360 CIIRISTIAI MORALITY. This is the crying guilt of many; and very commonly prac- tised in This city, in greater or in less degrees ; but perhaps the profuse wretch pursues a bolder course of injustice, and betakes himself to robbery andplunder : Helies at watch onthe high- ways,- ' heseizes and assaults the innocent traveller, and deprives him of his wealth and every thing valuable, in order to support his own Wild and extravagant expences. Luxury must be fed, though justice be starved ; and luxury must be clothed, though justice go naked. My hearers perhaps will think Themselves unconcerned in all this story, and take no sharè of conviction to themselves, nor do I know any of them to whom half this charge belongs. But let it be considered, that men do not usually rise to this degree of madness all at once. Unrighteousness has several steps and stages in its race ; if we indulge our appetites, and spread our tables, or form our apparelor our furniture but a littlebeyondour income, if we once begin to admit such a manner of life and ex- pence as exceeds our estate, in order to please our own sensual or vain inclinations, or to vie with our neighbours, we expose ourselves to most evident temptations of injustice, and lead our souls into sinful snares. " We cannot live frugally as our fathers did : The fashion is altered, and we must follow it, whether the purse can bear it or no." Hence arisethe impetuous desires of hasty and extravagant gains by gaining, in order to recover what is lost by luxury. Men venture largely upon the turn of a dye, and defraud their honest creditors of their bread and life, to pay, what they°cat' 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 gaming; and if the turn of a wheel can entitle them to thousands, they çlespise the slow and tedious ways of supplying their wants by labour, busi- ness, 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 pr omises to those that we deal with, and long delays of payment, till we ima- gine that 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 princi- pal cease to be due! As though time, and unjust delay could pay debts without money. Hence flows the unrighteous practice of borrowing without any design topay, which is gross and shameful iniquity : I would hope none of the professors of religion have sok far abandoned
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=