil’s deception.”

Answer: Suppose we granted their premise that ministers in the Church of England have no lawful calling, although saying this is both false and wicked. Even on that assumption, it would not follow that our sacraments are no sacraments or our preaching no preaching. Though people may be unlawfully called, their actions are ministerial actions if they have been called at all.

An unlawfully called minister’s preaching may be true preaching, and his sacraments true sacraments. Otherwise Christ would not have said of the scribes and Pharisees, “Hear them,” although they belonged to tribes other than Levi and often entered office through bribery and similar corruption. A bad entrance does not make the actions performed void and ineffective, provided the person has been called to stand in the place of a right and lawful agent.

A good entrance does not always make the actions good, since someone who enters a lawful calling rightly may afterward fall into apostasy. Conversely, the lack of a good entrance does not invalidate ministerial actions.

2. How the Work Must Be Done

I now come to the second point concerning continuance in a calling: how its work must be done. Doing the work proper to a calling is not enough. We must do it in a good and godly manner. Two things are chiefly required for this: holiness and constancy.

(1) Holiness

God’s word teaches that doing a work in holiness requires a twofold sanctification: first, of the worker; second, of the work or action to be done.

[1] The Worker’s Sanctification

The worker must be sanctified for two reasons. First, the person must please God before that person’s work can please him. “For to the unclean all things are unclean” (Titus 1:15). Not only their works but also their minds and consciences are defiled. The reason is plain: the corruption of our wicked nature is so great that we defile whatever we put our hands to.

Unless people are repentant sinners, all their actions, even actions good in themselves, are sins and offenses before God. They do not proceed from an upright heart and are not done for God’s glory.

Second, our persons must be sanctified because, unless we are born anew of water and the Spirit, we can expect no success or blessing on our labor. It is the righteous person’s privilege that “whatsoever he doth it shall prosper” (Ps 1:3). No one else may expect this favor from God.

Righteous Joseph prospered in everything he did because the Lord was with him when he was made ruler over the house of Potiphar the Egyptian (Gen 39:2-3). Jehoshaphat says, “Believe the Lord and his Prophets, and thou shalt prosper” (2 Chr 20:20). While the ark remained in Obed-edom’s house, he and his whole household prospered. How much more, then, will someone prosper who has God himself dwelling in his heart, rather than merely a sign of God’s presence?

Objection: Experience shows that ungodly people prosper as well as godly people.

Answer: The prosperity of the wicked resembles the quails God sent the Israelites in the wilderness. Those birds brought plague and destruction with them, for the people died while the food was still in their mouths. The prosperity of the wicked serves to deepen their condemnation.

We learn from this that, when appointed and set apart to any calling, we must first turn to God from all our sins with our whole hearts and use the means of becoming new creatures. Unless we repent, turn to God, and cling to him with a settled purpose, the best actions of our callings would be enough to condemn us even if we had no other sins. No work ever pleased God before the worker’s person was accepted in his sight.

The world’s blind theology teaches that people who diligently attend to their business, live peaceably with everyone, and harm no one have everything going well for them, and that God will have mercy on them. These things are indeed good and commendable, but they are insufficient. The person doing them must go further: repent of his sins, die to them through the power of Christ’s death, and live to God. Otherwise, all his peaceful and upright dealings will ultimately prove no better than fig leaves before God. Even the best works are damnable sins in the person doing them unless he turns to God and is in Christ.

In the same field, at the same time, engaged in the same business, an ox works and a man works. Which of the two does the better work? I know the answer will be, “The man.” But in truth, unless he has been renewed by God’s grace, his labor is worse than the beast’s. The beast obeys God according to its kind; the unrepentant sinner does not.

Thus actions lawful in themselves become unlawful in him, because of the evil manner in which he does them. A water channel is likewise faulty when it defiles the water it carries, rather than simply because it carries water.

[2] The Work’s Sanctification

The second requirement is the sanctification of the work or action. This too must be learned and practiced. Performing a lawful action is insufficient; it must be performed in a holy manner. Lawful actions that are not sanctified are sins.

We can see this in the same action performed by two people. The tax collector and the Pharisee go to pray (Luke 18:10). Both perform the same action, yet one is approved for his prayer and the other is not. The Pharisee prays in the pride of his heart and profanes the lawful action of prayer. The tax collector prays in heartfelt humility for the pardon of his sins. His action is lawful in itself and also holy in the person doing it. We must learn and practice this in every action of our callings. Our actions must be lawful both in themselves and in the way we perform them.

This exposes the blindness and ignorance of most people among us. They think it enough that their actions are lawful. For example, traders think they may use their own freedom in buying and selling because bargaining is God’s ordinance. They consider it unnecessary to attend to the manner in which they buy and sell. Commonly, they do not even imagine that they must conduct their business in a way that commends their actions to God.

Two things are required to sanctify the work of our callings: the word and prayer (1 Tim 4:5). What Paul says about the use of food and drink must be extended to all God’s ordinances. I will discuss these two means in order.

First Means: God’s Word

First, God’s word must be the rule and measuring standard by which we shape all our actions. According to the direction we receive from it, we must either do a thing or leave it undone.

King David undoubtedly had a wise and godly council. He was also a man of great wisdom himself, being a prophet of God. Yet he says that “the word and the laws of God are his Counsellors” (Ps 119:24). The Lord commanded the king, when seated on his throne, to keep the book of the law before him and do everything written in it (Deut 17:19). Every subject must likewise do this in his own particular place and station.

Peter fished all night and caught nothing. In the morning Christ came and told him to cast his net into the sea. Although discouraged by his earlier failure, Peter immediately said, “Lord, at thy word I will do it” (Luke 5:5). Every person should say as much each day in his own place: that he will perform the work of his calling at God’s command and according to his word.

When the Israelites came out of Egypt and traveled to Canaan, a type of the kingdom of heaven, a pillar of cloud led them by day and a pillar of fire by night throughout their journey. When the cloud stood still, they stood still. They had to follow wherever it went, forward or backward. As the Israelites reached the earthly Canaan by following the pillar of fire and cloud, so we must allow God’s word to govern the work of our callings. We must follow as though blindfolded, even when our own reason suggests that we are going backward. We must do what it commands and avoid what it forbids.

Many things could be drawn from God’s word to direct us more particularly in our actions. I will bring them all under two heads. Some directions concern avoiding vice; others concern practicing virtue.

Vices to Avoid

Two vices especially must be avoided in the work of our callings: covetousness and injustice.

First Vice: Covetousness

Covetousness is a notorious vice through which almost everyone directs his calling and its work toward accumulating wealth and riches. It is one of the world’s chief and ruling sins. From it a sea of evils flows into both church and commonwealth. Many people have good inclinations and receive the word with joy, yet, like the thorny ground, they are choked by the cares of this world.

Since covetousness is such a vile sin, everyone placed in a calling must guard against it. We must take care that it does not gain a place in our hearts and draw us into many other evils. Saint Paul speaks of “They that will be rich,” meaning those who direct the labor of their callings toward gathering wealth. They “fall into many and grievous temptations,” and consequently into damnation. He therefore adds that “Covetousness is the root of all evil” (1 Tim 6:20).

