s being neglected, his shop
unattended, his books not posted, his letters not written, and the
like--for all those things are works necessary to a tradesman, as well
as the attendance on his shop, and infinitely above the pleasure of
being treated at the expense of his time. All manner of pleasures should
buckle and be subservient to business: he that makes his pleasure be his
business, will never make his business be a pleasure. Innocent pleasures
become sinful, when they are used to excess, and so it is here; the most
innocent diversion becomes criminal, when it breaks in upon that which
is the due and just employment of the man's life. Pleasures rob the
tradesman, and how, then, can he call them innocent diversions? They are
downright thieves; they rob his shop of his attendance, and of the time
which he ought to bestow there; they rob his family of their due
support, by the man's neglecting that business by which they are to be
supported and maintained; and they oftentimes rob the creditors of their
just debts, the tradesman sinking by the inordinate use of those
innocent diversions, as he calls them, as well by the expense attending
them, as the loss of his time, and neglect of his business, by which he
is at last reduced to the necessity of shutting up shop in earnest,
which was indeed as good as shut before. A shop without a master is like
the same shop on a middling holiday, half shut up, and he that keeps it
long so, need not doubt but he may in a little time more shut it quite
up.

In short, pleasure is a thief to business; how any man can call it
innocent, let him answer that does so; it robs him every way, as I have
said above: and if the tradesman be a Christian, and has any regard to
religion and his duty, I must tell him, that when upon his disasters he
shall reflect, and see that he has ruined himself and his family, by
following too much those diversions and pleasures which he thought
innocent, and which perhaps in themselves were really so, he will find
great cause to repent of that which he insisted on as innocent; he will
find himself lost, by doing lawful things, and that he made those
innocent things sinful, and those lawful things unlawful to him. Thus,
as they robbed his family and creditors before of their just debts--for
maintenance is a tradesman's just debt to his family, and a wife and
children are as much a tradesman's real creditors as those who trusted
him with their goods--I say, as his