Treatise 1: §. 7. Of performing the duties of particular callings

Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
Ephesians 5:22

From that general direction concerning mutual submission, the Apostle comes to certain particulars, by which he exemplifies the same: and teaches us, that
It is not sufficient to perform general duties of Christianity unless also we be conscionable in performing the particular duties of our several callings. A conscionable performance of those particular duties is one part of our walking worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called ¹ and therefore the Apostle, for illustration and exemplification thereof, does reckon up sundry particulars, both in this and other Epistles:² and so do other Apostles.³ And Titus is charged to teach them.⁴ God himself has given a pattern hereof in his Law: for the maine scope of the fifth Commandment tends to instruct us in the particular duties of our several callings.

¹ Eph. 4. 1. ²Col. 3. 18, &c. 1 Cor. 7. 1 Tim. 3. ³ 1 Pet. 2. & 3. ⁴Titus 2.

Hereby much credit is brought to our profession, and the doctrine of God our Savior is adorned.⁵ And much good is hereby both mutually communicated one to another, and received one from another: for our particular places and callings are those bonds whereby persons are firmly and fitly knit together, as the members of a natural body by nerves, arteries, sinews, veines, and the like, by which life, sense and motion is communicated from one to another.

⁵Tit. 2. 10. 1 Pet. 3. 1, 2.

Let therefore notice be taken of the particular callings wherein God hath set us, and of the several duties of those callings, and conscience be used in the practise of them. He is no good Christian that is careless herein. A bad husband, wife, parent, child, master, servant, magistrate or minister, is no good Christian.