N01536:62
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.
Doubtless you Observe, That the Precept, Owe no Man any thing, has a Twin-Brother born with it; But to Love one another. Of this Debt, the Debt of Love, which we must always Pay, and yet always Owe, to one another, I cannot but make this Observation. This Debt well followed, would regulate the other wonderfully! If this MAXIM, To Love our Neighbours as our selves, were closely kept to, Things would be carried on between Creditors and their Debtors, with a most wondrous easiness.
Doubtless you Observe, That the Precept, Owe no Man any thing, has a Twin-Brother born with it; But to Love one another. Of this Debt, the Debt of Love, which we must always Pay, and yet alwayes Owe, to one another, I cannot but make this Observation. This Debt well follow'd, would regulate the other wonderfully! If this MAXIM, To Love our Neighbours as our selves, were closely kept to, Things would be carried on between Creditors and their Debtors, with a most wondrous easiness.
Did Men Love one another, they would be loth to be Debtors, be slow to Owe, and swift to Pay; They would have a mighty Horror of Owing more than they can make Payment of; They would resolve, I will undergo any thing, rather than damnify my Neighbour, that lives peaceably & securely by me, & is ready to let me have, what I ask him for,
Did Men Love one another, they would not seek to make others become their Servants, which you know, Debtors are. And where they are so, they would not be Cruel in Exactions and Extortions upon them. No; They would sometimes Remit unto the extremely Necessitous, what they might have Exacted & Extorted from them.
Did Men Love one anotber, they would not seck to make others become their Servants, which you know, Debtors are. And where they are so, they would not be Cruel in Exactions and Extortions upon them. No; They would sometimes Remit unto the extremely Necessitous, what they might have Exacted & Extorted from them.