Objection: Unbelief was the first particular sin that ever entered the world. Therefore covetousness cannot be the root of all evil.

Answer: Unbelief is a mother of sin, from which all other sins arise. Yet covetousness is also a root in another respect. As a root supplies sap and nourishment to every branch, covetousness nourishes every other sin. Where it reigns, no sin dies or declines.

When the spleen swells in the body, all the other parts waste away. In the same way, when the heart swells with desire for riches, all God’s graces wither and fade.

Judas undoubtedly had many good things in him. He left everything to become Christ’s disciple. Like the other disciples, he preached the gospel to the Jews, worked miracles, and cast out devils. More than this, he belonged to Christ’s own household and served as a kind of steward, carrying the money bag and managing everything. Yet because he allowed this damnable sin of covetousness to prevail in his heart, he finally agreed to sell his Master for thirty pieces of silver.

All the good things in him thus came to nothing. Immediately after this deed, he went and hanged himself in despair. He cast himself down with such violence that his bowels burst out. The same kind of end awaits all who nurture this sin and give way to it, however richly supplied they may be with knowledge, zeal, and a commendable life. If allowed to prevail, it will finally bring them to fearful and lamentable ends.

It is a great disorder in an ordinary household when the master plays the servant and the servant performs the master’s office. How much greater, then, is the disorder in God’s church, the household of Christ, when people set their minds on the world and make themselves servants of riches, which ought to serve them. Our Savior Christ says, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” Much more, then, were riches made for man, and not man for riches.

Covetous and worldly desires also oppose the order of nature. We bring nothing with us when we enter the world. While we live here, nature is content with little. When we die, we carry nothing with us except a coffin or burial sheet. Why, then, should we set our minds so firmly on earthly things?

Again, heaven’s gate is narrow and the way confined. We must struggle and creep to enter, denying everything we possess. When we intend only to gain wealth through the work of our callings, we effectively bar heaven’s gates and load ourselves with burdens that make us unable to pass through. We must therefore take special care not to spend our time and calling gathering earthly treasures.

Everyone can remedy this vice and its practice in his calling by performing two duties. First, he must restrain his affection from the world. Second, he must turn it toward better things.

First Duty: Restrain Affection

Our affection resembles a sea which, if allowed beyond its banks, floods the whole country. To keep our desires within bounds, everyone in his own place and calling must labor for two things: first, for contentment. As the Holy Spirit says, “Let not your conversation be in covetousness, but be content with that which you have” (Heb 13:5).

Contentment

Contentment means regarding the particular condition in which God has placed us as the best of all possible conditions for us. We have a remarkable example in the apostle Paul, who learned to be content in whatever condition he found himself. He therefore says, “I can be abased, and I can abound, everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full, and to be hungry, to abound, and to have want” (Phil 4:11-12).

What Paul practiced is quickly said but not quickly done. To follow his example and become content in every condition of life, we must perform the following duties.

First, we must labor to recognize God’s particular providence and experience it in everything that happens. Everyone acknowledges providence in health, wealth, and liberty. But in the opposite conditions, such as sickness, servitude, and poverty, the blind world sees neither God’s providence nor his goodness. It confines all his goodness to health and wealth.

Those who profess to know the true God must become better acquainted with his providence and goodness. They must labor to experience it in sickness as well as health, in need as well as wealth, and in persecution as well as liberty and peace. When we can do this to a reasonable degree, our experience of divine providence will produce contentment.

Job gives us an example. In the midst of his troubles he said, “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, now blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). Notice both his contentment and its cause: his conviction that God himself had laid this affliction on him. Settled in that conviction, he gives thanks to God.

Second, like David, we must labor to become assured in conscience that God is our portion. That is, God the Father is our Father, Christ Jesus our Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit our sanctifier and comforter. Our consciences must rest firmly in this. Then we may say with David, “I have a goodly heritage” (Ps 16:6). We will find our minds more settled and content with whatever condition, good or bad, comes to us by God’s will and appointment.

Everyone is pleased with health, liberty, and wealth. If we could truthfully say, “the Lord is my portion,” we would also be pleased with sickness, servitude, and poverty. This is how we must train ourselves in contentment.

Seek What Is Sufficient

To restrain our affections from the world more effectively, two things must be done. First, we must resolve in this life to seek no more than what is necessary and sufficient for ourselves and those belonging to us. Seeking abundance is unlawful and cannot be reconciled with a good conscience. I prove this as follows.

We may seek what we may pray for. But we have no warrant to pray for abundance. We do have warrant to pray for what is necessary and sufficient, as Agur does: “Give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with food convenient for me” (Prov 30:8). Christ taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt 6:11). This means bread for our sustenance, or enough to preserve our lives.

Saint Paul plainly condemns the desire for riches, meaning things beyond necessity. He declares that those who desire to be rich fall into the devil’s snares (1 Tim 6:8).

Some have observed twelve wonders in the manna given to the Jews.

1. The children of Israel were fed with it for forty years.

2. To the godly, it tasted according to each person’s desire.

3. To the ungodly, it was loathsome.

4. An omer of it satisfied every stomach.

5. Whether people gathered more or less, they had a full measure, neither more nor less: one full omer.

6. Before the Sabbath they had two full omers; on other days, only one.

7. It fell every day except the Sabbath.

8. It melted in the sun and hardened in the fire.

9. It was kept in the ark for many years without decaying.

10. When kept until the next morning, it decayed, except on the Sabbath.

11. The person who gathered least had his full omer.

12. The person who gathered most had only his omer.

Most of these wonders teach us that seeking and desiring abundance does not please God. This is especially clear from the manna decaying when stored until the next day, and from every Jew receiving his sufficient measure whether he worked more or less.

By an express law, the Lord commands the king not to multiply his horses, silver, or gold (Deut 17:16-17). God does not intend to prevent kings from seeking enough to maintain their kingdoms. His purpose is to moderate their affections so that they do not seek an abundance sufficient to maintain two or three kingdoms instead of one.

If God sends princes an abundance beyond their needs, they may receive it from his hand and must be thankful for it. But kings themselves may not seek more than is sufficient for their stations.

If this is the prince’s duty, it is much more the people’s duty. Subjects in kingdoms should be content if they have enough to provide food and clothing. This much they may lawfully seek.

For example, the head of a household may with a good conscience seek as much wealth as Christian wisdom judges suitable to maintain himself and his family with adequate food and clothing. Once he has obtained this, he must stop. He may not continue enlarging his estate by seeking an abundance sufficient for his own household and a second, or several more families.

Question: How should we judge what is sufficient for anyone?

Answer: We must not estimate sufficiency by a covetous person’s desires. On that reckoning, nothing would ever be sufficient. We must proceed by the same rule we use in the comparable matter of clothing. God’s word gives no particular rule specifying how every man or woman must dress. Our rule must therefore be the example and judgment of godly and sober men and women of our own station and rank.

Likewise, our rule for sufficiency in the things of this life must be the common judgment and practice of the most godly, economical, and wise people among whom we live. What they conscientiously judge sufficient and necessary for someone’s place and calling is what we must regard as sufficient.

