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have an opportunity to do the greatest man much good or harm.

19. Hearken not to those who would persuade you to leave your employment; for to be sure that en't the way to Thrive: suspect therefore those that give you such counsel, lest they have a mind to succeed you in your business.

20. Let another's passion be a lecture to thy reason; and let the shipwreck of his understanding be a sea-mark to thy passion: so shalt thou gain strength out of his weakness, safety out of his danger, and raise thyself a building out of his ruins.

21. Let it be your ambition to be wise and your wisdom to be good.

22. Let thy estate serve thy occasions, thy occasions thyself, thyself thy soul, and thy soul thy God.

23. Let there be no idle person in or about your family; as beggars, or unemployed servants; but find them all work and meat: look upon them carefully, reprove them without repoaches, or fierce railings; be a master, a mistress, and a friend to them; and exact of them to be faithful and diligent.

24. Avoid going to law, if possible; and if you do but set before you the vexations, delays, quirks, and expences, in most of our trifling suits in law, 'tis great odds but you'll find at the foot of the account, that the play's not worth the candle and I am sure it is no way to Thrive,

5. Let use and necessity be the rule of all the provisions you make for the body; chuse your meat, drink, apparel, house and retinue, of such kinds, and in such proportions, as will most conduce to these purposes. But as for all beyond this, which ministers to vanity, or to luxury, retrench and despise it,

26. Be diligent in pursuance of your employment, so as not lightly or without reasonable occasion, to neglect it, in any of those times which are usually, and by the custom of prudent persons, and good husbands, employed in it.

27. Let every one that intends to Thrive, of what condition soever, avoid curiosity and all enquiry into things that don't concern them. For all business in things that concern us not, is employing our time in things that relate to no good of ours: and so can tend neither to our temporal nor eternal benefit. But in this account we are not to reckon our concerning ourselves in the necessities of our neighbours, for they concern us, as one member is concerned in the good of another; but it is those that go from house to house, and are tatlers and busy-bodies, that are the cankers and rust of idleness, as idleness is the rust of time, which are reproved by the apostle in severe language; and forbidden in order to this exercise. Therefore cut off, as much as may be, all the imper

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tinent and useless employments of your life, unnecessary and fantastic visits, long waitings upon great persons, where nei, ther duty nor charity obliges us; also all vain meetings, all laborious trifles, and whatsoever spends much time to no real civil, religious, or charitable purposes.

28. Let not your poverty press you upon unlawful measures, that you may Thrive; for that is not the way to it; but rather, continue in the honest prosecution of your business, and leave the suc cess to God; and he will be sure either to cure your poverty, or at least to take away the evil of it; and that's much more, and also far better than what you can expect by all the ways of injustice and extortion.

29. Lie, not at all; neither in a little thing, nor in a great; neither in the substance, nor in the circumstance; neither in word nor deed; that is, pretend not what is false; cover not what is true; and let the measure of your affirmation or denial be the understanding of your contraction; for he that deceives the buyer or seller, by speaking what is true in a sense not intended or understood by the other, is lyar and a thief, for in bargains you are to avoid not only what is false, but that also. which deceives.

30. Let no prices be heightened by the necessity or unskilfulness of the contractor, for the first is direct uncharitableness to

the person, and injustice in the thing; (because the man's necessity could not enter into the consideration of the commodity) and the other is deceit and oppres sion: much less must any man make necessities by ingrossing a commodity; for such persons are not only unjust to those single persons with whom they contract, but are also oppressors of the public.

31. Make it your business rather to comply with the desire and commands of others, than to indulge your own inclinations. Be humble, obedient and condescending in all your deportment. Let this be your constant prayer, that God would perform his pleasure, and dispose of thee, and all thy affairs, as to him shall seem most convenient. And the man that hath brought himself to such a temper of mind, may be assured that he is in the ready way both to Thrive and to have true content.

And when thou thus shalt come to rise,
See thou dost not the poor despise :
Be courteous, generous and free,
According still to thy degree.
From greedy carking care refrain;
Be frugal, and from waste abstain;
Enjoy what Providence doth send ;
Be true to God, and faithful to thy friend!

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