A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian PoliticsBaxter, Richard
Religion
A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian Politics
Baxter, Richard
Casuistry; Christian sociology
_Answ._ Causeless, perplexing, melancholy scruples, which would
stop a man in the course of his duty, are not to be indulged: but in
rational doubts, first use your utmost diligence (as much as the
nature of the cause requireth) to be resolved; and if yet you doubt,
be sure to go the safer way, and to avoid sin rather than loss, and to
keep your consciences in peace.
_Quest._ XVII. If the buyer lose the commodity between the
bargain and the payment, (as if he buy your horse, and he die before
payment, or presently after,) what should the seller do to his relief?
_Answ._ If it were by the seller's fault, or by any fault in the
horse which he concealed, he is to make the buyer full satisfaction.
If it were casually only, rigorous justice will allow him nothing; and
therefore if it be either to a man that is rich enough to bear it
without any great sense of the loss, or in a case where in common
custom the buyer always standeth to the loss, mere justice will make
him no amends. But if it be where custom makes some abatement judged a
duty, or where the person is so poor as to be pinched by the loss,
that common humanity, which all good men use in bargaining, which
tempereth justice with charity, will teach men to bear their part of
the loss; because they must do as they would be done by.
_Quest._ XVIII. If the thing bought and sold prove afterward of
much more worth than was by either party understood, (as in buying of
ambergris and jewels it oft falleth out,) is the buyer bound to give
the seller more than was bargained for?
_Answ._ Yes, if it were the seller's mere ignorance and
insufficiency in that business which caused him so to undersell it (as
if an ignorant countryman sell a jewel or ambergris, who knoweth not
what it is, a moderate satisfaction should be made him). But if it
were the seller's trade, in which he is to be supposed to be
sufficient, and if it be taken for granted beforehand, that both buyer
and seller will stand to the bargain whatever it prove, and that the
seller would have abated nothing if it had proved less worse than the
price, then the buyer may enjoy his gain; much more if he run any
notable hazard for it, as merchants use to do.
_Quest._ XIX. What if the title of the thing sold prove bad,
which was before unknown?
_Answ._ If the seller either knew it was bad, or through his
notable negligence was ignorant of it, and did not acquaint the buyer
with so much of the uncertainty and danger as he knew, or if it was
any way his fault that the buyer was deceived, and not the buyer's
fault, he is bound to make him proportionable satisfaction. As also in
case that by law or bargain he be bound to warrant the title to the
buyer. But not in case that it be their explicit or implicit agreement
that the buyer stand to the hazard, and the seller hath done his duty
to make him know what is doubtful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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