He looks not to what he might do, but what he should. Justice is his
first guide, the second law of his actions is expedience. He had rather
complain than offend, and hates sin more for the indignity of it than
the danger. His simple uprightness works in him that confidence which
ofttimes wrongs him, and gives advantage to the subtle, when he rather
pities their faithlessness than repents of his credulity. He hath but
one heart, and that lies open to sight; and were it not for discretion,
he never thinks aught whereof he would avoid a witness. His word is his
parchment, and his yea his oath, which he will not violate for fear or
for loss. The mishaps of following events may cause him to blame his
providence, can never cause him to eat his promise: neither saith he,
This I saw not; but, This I said. When he is made his friend's executor,
he defrays debts, pays legacies, and scorneth to gain by orphans, or to
ransack graves, and therefore will be true to a dead friend, because he
sees him not. All his dealings are square and above the board; he
bewrays the fault of what he sells, and restores the overseen gain of a
false reckoning. He esteems a bribe venomous, though it come gilded over
with the colour of gratuity. His cheeks are never stained with the
blushes of recantation, neither doth his tongue falter to make good a
lie with the secret glosses of double or reserved senses, and when his
name is traduced his innocency bears him out with courage: then, lo, he
goes on the plain way of truth, and will either triumph in his integrity
or suffer with it. His conscience overrules his providence; so as in all
things good or ill, he respects the nature of the actions, not the
sequel. If he see what he must do, let God see what shall follow. He
never loadeth himself with burdens above his strength, beyond his will;
and once bound, what he can he will do, neither doth he will but what he
can do. His ear is the sanctuary of his absent friend's name, of his
present friend's secret; neither of them can miscarry in his trust. He
remembers the wrongs of his youth, and repays them with that usury which
he himself would not take. He would rather want than borrow, and beg
than not to pay: his fair conditions are without dissembling, and he
loves actions above words. Finally, he hates falsehood worse than death:
he is a faithful client of truth, no man's enemy, and it is a question
whether more another man's friend or his own; and if there were no
heaven, yet he would be virtuous.