When you are about to make a choice of a state of life, you are not
only permitted, but even urged, to take into consideration your
dispositions and aptitudes for the state which you propose to
embrace; and, if they are in good accord with it, you may safely
conjecture that they were given you for that state of life. Your
imperative duty consists in distinguishing between the call given by
God and the voice of passion or prejudice. Hence you should promptly
and faithfully follow the attractions and dispositions that God has
given you, and nothing else.
If for instance, a woman made her choice with a view of pandering to
her vanity, curiosity, worldly love, or some other passion still more
culpable perhaps, God would have no part in her determinations, and
she would inevitably become the dupe of her own folly; for God gives
light only to such as are sincere in their search for it, and they
who look for it in this way are such as those, who, in examining the
question of their vocation, have chiefly in view the glory of God and
their own salvation.
If the natural dispositions should be taken into consideration, it
is not indeed with a view to flatter nature and avoid the struggles
incident to the Christian life.
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