Note, 1. Industry is the way to preferment. Solomon advanced Jeroboam
because he saw that he was an industrious young man, and minded his
business, 1 Kings xi. 28. Men that take pains in study and
serviceableness will thereby gain such an interest and reputation as
will give them a dominion over all about them, by which means many have
risen strangely. He that has been faithful in a few things shall be
made ruler over many things. The elders, that labour in the word and
doctrine, are worthy of double honour; and those that are diligent when
they are young will get that which will enable them to rule, and so to
rest, when they are old. 2. Knavery is the way to slavery: The slothful
and careless, or rather the deceitful (for so the word signifies),
shall be under tribute. Those that, because they will not take pains in
an honest calling, live by their shifts and arts of dishonesty, are
paltry and beggarly, and will be kept under. Those that are diligent
and honest when they are apprentices will come to be masters; but those
that are otherwise are the fools who, all their days, must be servants
to the wise in heart.