shall be to his prejudice to absent himself--then the same deceiver
presses him earnestly to go to his closet, or to the church to prayers,
during which time his customer goes to another place, the neighbours
miss him in his shop, his business is lost, his reputation suffers; and
by this turned into a practice, the man may say his prayers so long and
so unseasonably till he is undone, and not a creditor he has (I may give
it him from experience) will use him the better, or show him the more
favour, when a commission of bankrupt comes out against him.

Thus, I knew once a zealous, pious, religious tradesman, who would
almost shut up his shop every day about nine or ten o'clock to call all
his family together to prayers; and yet he was no presbyterian, I assure
you; I say, he would almost shut up his shop, for he would suffer none
of his servants to be absent from his family worship.

This man had certainly been right, had he made all his family get up by
six o'clock in the morning, and called them to prayers before he had
opened his shop; but instead of that, he first suffered sleep to
interfere with religion, and lying a-bed to postpone and jostle out his
prayers--and then, to make God Almighty amends upon himself, wounds his
family by making his prayers interfere with his trade, and shuts his
customers out of his shop; the end of which was, the poor good man
deceived himself, and lost his business.

Another tradesman, whom I knew personally well, was raised in the
morning very early, by the outcries of his wife, to go and fetch a
midwife. It was necessary, in his way, to go by a church, where there
was always, on that day of the week, a morning sermon early, for the
supplying the devotion of such early Christians as he; so the honest
man, seeing the door open, steps in, and seeing the minister just gone