We must remember not to establish one rule for everyone, as though what is sufficient for one person must be sufficient for all. Each must be measured according to his condition and rank. As one person stands above another in rank, more or less, so one requires more than another for sufficiency.

Objection 1: A covetous person may object, “Every gift of God may be sought. Abundance is God’s blessing and gift. Therefore abundance may be sought.”

Answer: We must distinguish God’s blessings and gifts. Some are blessings without qualification; others are blessings only in certain respects.

The first kind consists of gifts and graces that are blessings both in themselves and in everyone who possesses them. These include faith, repentance, the fear of God, and love for God and other people.

The second kind consists of things good in themselves but not good for everyone who possesses them. Riches and an abundance of worldly things belong to this kind.

My answer, then, is that I may seek any blessing of God if I know it is a blessing to me. I may therefore lawfully seek faith, repentance, and all those gifts of God that are blessings without qualification. But we may not seek things that are blessings only in certain respects unless we can say they are blessings to us.

A sword or knife is good in itself and has its use. But it is not good in the hands of a child or a madman, because they may hurt themselves with it. So riches are good in themselves but not good for everyone. They must therefore be sought only as far as we know they are good and useful for us.

Objection 2: “When people seek abundance, they find it. God would not give it to them unless it were a blessing, because whatever comes from God is good.”

Answer: First, God is entirely blameless in giving abundance to a covetous person. The question concerns the person’s seeking and receiving, rather than God’s giving.

Again, when God grants abundance to some who seek it, he gives a blessing resembling the quails he gave the Israelites, which brought a plague with them. God often gives temporal blessings in his wrath.

Objection 3: “God has promised every righteous person that he will receive abundance. David says, ‘riches and treasures shall be in his house’ (Ps 112:3). Therefore the righteous person may lawfully seek riches.”

Answer: I answer in two ways. First, riches in God’s word often means necessary things rather than abundance.

Second, if riches means abundance here, promises of temporal blessings must be understood as allowing for the cross and chastisement. The psalmist’s meaning is therefore that riches will be given to the righteous unless God wills to exercise and test him through need and poverty.

That this passage must be understood in this way is clear from Hebrews 11:37. Some people are commended there for enduring poverty by faith, wandering about in sheepskins and goatskins. Lazarus, too, was received into Abraham’s bosom when he died, although during his life he had not even crumbs from the rich man’s table to feed his body.

If the promise were absolute, everyone might seek abundance and every believer would possess it. But the promise is conditional, and we do not know whether God will be pleased to test us through need. Therefore we may not seek abundance.

Objection 4: “Everyone must do good to the church and commonwealth. He must therefore seek plenty so that he has the means to do this good.”

Answer: We must indeed do good, but within the limits of our circumstances and callings, and according to our ability. God accepts each person according to what he has, rather than what he does not have.

Objection 5: “There are examples of righteous people, such as Abraham, Jacob, and Solomon, who possessed abundant riches.”

Answer: They did not obtain their riches by seeking abundance. They became rich through God’s sending rather than their own seeking. In the same way, anyone may accept abundance when God is pleased to bestow it while he goes about his calling.

It cannot be shown that Abraham, Jacob, or Solomon sought riches when they lacked them. The covetous person, however, commonly lays plans to obtain so much for himself and so much for his children: so many hundreds and so many thousands. Jacob asked God only for food and clothing.

Whatever may be said against it, the truth remains that no one can with a good conscience seek more than what is necessary. This one consideration must serve as a cord restraining our affections from the world: God has commanded us to seek only what Christian wisdom may judge necessary.

Second Duty: Redirect Affection

Let us now consider how to turn our affections from the world toward better things. The way is this. A hot-tempered person who wants to restrain his anger must turn it against himself for his own sins. Likewise, the worldly person who wants to turn his grasping mind away from earthly things must set it on the kingdom of heaven. Two things are especially required for this.

First, we must seek to have the eyes of our minds enlightened by God’s Spirit, so that we may see the happiness of the condition God has prepared in his kingdom for those who love him. Paul prayed this for the Ephesians: “That the eyes of their understanding might be enlightened, that they might know what the hope was of their calling, and what the riches of his glorious inheritance is in the Saints” (Eph 1:18).

An animal grazing on a bare common, once it sees a better pasture, will immediately cross hedge, ditch, and everything else until it reaches that pasture. What happens in nature should happen much more in those who share in Christ’s grace. Although we always have our heads rooting underground like moles, if grace enables us even to look toward heaven’s joys, we cannot help turning our hearts from the love of this present world.

Moses gives us a remarkable example. Although he might have become heir to Pharaoh’s daughter, he refused honor, “esteeming the rebuke of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: because he had respect to the recompense of reward” (Heb 11:26). In mercy, God opened his eyes and enabled him to see the happy condition of the kingdom of heaven. In this way, God caused him to leave and forsake Egypt’s honor and wealth.

Second, we must seek a heartfelt awareness that we lack Christ. We must see our damnable condition in ourselves and how greatly we need Christ’s blood to wash away our sins. Here is a remarkable means of turning anyone’s heart from this world’s wealth, even if he were covetousness itself, and making him seek spiritual and heavenly things entirely. Considering our own misery in ourselves, together with a lively awareness of our need for Christ, will make us hunger for him and his righteousness above everything in the world.

Experience shows us many people who possess good gifts of knowledge, joy in God’s word, zeal, and the like, yet are overcome in their callings by this foul sin of covetousness. The reason is that they have never been deeply touched by an awareness of their need for Christ. Their hearts are dead in sin and corruption. They have never known the vileness of their own nature or their extreme misery outside Christ.

If they could be brought to feel their unworthiness and hunger for him, they would begin to say with Saint Paul, “I esteem all thing as dung in regard of Christ” (Phil 3:8). They would say with David, “As the hart brayeth after the rivers of waters, so thirsteth my soul after thee, O Lord” (Ps 42:1).

Christ gives this counsel: “First seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matt 6:33). In ourselves, we must be like the wounded man lying in the road, so that Christ Jesus, the true Samaritan, may come to us, soothe our wounds, and pour his own precious blood into our souls. As Mary said, “God fills the hungry with good things, but the rich he sends empty away” (Luke 1:53).

By God’s grace, we will thus be able to turn our affections from the world toward heavenly things. We also see how to conduct ourselves in our callings with a good conscience and avoid the sin of covetousness.

Second Vice: Injustice

I now come to the second sin, injustice. Through it, people abuse their callings to harm and hinder others, publicly or privately. We have an example in Zacchaeus the tax collector, who enriched himself through fraudulent exactions (Luke 19:8).

This sin spreads as widely through every rank and condition as covetousness does. A survey of the principal callings will make this plain.

We begin with emperors and princes. Because they occupy the greatest callings, they practice the greatest injustice. Many are not content with their own dominions. They encroach on neighboring kingdoms through fraud or violence and do not hesitate to shed rivers of blood to enlarge their states. Present examples are the Turkish ruler in Asia and the Spanish ruler, who seeks by every means to make himself emperor of the western parts of the world.

Similar injustice appears in magistrates who accept bribes and show favoritism in administering justice and judgment.

