437 / 514
'SEEM:
XXVI.]
CHRISTIAN MORALITY,
VIZ.
JUSTICE,
&C.
429
neighbours,
we
expose
ourselves
to most
evident tempta-
tions
of
injustice, and
lead
our
seuls
into sinful snares.
"
We
cannot
live
frugal as
our
fathers
did
:
The
fashion
is
altered, and
we
must
follow
it,
whether the purse can
bear
it
or no."
Hence
arise the
impetuous
desires
of
hasty and
extra
-
yagant
gains
by
gaming,
in
order
to
recover
what
is
lost
by luxury.
Men venture
largely
upon the turn of
a
die,
and defraud their honest creditors
of
their bread and
life,
to
pay,
what they
call
in
their
cant, the debts
of
honour. A wanton
sort
of justice
and
illegal
equity
!
It
is
the luxurious
fashion
of
life
that
bath
filled
our land
with the
itch
of
gamin;
and
if
the
turn
of
a
wheel can
intitle
them to thousands, they despise the
slow
and tedi-
ous
ways
of
supplying their wants
by
labour,
business,
or
traffic.
Thus honest industry
is
discouraged, and trade,
which
is
the political
life
of
our nation,
lies
groaning and
expiring.
Hence
proceeds.
the wicked
custom
of
breaking pro
-
mises to
those
that
we
deal with, and
long
delays
of
payment,
till
we
imagine the
debt
is
cancelled,
by
being
almost forgotten. A vain
and
criminal imagination
!
As
though
the daily
increase of interest, and
the
patience
of
the
creditor, could
make the
principal
cease to be due'.
As
though
time,
and
unjust
delay, could pay
debts with-
out
money.
Hence
flows
the unrighteous practice
of
borrowing
without
any design to
pay,
which
is
_gross
and shameful
iniquity:
I
would
hope
none
of
the professors
of
religion
have
so
far
abandoned
all
sense
of
righteousness.
Yet
there
are'
too
many, who, when once'
they have
borrow-
ed, grow
so
careless
'and
negligent
of
payment,
that it
brings
a
disgrace
upon their
profession, and
a blot upon
their character. Profuse
arid
thoughtless
sinners, who
run
in
debt
to
every
one
that
will
trust
them for the daily
conveniences of
life
!
Though
they have no
reasonable
prospect of
paying,
yet
they
ask
their neighbòur
to
lend,
with
a
free
and courageous countenance, and
put
a
bold
face
upon their venturous
iniquity, being too
proud to.let
their
poverty
be
known.
Rut
the.
God
of justice
beholds
their
crime,--
and writes.their
names
dp«_n
ip his
book
among
the
unrighteous,
Ps.
xxxxii.
1.
Tlio
wicked
bar
-
'rozeetli,
and
paieth
not again,.