Suretyship

“ Although a surety proceedas to his suretyship in opposition to a lord, he is liable neither to dirwy nor camlwrw. [358] If a person's debtor dies and he does not obtain from anyone the chattels bequeathed, let the surety proceed as to his suretyship for the dead, and let the three degrees of kin nearest to him pay ”

“ We must look upon suretiship as a snare and decline it accordingly, v. 1, 2. "It is dangerous enough for a man to be bound for his friend, though it be one whose circumstances he is well acquainted with, and well assured of his sufficiency, but much more to strike the hands with a stranger, to become surety for one whom thou dost not know to be either able or honest." Or the stranger here with whom the hand is stricken is the creditor, "the usurer to whom thou art become bound, and yet as to thee he is a stranger, that is, thou owest him nothing, nor hast had any dealings with him. ”

“ And every man shall see that he has a surety, and this surety shall bring and keep him to [the performance of] every lawful duty. And if anyone does wrong and escapes, his surety shall incur what the other should have incurred. If the case be that of a thief and his surety can lay hold of him within twelve months, he shall deliver him up to justice, and what he has paid shall be returned to him. ”

“ He now stands committed; he is like a roe that is caught by the hunter, or a bird that is held by the fowler, in the hand of his neighbour. His peace of mind, and his welfare, depend no longer upon himself, but upon the character, the weakness, the caprice of another. This is a good illustration of the way in which a thoughtless action may weave cruel bands to bind the unwary. Looking at the matter from this point of view, our book strongly and frequently denounces the practice of suretiship. To become surety for another shows that you are void of understanding. ”

“ This ill beseemeth thy sovereignty, and is unworthy of thy rank.
68 Let My counsel be acceptable to thee, and strive thou to rule with equity among men, that God may exalt thy name and spread abroad the fame of thy justice in all the world. Beware lest thou aggrandize thy ministers at the expense of thy subjects. Fear the sighs of the poor and of the upright in heart who, at every break of day, bewail their plight, and be unto them a benignant sovereign. They, verily, are thy treasures on earth. ”

“ A sinner will overthrow the good estate of his surety, and he that is of an unthankful mind will leave him in danger that delivered him." But confining ourselves to the standpoint of the text, we may well raise a note of warning against the whole practice. As Ecclesiasticus himself says, "Suretiship hath undone many of good estate, and shaken them as a wave of the sea: mighty men hath it driven from their houses, so that they wandered among strange nations. A wicked man transgressing the commandments of the Lord shall fall into suretiship." ”

“ The permission by God of a mere human, unsanctioned enterprise, nay, of a mighty, general, protracted, and incurable division among mankind—a system of opposition with all its unhappy consequences, its moral impediments, and its political disasters; such a permission forms, as I have already observed, the great enigma of history—the wonderful secret of the divine decrees in the conduct of mankind, as well as in the conduct of individuals. ”

“ I, in that rule, assume that men know from revelation and providence the relations in which I have placed them, and their duties therein. I then command them to do unto others what they thus know they ought to do unto them in these relations; and I make the obligation quick and powerful, by telling every man to imagine himself in such conditions, and then he will the better KNOW 'whatsoever' he should do unto his neighbor. Why hast thou made void my law, by making me say, 'All that thou expectest or desirest of others, in similar circumstances, do to them'? ”

“ In the sacred fact of obligation you touch the immutable, and lay hold, as it were, on the eternities. At the very centre of your being, there is a fixed element, and that of a kind or degree essentially sovereign. A standard is set up in your very thought, by which a great part of your questions are determined, and about which your otherwise random thoughts may settle into order and law. ”

“ When you entrust the exercise of power to a virtuous man, you are safe; but if the man to whom the power itself is entrusted, is vicious, no security can be derived from a temporary appointment, or one during his pleasure, made by him, of an angel to exercise a part of that power, under his orders; because an Angel must obey, and because he will be exchanged for a different character, whenever measures are brought into such a state, has to require a different character to execute them. ”

“ Every man who wishes to be considered a freeman shall have a surety, that his surety may hold him and hand him over to justice if he offend in any way. And if any such one escape, his sureties shall see to it that, without making difficulties, they pay what is charged against him, and that they clear themselves of having known of any fraud in the matter of his escape. ”

“ But we suppose a law under which both subsist, which regulates the mode of their existence, and by the efficiency of which the order of their succession is determined. So likewise, in the spiritual world, we entertain the firmest conviction that our moral Will is connected with certain consequences, though we cannot understand how mere Will can of itself produce such consequences. We here again conceive of a law under which our Will, and the Will of all finite beings, exists, in virtue of which it is followed by certain results, and out of which all our relations with other beings arise. ”

“ How beautifully all our blessed Lord’s precepts hang together, and fit the one the other; if your consent to follow him in his poverty as he has commanded, you have little to fear in following his other commands of non-resistance: if you accept not the first, you will not accept the second, except in such circumstances as expose you to perhaps little comparative danger. May the Lord make me willing, whatever it costs, to learn all his will, and give me grace to love it. ”

“ What necessity, therefore, is there to found the duty of allegiance or obedience to magistrates on that of fidelity or a regard to promises, and to suppose that it is the consent of each individual which subjects him to government, when it appears that both allegiance and fidelity stand precisely on the same foundation, and are both submitted to by mankind, on account of the apparent interests and necessities of human society? ”