Injustice also creeps into Moses’ chair when God’s word, the food of people’s souls, is withheld. It also appears when the word is corrupted, partly by the poison of human errors and partly by inventions of the human mind.

In the lawyer’s calling, injustice consists in taking larger fees than statutes or conscience allow and delaying lawsuits. These delays extend beyond morning to night, as Jethro said to Moses. They run from one legal term to another, even from year to year, to increase the lawyer’s gain.

In the physician’s calling, it is unjust to administer medicine learned from books without any experience. It is also unjust to prescribe treatment from the mere inspection of urine, which the best-informed judge insufficient and often misleading; to prescribe drunkenness and fornication as cures for certain diseases; and to treat absent patients by casting an astrological chart at the time of the inquiry.

In the calling of merchants and tradesmen, there are false weights and measures, different weights and measures for different dealings, monopolizing goods, adulterating them, substituting one thing for another, and giving goods a deceptive appearance through powdering, stiffening them with starch, or puffing them up with air. There are dark shops, flattering sales talk, smooth words, lies, oaths, and every kind of dishonest dealing.

A patron nominates someone to a church post with a secret condition that he himself will retain the tithes or take some other portion of the post’s income.

A landlord demands excessive rents, takes immoderate lease-entry payments, and encloses land that has been common from time immemorial. The cause is a lack of sobriety and moderation in food and clothing.

Farmers and grain dealers practice great injustice by hoarding grain until they can obtain a greater advantage. They take whatever price they can get for their goods, even at the cost of shedding the blood of the poor.

The printer’s calling should serve the special good of the church and commonwealth. Yet printers do great injustice to both by publishing libels and heretical books, spreading errors abroad, and by publishing unchaste, immodest, and unprofitable writings.

Booksellers practice similar injustice by selling every kind of book, good and bad, true and false, indiscriminately and without regard to anyone who comes. At present, a Roman Catholic in England can obtain almost every kind of book supporting his own heresy from Protestant shops. This deserves consideration, for it greatly hinders the good of our church.

The canker of injustice has thus spread through every rank and calling. We may take up the prophet Micah’s complaint: “It is hard to find a righteous man: every man lays a net for his brother; and seeketh his hurt, his blood, and utter undoing” (Mic 7:2). This is so plain that anyone with half an eye can see it.

Yet the unjust person still finds excuses. He says, “The world is wicked, so anyone who wants to live in it must do as everyone else does.”

Answer: This is indeed the blind reasoning of ungodly people. Saint Paul gives another rule, telling us to “walk unblameably in this present world, as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation” (Phil 2:15). Even if the whole world devoted itself to injustice, God’s child must conduct himself in his calling so that he shines as a light to those among whom he lives.

Others are more blind and shameless. To defend their injustice, they appeal to our Savior Christ’s example in sending for another man’s donkey and its colt when he went to Jerusalem (Matt 21:3). Who cannot see the notorious abuse of this Scripture? Our Savior did this as Lord of both the animal and its owner. When he sent his disciples, he also inclined the owner’s heart to let the animals go willingly. He thereby showed himself to be the Lord who holds every person’s heart in his hand, and consequently governs everything else.

Other arguments in defense of injustice have no weight. We must therefore examine all the work of our callings and abandon whatever we find inconsistent with equity and justice. The following reasons should persuade us.

First, God commands everyone to deal justly in the work of his calling. As Paul says to Titus, “The grace of God that bringeth salvation unto all men hath appeared, and teacheth us, that we should deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world” (Titus 2:11-12). Again, “Let no man defraud or oppress his brother in any thing” (1 Thess 4:6). If we have been at fault in this before, let us now begin to observe this commandment conscientiously.

Second, we must consider that, as long as we practice injustice in our particular calling, all our worship and service of God is an abomination to him. This includes prayer and thanksgiving, hearing the word, and receiving the sacraments. He therefore says to the Jews, “I abhor your Sabbaths and new moons” (Isa 1:13). The reason is that their hands were full of blood.

Again, the Lord declares that the sacrifices the Jews offered him were as though “a man should cut off a dog’s neck” and offer it to him as a sacrifice (Isa 56:3). This was because they continued living in wickedness.

Third, those who practice injustice have God’s curse following them. Paul says that the “unjust man shall never enter into the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6:9). Moses says that those “which use false weights are an abomination to the Lord” (Deut 25:16). Every unjust practice in someone’s calling is another bar or obstacle keeping him from God’s kingdom.

Lastly, consider what Saint Paul says of himself: “In all things he had a care to please God, in consideration of the terror of the Lord” (2 Cor 2:11). It is as though he said, “I know that on the last day I must come before the bar of God’s judgment and be examined concerning everything I do. I therefore strive to keep a good conscience in all the work of my calling.”

Each of us should stir himself in the same way to practice justice and avoid dishonest dealings in his calling. On the last day, everyone’s evil practices will be exposed, and we will be judged according to what we did while living in the flesh. So much for the two vices to be avoided in everyone’s calling.

Virtues to Practice

God’s word requires many virtues in the practice of our callings, but especially two: faith and love.

First Virtue: Faith

By faith I mean saving faith and also a particular faith arising from it. Through this particular faith, we must be convinced that our particular calling and its work please God, and that he will bless them for Christ’s sake. Whatever does not proceed from this faith is sin.

When Noah is said to have built an ark by faith, we must understand more than justifying faith alone (Heb 11:7). We must also understand a particular faith flowing from it, through which he was convinced that building the ark was acceptable to God and that he would find a blessing in it. Without this particular faith, no one can please God in any calling.

There is a relationship between faith and the word. Wherever there is faith, there must be a word from God. Where there is no word, there can be no faith. To perform the actions of our callings in faith, we must therefore have a word on which to build that faith.

This word is twofold: a commandment and a promise. The commandment is God’s word expressly commanding, or at least approving, the actions of each person’s calling. The promise is a particular word, either directly stated in Scripture or gathered from it by a sound inference, in which God promises to bless the labors and work of our callings. Everyone must labor in his own place to understand both.

The magistrate must have a commandment in God’s word authorizing him to draw the sword. He must also have a promise of blessing and protection when he actually draws it for a just cause. The minister must have the same for his calling, and the tradesman for his. Unless a person has both a commandment and a promise, he cannot possibly perform the work of his calling in faith.

If anyone thinks this strange and difficult, let him consider what happens in towns and incorporated communities. People of the same trade have wardens and masters of their guilds, together with decrees and ordinances to which they bind and conform themselves. If they willingly bind themselves to their own ordinances, should they not much more submit to God’s commandments and conduct themselves in their callings accordingly?

Again, living by faith with regard for God’s commandments leads people to act in obedience. Resting by the same faith on God’s promise will make them commit their work to the Lord. It will free them from consuming and distrustful cares that tear the heart apart.

This also eases their minds under the afflictions that have attended every calling since Adam’s fall. In the promise, we see God’s blessing and goodness in the midst of our troubles. As the wood Moses threw into the bitter waters made them sweet, so God’s promise, viewed by the eye of faith, sweetens the troubles and afflictions of our callings.

Second Virtue: Love

The second virtue is love. Faith is alone in justification, but it does not go alone in life and conduct. Love and faith are joined, for faith works through love. Yet they are distinct virtues with different actions.

