N01536:37
Fair dealing between debtor and creditor. A very brief essay upon the caution to…
Fair dealing between debtor and creditor. A very brief essay upon the caution to be used, about coming in to debt, and getting out of it. Offered at Boston-lecture; 5. d. XI. m. 1715/16. / By Cotton Mather, D.D. & F.R.S. ; [Two lines of quotation]
Boston: printed by B. Green for Samuel Gerrish, 1716
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The Fourth MAXIM.
Men ought often and nicely to Examine the State of their Business, if they would not find themselves irrecoverably Plunged into Debt, before they are aware, but it comes in unexpectedly like a Traveller upon them; and then holds him like an Armed Man.
It is a very Dangerous, and therefore a very Culpable Thing, for People to let their Business go on from Year to Year, in Muddy Uncertainties. There are no wise People, but what will be fond of often seeing Where-abouts they are in their Business. It was directed; Prov. XXVII. 23. Be thou diligent to know the state of thy Flocks, and look well to thy Herds; For Riches are not for ever. People should use much Diligence, frequent Enquiry, exact Inspection, into the State of their ⟨p. 17⟩Affairs. For some Rich Men, have soon come to nothing by their Inadvertency. Dealers of the Best Fashion among us, have used constantly Once a Year, to Settle their Books of Accounts, and find their Account in doing so. And for want of it, there may be some of whom we may shortly say, as Paul to the Shipwrecked Mariners; Ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have gained the Harm & Loss, which you are like to suffer by your Negligence.
It is a very Dangerous, and therefore a very Culpable Thing, for People to let their Business go on from Year to Year, in Muddy Uncertainties. There are no wise People, but what will be fond of often seeing Where-abouts they are in their Business. It was directed; Prov. XXVII. 23. Be thou diligent to know the state of thy Flocks, and look well to thy Herds; For Riches are not for ever. People should use much Diligence, frequent Enquiry, exact Inspection, into the State of their