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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 September 2009
Custom indeed has driven us beyond the limits of our morals in many things, which trade makes necessary, and which we cannot now avoid; so that if we pretend to go back to the literal sense of the command, if our yea must be yea, and our nay nay; if no man must go beyond, or defraud his neighbour; if our conversation must be without covetousness, and the like, why then it is impossible for tradesmen to be Christians, and we must unhinge all business, act upon new principles in trade, and go on by new rules: in short, we must shut up shop, and leave off trade, and so in many things we must leave off living …. But this is a subject would launch me out beyond the bounds of a letter, and make a book by itself.
The Complete English Tradesman, 1: 234–5There is … little visible Difference between the lawful Applications of Industry and Business, and the unlawful Desires after exorbitant Wealth …. getting Money is so general a Duty, that it seems to be one of the Ends of Life; how then shall we distinguish the Vertue from that Extreme? And where are the Bounds between the Duty and the Crime? The Confines of Virtue reach to the Frontiers of Vice, and where this ends that begins.
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