A man serving a mason while on a ladder uses both hands. With one he supports himself; with the other he passes up his load. In the same way, everyone in his calling uses two spiritual hands, faith and love. The hand of faith keeps him within bounds and steadies his mind on God’s word. The hand of love reaches out to others in duties of love toward God and other people. This is how faith and love differ.

The practice of love consists in two things. First, we must direct all the work of our callings toward God’s honor, praise, and glory. This is the principal thing in which love consists. Paul therefore says strikingly of himself, “The love of Christ constraineth me” (2 Cor 5:14). He means that, because Christ had loved him so much as to shed his blood for him, that very love constrained him to direct everything he could do toward Christ’s honor and praise.

Everyone in his particular calling must say the same of himself: Christ’s love in shedding his blood for him constrains him to do everything for the honor and praise of Christ’s name.

The second duty of love is to apply the work, duties, and labors of our callings to the good of the church, the commonwealth, and the community to which we belong. Paul therefore says to the Galatians, “Do service one to another by love” (Gal 5:13). We do this when we employ our labor for the good of our brothers and sisters. This briefly shows how love is put into practice.

If we examine ourselves by these two points, most of us will be found to fall short of our duties. Sincere love seeks the good of others rather than its own things. Yet people commonly employ their efforts for themselves, following the common saying, “Every man for himself, and God for us all.”

These are the evil days in which people are lovers of themselves. Almost everyone’s motive for performing the duties of his calling is private benefit. It is hard to find anyone who labors in his calling out of love for God’s glory and the good of his brothers and sisters. We have now seen how God’s word directs us in the holy use of our callings.

Second Means: Prayer

The second means of sanctifying our callings and their work is prayer. In this prayer, we ask God for the pardon of our sins and the supply of graces concerning eternal life. We also ask particularly for a blessing on the labors of our callings. These labors must begin with prayer and, in due season, end with thanksgiving.

The commandment is plain: “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God” (Col 3:17). This means that, when we undertake any business in speech or action, we must first call on God for his blessing and give him thanks at the end.

David says, “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it; and except the Lord keep the City, the watchman keeps the watch in vain” (Ps 127:2). If Paul prayed on the shore before boarding a ship, much more must we pray in the principal and weighty work of our callings.

Parents teach their children to say, “Father, please bless me,” and “Mother, please bless me.” God’s church is his household, and those who live in it are God’s children. He is the Father and Master of that household. Let this practice of earthly parents therefore teach us to go to our heavenly Father for his blessing when we begin the actions of our calling. We must remember to practice this, and so sanctify the work of our callings.

(2) Constancy

The second requirement for performing the work of a calling rightly, and for continuing well in it, is constancy. This means perseverance in good duties. It is especially necessary because choosing a good and suitable calling and entering it earns no commendation unless we persevere in its duties.

A soldier in the field must not leave the position assigned by his general. He must hold it even at the risk of his life. In the same way, a Christian must continue and remain in his calling without change or alteration.

Human nature has a certain fickleness that causes many people to prefer other people’s callings to their own. They are consequently moved to change their calling for every slight reason. In the text before us, the Holy Spirit meets this fickleness by commanding everyone to remain constant in the duties of his particular calling: “Let every man abide in that vocation wherein he was called.”

Three Obstacles to Constancy

We must carefully avoid three obstacles to constancy: ambition, envy, and impatience.

Ambition is a vice through which someone thinks more highly of himself than he should, becomes dissatisfied with his particular calling, and seeks a higher place and better condition for himself.

Our first parents provide an example. Enticed by Satan, they became dissatisfied with the condition in which they had been created and sought to attain God’s own condition. Their sin clings firmly to everyone’s nature and readily carries us into discontent with our own circumstances. Ambition likewise moved Absalom to seek his father’s kingdom because he looked down on his present condition. Ambition springs from natural self-love.

To correct this vice, each of us must consider his own condition. As far as our bodies are concerned, we are dust and ashes and must return to dust. As far as the disposition of our hearts is concerned, we are wholly set on sin and far more wretched than any other creature. Of ourselves, we lack the ability to perform even the least duty of the lowest calling in the world. We cannot think one good thought by ourselves, much less perform a good duty acceptable to God in any calling.

We must therefore consider that, in our particular callings, we are only weak instruments in the Lord’s hand. He is the principal worker and agent. These and similar meditations should move us to contentment in the calling where God has placed us.

The second obstacle to constancy is envy. This is the heart’s wasting away when we see others placed in better callings and conditions than our own. It is a common sin and causes much dissension in the commonwealth. One of Machiavelli’s policies holds it necessary in a commonwealth for people of different ranks and callings to envy and resent one another. On the contrary, this clearly hinders constancy in good duties and harms both church and commonwealth.

To correct this fault, we must first consider that even the greatest callings are ordained for the common good, rather than to maintain pride and private advantage. Second, those placed in the greatest callings carry the greatest responsibilities and must therefore give God the greatest account.

The third obstacle to constancy is impatience. This is an unsettled state of mind arising from the continual troubles that attend every calling, especially when people cannot bear them or endure the injuries commonly done to them in word or deed. This very sin makes many people leave their places.

People who go to sea for pleasure choose fair and calm days. But when they become sick, are tossed by wind and weather, and face some danger to their lives, they wish themselves back on land. They regret ever coming aboard and declare that, if they reach land again, they will never go to sea any more.

Many people in church and commonwealth behave in the same way. They take a liking to a particular calling and enter it expecting pleasure, wealth, and other people’s approval. Later they find their expectations disappointed and their callings full of troubles and discomforts. They become impatient and either actually leave their callings or greatly wish to leave them.

To remedy this vice, we must resolve to go on performing our duties and to persevere through every affliction or calamity that may befall us. We must arm ourselves with all suitable and necessary patience. Christ thus commanded his disciples to possess their souls with patience. Paul charges the Philippians to let everyone know their patient and even-tempered minds.

A surgeon who must cut his patient proceeds to lance and perform the cure, however loudly the patient cries. In the same way, we must courageously and constantly perform the duties of our particular callings for God’s glory and people’s good, however many obstacles arise to hinder us. As Paul says, we must pass through good report and bad report, through shame and reproach.

To continue patiently and constantly in every good duty, we must often remember that God accepts and approves the duties of every lawful calling, however lowly. Our Savior Christ himself complains, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength in vain” (Isa 49:4). Here we see how little success the head and perfect Teacher of the church had in his calling. How does he comfort himself? With the words that follow: “But my work is with my God.” That is, although people do not submit to his doctrine, his Father approves it.

Saint Paul was troubled that his ministerial labor did not benefit everyone, but became to some the savor of death unto death. Yet he comforted himself that it was always a sweet-smelling savor to God. The same consideration of God’s approval should arm us with patience, so that we may continue in good duties with a good conscience to the end. So much for the three obstacles to constancy.

Support, Temporary Rest, and Changes

To proceed further, the constancy commanded here must be understood with three qualifications: support, temporary rest, and changes of calling.

