comfortable, more agreeable,
and pleasant, by its being more healthy and hearty; so, though the
exactest book-keeping cannot be said to make a tradesman thrive, or that
he shall stand the longer in his business, because his profit and loss
do not depend upon his books, or the goodness of his debts depend upon
the debtor's accounts being well posted, yet this must be said, that the
well keeping of his books may be the occasion of his trade being carried
on with the more ease and pleasure, and the more satisfaction, by having
numberless quarrels, and contentions, and law-suits, which are the
plagues of a tradesman's life, prevented and avoided; which, on the
contrary, often torment a tradesman, and make his whole business be
uneasy to him for want of being able to make a regular proof of things
by his books.

A tradesman without his books, in case of a law-suit for a debt, is like
a married woman without her certificate. How many times has a woman
been cast, and her cause not only lost, but her reputation and
character exposed, for want of being able to prove her marriage, though
she has been really and honestly married, and has merited a good
character all her days? And so in trade, many a debt has been lost, many
an account been perplexed by the debtor, many a sum of money been
recovered, and actually paid over again, especially after the tradesman
has been dead, for want of hits keeping his books carefully and exactly
when he was alive; by which negligence, if he has not been ruined when
he was living, his widow and children have been ruined after his
decease; though, had justice been done, he had left them in good
circumstances, and with sufficient to support them.

And this brings me to another principal reason why a tradesman should
not only keep books, but be very regular and exact in keeping them in
order, that is to say, duly posted, and all his affairs exactly and duly
entered in his books; and this is, that if he should be surprised by
sudden or unexpected sickness, or death, as many are, and as all may be,
his accounts may not be left intricate and unsettled, and his affairs
thereby be perplexed.

Next to being prepared for death, with respect to Heaven and his soul, a
tradesman should be always in a state of preparation for death, with
respect to his books; it is in vain that he calls for a scrivener or
lawyer, and makes a will, when he finds a sudden summons sent him for
the grave, and calls his friends a