The trades-man's calling being a discourse concerning the nature, necessity, choice, &c. of a…

Again; Tho you might (for instance) import or export some Commodity to your great profit; yet if the same be prohibited by the Laws of your Society, you ought in Justice to forbear so doing. If there be Laws and Orders to which you are sworn, engaging you to employ no Foreigner in your Trade, lest those who served an Apprenticeship be discouraged, and left without Employment; you are bound in Justice to refuse all such Assistance, especially where in so doing you do really cross the End of those Constitutions. In a word, you ought in all things to consult the good of the Society as well as your own; yea, the future welfare thereof as well as the present, if you will be just unto your Obligations.

Again; Tho you might (for instance) import or export some Commoditie to your great profit; yet if the same be prohibited by the Laws of your Society, you ought in Justice to forbear so doing. If there be Laws and Orders to which you are sworn, engaging you to imploy no Foreigner in your Trade, lest those who served an Apprentiship be discouraged, and left without Imployment; you are bound in Justice to refuse all such Assistance, especially where in so doing you do really cross the End of those Constitutions. In a word, you ought in all things to consult the good of the Society as well as your own; yea, the future welfare thereof as well as the present, if you will be jast unto your Obligations.

8. This Justice will instruct you, to have An equitable Regard to your fellow Tradesmen. Though every Man is bound to use all honest endeavours to get and increase his Custom, yet as it is pity to be an hindrance to one that is poorer than your self, so there is a Decorum to be observed in winning over to you, your Neighbours Chapmen or Customers; namely you must abhor all unjust Reflections upon your fellow-Tradesman, or on his Commodity, for that is directly against the Ninth Commandment; and any other cunning or unhandsome ⟨p. 117⟩Tricks to attain your Ends; you must beware of a Covetous Principle, of all Injustice and Uncharitableness, of any thing that is unseemly or scandalous. And though Masters should be content, that their Apprentices having served their Time with them, should carry away at their setting up some part of their Custom and Customers; yet no ingenuous Apprentice will use any indirect means, either before the Expiration of his Time, or after, to feather his own Nest by leaving his Master naked, or to endeavour any thing herein, but what is commonly and approvedly done in that case: For himself will not, when the case comes to be his own, be content to be so used. Neither is it agreeable to Justice or Equity, that the rich Tradesman, whose Estate perhaps will bear it out, should under-sell his meaner Neighbours; or the rich Artificer so fall in the Prices of his Manufactures, that his poorer fellow-Tradesman, wanting his Stock and Credit, cannot subsist upon it; especially if such sinking the Price of your Commodity spring from a design of weakening or impoverishing the other.