Concerning support, God has ordained certain provisions to help callings continue: customs and tribute must be paid to magistrates, and necessary salaries, tithes, and dues to ministers of the word. Moses also says that people who diligently perform the duties of their callings, yet fall into poverty because their labor lacks God’s blessing, must be helped through interest-free loans, forgiveness of debts, and similar kindnesses (Deut 15:7).

Let hardhearted people consider this. In such cases they refuse to lend freely, but prey on people until they have sucked their bones dry. They are the ruin and plague of a commonwealth. They make beggars and vagabonds, for where there is no interest-free lending, many people are ruined.

Temporary Rest

Temporary rest means ceasing for a time from the duties of a particular calling. God’s word authorizes this on three grounds.

The first is religion. This is the principal occasion for rest and is commanded in the fourth commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day,” meaning the day of rest or cessation, “to keep it holy.” Here everyone is bound in conscience before God to cease from the duties of his calling on the seventh day. Under the New Testament this is now the Lord’s Day, and it must continue so until the last judgment.

Even ordinary reason shows this rest to be necessary, since without it religion cannot advance well. It is a means of beginning, continuing, and increasing both knowledge and grace. Someone with the most excellent natural gifts will never acquire learning unless he sets himself apart and devotes himself to study. Much more, the mysteries of heaven’s kingdom cannot be understood unless people set aside all worldly affairs at certain times, especially on the Sabbath.

Keeping the Lord’s Day therefore benefits households, towns, countries, and kingdoms. If we desire the salvation of our souls, we must take advantage of this rest and use it to increase in faith, repentance, and obedience. God, the sovereign King over all, might have required us to labor continually, day after day, throughout our lives. But out of care for our good and salvation, he required us to labor six days and commanded rest on the seventh.

The second ground for temporary rest is recreation, which is also authorized when lawfully used. God commands everyone to labor in his calling and eat his own bread in the sweat of his brow. By commanding labor, he also allows the means that fit us for it. He therefore permits lawful recreation as a necessary means of refreshing body or mind, so that we may better perform our duties.

I have discussed recreation elsewhere, so a few brief cautions will suffice here. First, it must be moderate. Otherwise it becomes a means of calling and drawing us away from our callings. Second, it must concern lawful things. Third, it must take place on working days.

Labor is commanded only on those days. Recreation temporarily interrupts labor and serves only to make us better able to continue it. It must therefore take place on the six days rather than the Sabbath. Since we must abstain on the Sabbath from the ordinary labors of our callings, we must much more abstain from our customary recreations. Where the more necessary and principal thing is forbidden, the less necessary is also forbidden. Labor is the more necessary and principal thing, and recreation serves labor.

It is therefore a serious abuse when people make the Lord’s Day a fixed day for sports and pastimes. It should be set apart for God’s worship and growth in religious duties. Household heads are especially at fault here when, after employing their servants for six full days of labor, they give them the seventh day, which belongs to the Lord, for recreation.

The third ground for temporary rest is necessity, when sickness, age, imprisonment, or some other just obstacle makes people unable to work. God has ordained that those who have “the trembling hand,” as Moses puts it, and cannot support themselves, should be supplied with what is necessary for life and health through the labor of others in their callings (Lev 25:35).

This should not seem strange. Our possessions belong to the Lord; we are only their keepers and stewards. God wills that the poor should have a claim to part of everyone’s goods. It is therefore shameful if they cannot obtain relief without wandering about, begging, or crying out.

Questions About Plague and Persecution

Two much-discussed and frequently raised questions must be examined here.

Question 1: Since visiting our neighbors in sickness is a general duty, may we lawfully cease from it at all during plague or pestilence?

Answer: We may lawfully cease from this duty with a good conscience for a time and under certain circumstances.

First, we may lawfully preserve our own lives, provided we do not harm or endanger the lives of others. Fleeing during a contagious pestilence preserves some people’s lives without harming anyone.

Second, in common dangers such as famine, fire, and war, people may flee from their neighbors for their own safety. By the same reasoning, we may flee during contagious sickness.

Third, in the Jewish church, the leper was separated from human society. In effect, this was as though all the Jews had withdrawn from his company. Fleeing during a contagious pestilence is therefore not unlawful in itself.

Objection: “Fleeing is outright distrust of God, as though he would not preserve and defend us.”

Answer: Distrust of God is a fault in the people who flee, rather than in the action of fleeing. People who labor for food and drink often distrust God’s goodness. Yet the fault lies in those who labor, rather than in the labor itself.

Objection: “Fleeing abandons those to whom we are joined by the bond of neighborhood, and this is unlawful.”

Answer: When the magistrate has appointed sufficient help for people afflicted with the plague, both for their bodies and their souls, fleeing does not amount to abandoning them. In such cases, those afflicted should not desire their neighbors’ presence.

Objection: “David never fled when the people were struck with plague.”

Answer: There were special reasons for this. First, God sent that plague suddenly. Second, David’s own sin caused the plague to come on the people. Third, he had no reason to flee because he was then assured that he himself would escape.

Visiting neighbors and friends is therefore a necessary duty that sometimes permits temporary cessation. We may then withdraw with a good conscience and seek safety for ourselves and those belonging to us, provided necessary help has otherwise been supplied for the sick.

Question 2: May ministers of the gospel flee during persecution?

Answer: They may if they have been released from the obligations of their callings that bind them to their charges. Moses thus fled to Midian, Paul from Damascus, and our Savior Christ from among the Jews.

Second, I add that ministers who have not been released from their callings may, with their people’s consent, withdraw temporarily for their own safety and the further good of others until the force of the persecution passes. This is especially so when they themselves are particular targets.

When Demetrius raised a riot at Ephesus over Diana, the people seized Paul’s companions Gaius and Aristarchus. Moved by zeal, Paul wanted to enter the crowd. But Saint Luke says that certain brothers overruled him, refused to let him enter, and caused him to withdraw (Acts 19:31).

It is therefore clear that, in common dangers, public callings allow temporary cessation for various reasons. So much for temporary rest. I now come to changes.

Changes of Calling

A change of calling is a lawful move from one calling to another. The apostle does not intend to prevent people from leaving a particular calling. He warns them against changing on every slight notion or sudden occasion.

That changes may lawfully be made is clear from these examples. Amos was first a herdsman and afterward a prophet. The disciples were first fishermen and afterward apostles. Our Savior Christ himself was a carpenter in his earlier, private life until he was thirty years old. After his baptism, however, he revealed himself as the Messiah and Savior of the world.

Nevertheless, a change must be made only for urgent and weighty reasons. Two are especially important: private necessity and the common good.

Private necessity arises when people cannot support themselves and their dependents through their present callings. They may then undertake other callings. A merchant may become a farmer, and a farmer a merchant. A physician may become a minister of the gospel. Under private necessity, Paul, an apostle, returned to tentmaking, while still performing his ministry whenever the opportunity arose.

The second reason making a change lawful is the public good. A private person may thus become a magistrate. We must remember that whenever we change, it must be to better and more excellent callings, in which we may glorify God more and bring greater benefit to the church and commonwealth. Paul therefore tells the Corinthians to seek the best gifts, which may serve the best callings (1 Cor 14:1).

