N01536:55
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.
I now make a Motion that is full of Equity; And if this Our Motion may more generally take, my Sermon will have a very Desirable & Comfortable Harvest, tho' all the rest of it should be but as the Rain falling upon a Rock. 'Tis this; When the Debtor puts off his Creditor from time to time, Let him think with himself; Were I the Creditor, could I care or bear to be so deals withal? How many Shufflings, would such a Thought as this in the Power of it, put an end unto?
Again, A Debtor will do well to Consider, what is the Eighth Commandment; What is implied in it; What is Required in it; And how far the Eighth Commandment will bear him out. Certainly, To keep a Man out of his Right, when 'tis possible to help him to it; I may use those Words upon it, Job XXXV. 2. Thinkest then this to be Right? The Eighth Commandment will never consent unto it.
This is the rather to be spoken, because ⟨p. 23⟩very many of the Debts in the World, are perfect Thefts, cursed Thefts. And the Flying Roll that is to Enter into the House of the Thief, will find the way to those that make nothing of them.