20
of may every year make a man blush to think he should spend the smallest sum unnecessarily, by immoderate eating, drinking, cloathing, family or pocket expences, which perhaps impairs his health besides, and exposes him to the reproach and ridicule of his neighbours, when he has so fair a way to turn those idle-spent pence to his own advantage. But if a man has not a mind to purchase land with his penny, he may turn it several other ways to still greater advantage, in trade and commerce.
But there is more required in the art of thriving and turning the penny to advantage than most men imagine; it is true diligence is good; but a man can never thrive as he should do, without he looks higher than all this. I remember I have somewhere read the following verses:
Spare not, nor spare too much, be this thy care,
Spare but to spend, and only spend to spare;
Who spends too much may want, and so complain,
But he spends best that spares to spend again.
Plow, sow, and reap, and then to heaven call,
That its kind blessing may on your labour fall;
'Tis vain to look for profit from what's given,
Unless you get the blessed dew from heaven.
And indeed, unless we are under the influences of a blessing from heaven, all our own endeavours, how strenuous however they may be, will never make us thrive; for as the royal Psalmist excellently observes, "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman walketh but in vain." So it is in this case, except the Lord give a blessing, our endeavours will be in vain.