Here some people deserve rebuke. They possess remarkable natural and learned abilities, yet become merchants, merchants’ agents, or servants to great people because they want worldly wealth. Their gifts would enable them to serve God better in the greatest callings of the church. So much for constancy.

The fact that we are bound to remain constant in the duties of our particular callings must teach us much more to remain constant in the general duties of Christianity. Let us therefore take care to profess the true religion now and continue steadfast in that profession to the end. Our general calling permits neither temporary cessation nor change as our particular callings do. Since we profess ourselves members of Christ, let us use these happy days of peace to arm ourselves against the evil days to come, so that we may remain faithful to the end.

Again, in the general calling, everyone is bound in good conscience to obey God in all his commandments. Here too our constancy must appear throughout our lives, so that we may say with Paul, “I have finished my course I have fought a good fight” (2 Tim 4:7). We may then say with Hezekiah on his deathbed, “Lord remember how I have walked before thee, with an upright heart, and have done that which is acceptable in thy sight” (Isa 38:3).

God has made a most merciful promise of everlasting life. This is the comfort of all comforts. Without it, the condition of God’s children would be the most miserable of all. This promise belongs to those who remain faithful to the end. On them God will bestow the crown of life. So much for continuing in our callings.

The last point to consider is how to end a calling well. This requires two things: laying it down and giving account. In the parable of the rich man, the lord calls his steward and tells him to give an account of his stewardship, because he can no longer be steward. Here we see that, besides laying down our callings, we must give an account of what we have done in them. We will consider these two things in order.

1. Laying Down a Calling

Laying down a calling means ceasing to carry out its work and duties. We must consider two things about this: first, when to lay it down; second, how to do so.

(1) When a Calling May Be Laid Down

The time is not ours to choose. We may not leave our callings whenever we please; God determines when we may do so. In the field, a soldier may not leave his post whenever he wishes, without authorization from his captain. What holds for one kind of calling applies proportionately to the rest.

In one particular calling, the office of a Levite, entry, continuance, and departure depend on God’s will. He prescribes when the Levite must enter, namely, at thirty years of age; how long he must continue, twenty years; and when he must finish, at fifty (Num 8). Therefore, the appointment of particular times and seasons for laying down other callings is also subject to God’s will. It follows that no one should lay down the calling in which he has been placed until he has grounds for saying in his conscience that God wills and approves his departure, so that he should no longer perform its duties.

This rule holds in all matters, whether they concern the Church or the commonwealth. By contrast, it also enables us to judge departures from civil and ecclesiastical callings that rest on nothing but human wishes for greater wealth, pleasure, and advancement.

To take this further, callings are of two kinds: temporary and permanent. Temporary callings are appointments for a limited time, such as a year, two years, or longer. These should be laid down according to the directions of those who made the appointments. Permanent callings are different and require other conditions. Nevertheless, there are four particular occasions when callings of this kind may be laid down.

[1] Complete Inability

When people become completely unable to perform their duties, whether through age, an incurable disease of body or mind, or a lack of the necessary gifts, they may lay down their calling. This holds whatever the calling may be, public or private, civil or ecclesiastical.

When Moses was advanced in years and saw that the end of his life was near, he called the whole congregation together. He told them that, being 120 years old, he could no longer go out and come in before them. That is, he could no longer carry out the office of a judge and prince. He therefore handed his office over to Joshua, who judged the people in his place (Deut 31:2, 7).

[2] Lawful Removal for an Offense

The second occasion is when someone is lawfully removed from office for a crime or offense. Thus, if the priests who offered sacrifice before the Lord fell away into idolatry, they were removed from the priesthood and thereafter continually employed in some service in the temple (Ezek 44:13).

[3] Death

The third occasion is death. When God calls us from this life, we receive our discharge from our particular callings. After this life, God’s children cease from their labors, and at death they begin their perpetual and eternal Sabbath.

During this life, God commands us to rest every seventh day and work during the other six. Afterward, however, we will continually and without interruption do what, in substance, we now do on the Sabbath: honor, praise, and glorify God’s name in everlasting joy.

[4] The Last Judgment

The fourth occasion is the last day of judgment, for those who are then alive. This is the universal time for laying down callings. As Paul says, Christ Jesus must then hand his kingdom over to his Father and put an end to all human rule, authority, and power. Civil, ecclesiastical, and household orders and callings must then come to an end in regard to government.

Indeed, Christ himself must give up his kingly office in regard to the manner of his government. The exercise of his priestly and prophetic offices must also come to an end, although their power and fruit will remain forever. There will then be no more prince and people, magistrate and subject, master and servant, or parents and children. God will be all in all to the elect.

We have now considered when callings are to be laid down. Next comes the manner of doing so.

(2) With a Good Conscience

We must lay down our callings with the testimony of a good conscience. Our consciences must bear witness that we have kept ourselves blameless in the work of our callings and have endeavored in everything to do God’s will.

Scripture gives us examples. When Samuel could no longer judge the people, he called the whole congregation of the Israelites together. He declared that he had not taken anyone’s ox or donkey, received any bribes, or wronged anyone, but had kept a good conscience in everything. The people’s testimony agreed with his declaration (1 Sam 12:3).

As Paul approached the end of his life, he said that he had now fought a good fight and kept the faith. All that remained was for God to give him a crown of righteousness, laid up for all who love the appearing of the Lord Jesus (2 Tim 4:7-8).

On the day of judgment, it will not be enough for men and women to be found doing the work of their callings, although this is far better than being occupied in ungodly works. I say again, it will not be enough. At the last day, two will be in the field, undoubtedly doing the work of their callings, yet one will be taken and the other refused. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and the other refused (Matt 24:40-41). Therefore, besides practicing a lawful calling, we must take care to keep a good conscience to the end, before both God and other people. So much for laying down our callings.

2. Giving Account

The second and last point is the account everyone must give of the work of his calling. The parable of the rich man shows that such an account must be given. Paul also says, “Every man must go to judgment, and give an account for himself” (Rom 14:10, 12). Solomon tells the young man who wanders in his own ways that “for all this, he shall come to judgment” (Eccl 11:9).

Few people are firmly convinced of this last and great account, because it is delayed. We ought to be more certain of it and prepare ourselves for it.

We must consider two things about this account: first, what it involves; second, how it is made.

(1) What the Account Involves

Giving account is an act in which a rational creature, especially a human being, must answer to God for everything he has done, both in his general calling and in his particular calling. The law of nature binds us to this. If lower officers in the commonwealth must answer to the highest magistrates for everything they do, then every creature must much more answer to God his Creator for the duties of his calling, in which he pays God homage and service.

This account requires four things: everyone must appear personally before God; all their works must be disclosed; every work must be examined; and everyone must receive according to his works.

[1] Appearing Before God

God’s power will bring everyone before Christ’s judgment seat. In the beginning, every creature received its being through God’s word, and so it will be on the day of judgment. God need only speak, and all rational creatures, living and dead, even those who died many thousands of years before, will present themselves before him to give account of everything they did in this life.

[2] The Disclosure of Every Work

When all human beings and angels stand in Christ’s presence, every work they have done will be disclosed, even the most secret. As Ecclesiastes says, “God will bring every secret thing to light” (Eccl 12:14).