“ How, with the best will in the world, are we to distinguish order from disorder? What assurance have we, after striving to bring ourselves into obedience, that we have succeeded? We may agree, for example, with Wordsworth that Duty is a stern daughter of the Voice of God, and that through Duty 'the most ancient heavens,' no less than we ourselves, are kept fresh and strong. But can we always discern this Universal, this Duty? ”

“ If the Lord had not appointed you to be sovereign over the body as over a kingdom, if he had not confided to you the affairs of its government, and had not given you this brief copy as a model, how would you have been able to comprehend the sovereign, who is independent of reasoning and of place, and who cannot be known by argument or hypothesis or in any other way? ”

“ The security of the State demands that we should be brought back to Him from whom we ought never to have departed to Him who is the way, the truth, and the life, not as individuals merely, but as human society through all its extent. Christ our Lord must be reinstated as the Ruler of human society. ”

“ Did you think, sir, that any gentleman who regarded the laws of righteousness and the rules of propriety, would ever condescend to investigate any subject with a man who could descend to such shameful means to support any cause. If you did, sir, you have as little acquaintance with human nature, as you have with the rules of propriety. ”

“ It will be necessary for us to believe in one another, to trust one another. Those are general stipulations: the only specific conditions I shall make are, absolute, inviolable secrecy, which you would hardly break, and, what you may find less easy to comply with, implicit obedience to my instructions. ”

“ But these arbitrary selections, as they appear at first sight, in reality, when we look more closely, are found to deliver the institution of primogeniture from arbitrariness; and they show to us that the Will which rules the world maintains its freedom under the guidance of its wisdom, and remits to no institution, however useful or honourable, the supreme power in the conduct of human affairs. ”

“ Sir Thomas More.—The will is revealed; but the plan is hidden. Let man dutifully obey that will, and the perfection of society and of human nature will be the result of such obedience; but upon obedience they depend. Blessings and curses are set before you—for nations as for individuals—yea, for the human race. ”

“ Though God for lesse then ten just persons would not spare Sodom, yet if you can finde after due search but only one good thing in prelaty either to religion, or civil goverment, to King or Parlament, to Prince or people, to law, liberty, wealth or learning, spare her, let her live, let her spread among ye, till with her shadow, all your dignities and honours, and all the glory of the land be darken'd and obscurd. ”

“ Whatever power He has delegated to subordinate agents, must form a portion of this universal order, and be exercised in conformity with the divine purposes. [pg 232] It is inconceivable that subordinate agents can be allowed to break in upon it at their will and pleasure, for the general permanence of its order forms an essential condition for the exercise of moral agency. If they are allowed to do so, it must be only within clear and definite limits, which ultimately effectuate the purposes of the Creator. ”

“ And with this proof I conclude. The universal fellowship of men, the laws which unite one to the other, the most sacred and inviolable duties of civil life, are all founded only on the certainty of a future state. ”

“ We believe ourselves in security in our state, because it perhaps offers to our sight more innocence and regularity than that of disorderly souls; and indeed, we wish not to conceive how a life purely natural should not be a life of grace and of faith; or that a state of habitual idleness and sensual gratification, should be a state of sin and death in a Christian life. ”

“ Once more, if to the justice of your cause, and the your principles you add prudence in your conduct, there will be the greatest reason to hope, by the blessing of God, for prosperity and success. By prudence in conducting this important struggle, I have chiefly in view union, firmness, and patience. Every body must perceive the absolute necessity of union. ”

“ When a man becomes surety, let him give the security in a distinct form, acknowledging the whole transaction in a written document, and in the presence of not less than three witnesses if the sum be under a thousand drachmae, and of not less than five witnesses if the sum be above a thousand drachmae. ”

“ And mankind has learned, my lords, by experience, that exorbitant power will always produce exorbitant pride; that very few, when they can oppress with security, will be contained within the bounds of equity by the restraints of morality or of religion ”

“ We dare neither assume nor propose the trite indefinite distinction between essentials and non-essentials, in matters of revealed truth and duty; firmly persuaded, that, whatever may be their comparative importance, simply considered, the high obligation of the Divine authority revealing, or enjoining them, renders the belief or performance of them absolutely essential to us, in so far as we know them. ”

“ In short, is there any security against the commission of enormities, but an humble and devout dependence on the assistance of that Almighty Power, which alone is able to hold us up against temptation? ”

“ When I perceived some private persons, under colour of religion, intend to wring the authority from the King, and to seize on it for themselves, it was thought fit, for the clearing of honest men, that a bond should be subscribed, wherein the security of religion was sufficiently provided for. ”

“ You are sadly mistaken, in a false and dangerous security. You are perhaps, although unawares, on the very brink of a precipice, where so many have fallen through their blind confidence in their own strength or their confessor's prudence and sanctity. ”

“ Turn the matter as we will—call these correlatives, namely, the inherent susceptibilities and the causes acting on them from without, natural, or moral, or spiritual—so long as their action and reaction, or the law of reciprocity, which constitutes their specific natures, is considered as the controlling law of our whole being, so long as we refuse to admit the existence in the will of a power capable of rising above this law, and controlling its operation by an act of absolute self-determination, so long we shall be involved in perplexities both in morals and religion. ”

“ Consider, you who are going to court, what you wish to maintain and wherein you wish to succeed; for if you wish to maintain freedom of moral purpose in its natural condition, all security is yours, every facility yours, you have no trouble. ”