Christian ethics -- Fiction; Christian fiction; Conduct of life -- Fiction
These things considered, and duely put in practice, if God will blow
upon a man, then let him be content, and with Job embrace the dunghill;
let him give unto all their dues, and not fight against the Providence
of God, (but humble himself rather under his mighty hand,) which comes
to strip him naked and bare: for he that doth otherwise, fights against
God; and declares that he is a stranger to that of Paul; I know both
how to be abased, and I know how to abound; every where, in all things,
I am instructed both to be full, and to be hungry, both to abound, and
to suffer need. {105f}
Atten. But Mr. Badman would not, I believe, have put this difference
’twixt things feigned, and those that fall of necessity.
Wise. If he will not, God will, Conscience will; and that not thine own
only, but the Consciences of all those that have seen the way, and that
have known the truth of the condition of such an one.
Atten. Well: Let us at this time leave this matter, and return again to
Mr. Badman.
Wise. With all my heart will I proceed to give you a relation of what
is yet behind of his Life, in order to our discourse of his Death.
Atten. But pray do it with as much brevity as you can.
Wise. Why? are you a weary of my relating of things?
Atten. No. But it pleases me to hear a great deal in few words.
Wise. I profess not my self an artist that way, but yet as briefly as I
can, I will pass through what of his Life is behind; and again I shall
begin with his fraudulent dealing (as before I have shewed with his
Creditors, so now) with his Customers, and those that he had otherwise
to deal withall.
He dealt by deceitfull Weights and Measures. {106} He kept weights to
buy by, and weights to sell by; measures to buy by, and measures to
sell by: those he bought by were too big, those he sold by were too
little.
Besides, he could use a thing called slight of hand, if he had to do
with other mens weights and measures, and by that means make them
whether he did buy or sell, yea though his Customer or Chapman looked
on, turn to his own advantage.
Moreover, he had the art to misreckon men in their Accounts whether
by weight, or measure, or money, and would often do it to his worldly
advantage, and their loss: What say you to Mr. Badman now?
And if a question was made of his faithfull dealing, he had his
servants ready, that to his purpose he had brought up, that would
avouch and swear to his Book, or word: this was Mr. Badmans practice;
What think you of Mr. Badman now?
Atten. Think! Why I can think no other but that he was a man left to
himself, a naughty man; for these, as his other, were naughty things;
if the tree, as indeed it may, ought to be judged, what it is by its
fruits; then Mr. Badman must needs be a bad Tree. But pray, for my
further satisfaction, shew me now by the Word of God, evil of this his
practice: and first of his using false Weights and Measures.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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