If anyone finds this strange, we must understand that God has books of record in which everyone’s thoughts, words, and deeds are registered, whether good or bad, secret or open. Daniel speaks of these when he says that he saw the Ancient of days and the books laid open (Dan 7:9-10).

We must not imagine that these are material books like human registers, or the books in which captains in the field record their soldiers’ names and expenses. These books signify, first, God’s infinite knowledge and providence; and second, human consciences, which testify to our deeds and serve as a thousand witnesses.

[3] The Examination of Every Work

The third thing in this account is the examination of everyone’s work to determine whether it was obedient or disobedient. The standard will be God’s will, revealed partly in the law and partly in the gospel. This is the rule for distinguishing good works from evil ones.

[4] Receiving According to One’s Works

The fourth and last act is to give everyone a reward according to his works. Whoever has been a faithful servant will hear Christ’s voice saying, “It is well done, thou good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful in a little, enter into thy master’s joy” (Matt 25:21). But whoever has been unfaithful or unjust in the work of his calling will hear the same voice of Christ saying, “Take him, bind him hand and foot, and cast him into utter darkness.”

We now see what this account will be.

(2) Preparing to Give Account

Let us now examine how we may be able to give a good account before God at the last day. To do this, we must first reckon with ourselves during this life. Ordinary experience shows that people who want to settle their accounts accurately with others first work them out for themselves. This preliminary reckoning requires three things.

[1] List What You Have Received and How You Have Used It

We must draw up a statement of our receipts and expenses. We prepare the record of receipts by recalling the graces, blessings, and gifts we have received from God, whether temporal or spiritual.

As for temporal blessings, we must carefully consider our peace, health, wealth, liberty, good name, and everything of this kind. As for spiritual blessings, we must consider what knowledge, faith, hope, love, and repentance God has given us, as well as the gifts we have received for carrying out our callings. Indeed, we must make a full and accurate record of everything else we have enjoyed. These are our Lord’s talents, and he expects an account.

Having done this, we must next prepare our record of expenses. This means considering our sins thoroughly and recalling them all as far as we can, whether committed against God or against other people. We must include every abuse of our gifts and all our ignorance, negligence, and frailty, whatever they may be.

Tradesmen keep books of receipts and expenses in their shops to record their temporal affairs. Should we not do the same, with much greater care, for our spiritual affairs?

Job says, “If he dispute with God, he cannot answer one word for a thousand” (Job 9:3). By this he implies that he had examined the whole course of his life and found thousands of sins in himself. When the prophet David says, “Who knoweth the errors of this life?” he indicates that he had applied himself to searching out his own offenses and transgressions (Ps 19:12). Ezra could not have said that his sins and the people’s sins were like a huge mountain unless he had first closely examined his own life and theirs (Ezra 9:6).

Every one of us must do the same for everything we have ever done. Considering our earthly affairs enables us to understand our worldly condition. In the same way, considering our daily offenses and our spiritual condition will give us some understanding of how matters will stand with us when we appear before the great God of the whole world to give our account.

[2] Recognize the Shortfall

Once we have prepared these two statements, we must next consider whether we can settle our account with God in full. If we do this, we will find that our accounts fall far short of what God requires of us.

Few people think about these things. People commonly persuade themselves that everything will go well for them on the day of judgment and that their reckoning will be short and easy because God is merciful. It is hard to find people whose hearts have been moved, or whose eyes have been opened, to see and believe two things: first, that they must give an account; and second, that they are utterly unable to do so. They are in Job’s position, unable to excuse one in a thousand of their offenses before God.

Let us therefore strive to see how far our accounts fall short and shake off the spiritual drowsiness that possesses our minds. It leaves us unable even to ask, “What have I done? And how do matters stand between God and me?”

[3] Cling to Christ as Your Surety

When we have come to understand that we cannot settle our account with God, we must, in the third place, cling to our surety, Christ Jesus, the only Son of God, who is God and man. Throughout this life, we must humble ourselves before God and pray that he will accept Christ’s satisfaction alone, made in his suffering and death, as sufficient payment for all our sins and failings. We are taught to pray in this way: “Forgive us our debts” (Matt 6:12). We must put these things into practice, rather than merely hear them.

To persuade us more strongly to practice these three duties, let us consider how strict the account at the last day will be. As Christ says, “We must give an account for every idle word” (Matt 12:36). Paul says, “The law is an handwriting of condemnation” (Col 2:14). That is, it is a statement of debt in our own handwriting, testifying against us. Through the law, we are debtors to God. We must either fulfill its demands of justice or, according to its terms, undergo eternal judgment, unless we are acquitted through the obedience of a Mediator.

If we think we can escape this account by staying away, we deceive ourselves. Not one person in the whole world will be missing then. Many will wish with all their hearts that hills and mountains would fall on them and grind them to powder, so that they might be hidden from the Lord’s presence. But this will not help. Everyone, without exception, must come to this account. No one will be exempt.

Nor may we think that Christ will fail to know or remember our particular offenses. We maintain a favorable appearance before other people and hide our conduct from the world’s eyes. But the Lord will uncover our most secret sins. He lacks neither knowledge nor discernment. He can find Adam even in the thicket of paradise and discover him among his fig leaves. On this great day of account, every secret thing will be disclosed.

What, then, are we to do? Some plead that they are not great sinners: they do not engage in sexual immorality or adultery; they are neither blasphemers nor thieves. They therefore hope to give a satisfactory account. But this is a foolish and feeble excuse. The wages of the least sin are death. Anyone who breaks the law even once, and only in thought, is guilty of eternal condemnation. It will therefore count for no payment to say that we are not great sinners like other people.

What, then, shall we say? That we have carried on in our callings, always meant well, and harmed no one, and therefore hope that God will be merciful? This is indeed the common excuse, but it is not sufficient payment with God. As John the Baptist says, “The axe is laid to the root of the tree” (Matt 3:10). He does not go on to say that every tree will remain standing if it produces no bad fruit. Instead, he says, “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire.” In a word, whatever we devise will not suffice.

Will you settle your account with almsgiving and good works, following the opinion of the many who expect to be saved by their works? These are not acceptable payment in this account, because one breach of the law spoils all the good works we do. Anyone who seeks to be justified by works is bound to fulfill the whole law in all its strictness. Besides, the best works we do are in themselves defiled in God’s sight.

What, then, shall we do? Shall we undergo the law’s curse? Some desperate people say, “If the worst comes, there is only one out of the way” [meaning uncertain in the source]. But far be it from us to think or speak this way. The curse of the law and the wrath of God are most horrible and eternal, without rest or relief. All the fire in the world is only ice compared with the spiritual and eternal fire of hell.

Having thus turned in every direction and found help in nothing, we must flee to our surety, Christ Jesus. He was willing to stand in our place on the cross and shed his blood there for the redemption of our sins.

In this way, during this life, while the day of grace remains, we must make a preliminary reckoning with ourselves, each for ourselves. We must never rest until we have assurance in our consciences that the books in heaven are canceled and that God is willing to accept Christ’s satisfaction as payment for our sins. When this is done, we will be able to give a good account before the Lord at the last day of judgment.

Glory to God.