We have here, as often before, a caution against suretiship, as a thing
both imprudent and unjust. 1. We must not associate ourselves, nor
contract an intimacy, with men of broken fortunes, and reputations, who
need and will urge their friends to be bound for them, that they may
cheat their neighbours to feed their lusts, and by keeping up a little
longer may do the more damage at last to those that give them credit.
Have nothing to do with such; be not thou among them. 2. We must not
cheat people of their money, by striking hands ourselves, or becoming
surety for others, when we have not to pay. If a man by the divine
providence is disabled to pay his debts, he ought to be pitied and
helped; but he that takes up money or goods himself, or is bound for
another, when he knows that he has not wherewithal to pay, or that what
he has is so settled that the creditors cannot come at it, does in
effect pick his neighbour's pocket, and though, in all cases,
compassion is to be used, yet he may thank himself if the law have its
course and his bed be taken from under him, which might be taken for a
pledge to secure a debt, Exod. xxii. 26, 27. For, if a man appeared to
be so poor that he had nothing else to give for security, he ought to
be relieved, and it was honestly done to own it; but, for the recovery
of a debt, it seems it might be taken by the summum jus--the strict
operation of law. 3. We must not ruin our own estates and families.
Every man ought to be just to himself and to his wife and children;
those are not so who live above what they have, who by the
mismanagement of their own affairs, or by encumbering themselves with
debts of others, waste what they have and bring themselves to poverty.
We may take joyfully the spoiling of our goods if it be for the
testimony of a good conscience; but, if be for our own rashness and
folly, we cannot but take it heavily.