comes, such a brother would find himself to be no loser, if this indeed were done in dependence upon the Lord, and constrained by the love of Jesus. But if the 50l. more is paid for rent, and yet the living God, in the very love of His heart, should be obliged to withhold prosperity from His child in His calling, because He sees that he is laying undue stress upon the situation of the house, then not only the 50l. extra rent per year is lost, but also that which the Lord is obliged to withhold from His child besides, in order to teach him the lesson; and thus year after year, by our own fault, we may have scarcely any thing to give for the work of God. 7, The next obstacle to prosperity in our calling which I now would mention is, That children of God often use such expressions as these with reference to their calling: "this is our busy time," or "this is our dead time," which implies that they do not day after day deal with God about their calling, but that they ascribe their having much or little to do to circumstances, or to times and seasons. That the people of the world should do so is not to be wondered at; but that the children of God should act thus, who in the most minute affairs of life should seek the help of God, and deal with God about them, is a matter of sorrow to the spiritual mind, and is altogether unbecoming saints. But what is the result. The Lord, according to the expectations of His children, allows them to be without employment, because they say, "this is our dead season." "He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief," contains a truth which comes in here. But what is the right way of looking at the matter? It is this: the child of God should say, though generally about this time of the year there is little employment to be expected, looking at it naturally, yet as a want of employment is neither good for the outward nor inward man, and as I only desire employment to serve God in my business, to have to give to those who are in need, or help in other ways the work of God, I will now give myself to prayer for employment, for I can by prayer and faith, as a child of God, obtain blessings from my heavenly Father, though not in the ordinary course of things. If thus the child of God were to say and to act, he would soon have employment in his calling, except the Lord meant to use his time otherwise in His work, which He would point out to him. 8, A further reason, why God may be obliged to resist children of God in their business, may be this, that they with the greatest carefulness seek to obtain persons for their shop who are considered "good salesmen," i.e. persons who have such persuasive ways, as that they gain an advantage over the customers and induce them not only to buy articles for which they ask, whether suitable or not, but that they also induce them to buy articles which they did not at all intend to buy when they came to the shop. Concerning this I notice in the first