N01536:59
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.
For indeed, There is this in it, worse than all the rest. Oftentimes a Man in Debt, must have the Guilt of much Wrong lying upon him. This Guilt will bring a Cloud upon the Soul, be Chains of Darkness upon it, and much interrupt Communion with God. Yea, the Guilt will arm the Conscience with Scourges grievously to lash the Soul that shall be under it. In Antiquity we find many Customs, of Severe Punishments inflicted by Creditors on their Debtors when in a course of Law, they had them delivered up unto them. A. Gellius among others makes a mention of them. What the Roman Laws of the XII Tables allowed, for the Creditors to tear the Debtors Limb from Limb without a Metaphor, was hard enough. But for the Conscience of a Debtor to take him in hand, and with angry Strokes to tell him, You have wronged such & such Neighbours; they feel themselves the worse for you every day that comes over their heads; and what Restitution can you make unto them! Verily, This will be worse than any of the ancient Punishments, that Bankrupts had assigned for them. I say, Again & again, Consider of it!
For indeed, There is this in it, worse than all the rest. Oftentimes a Man in Debt, must have the Guilt of much Wrong lying upon him. This Guilt will bring a Cloud upon the Soul, be Chains of Darkness upon it, and much interrupt Communion with God. Yea, the Guilt will arm the Conscience with Scourges grievously to lash the Soul that shall be under it. In Antiquity we find many Customes, of Severe Punishments inflicted by Creditors on their Debtors when in a course of Law, they had them delivered up unto them. A. Gellius among others makes a mention of them. What the Roman Laws of the XII Tables allow'd, for the Creditors to tear the Debtors Limb from Limb without a Metaphor, was hard enough. But for the Conscience of a Debtor to take him in hand, and with angry Strokes to tell him, You have wronged such & such Neighbours; they feel themselves the worse for you every day that comes over their heads; and what Restitution can you make unto them! Verily, This will be worse than any of the ancient Punishments, that Bankrupts had assigned for them. I say, Again & again, Consider of it!
And now, having built a Watch-Tower upon Seven MAXIMS, as upon so many Unshaken Pillars, from whence you have dispensed unto