by him. Methinks, after St. Austin's example, men should not be ashamed of retractions; nor could his example operate so little, if they were endued with his precious spirit of recollection and repentance.

There is another branch of repentance, which it may be is more grievous than that of acknowledgment, which is reparation; an inseparable ingredient and effect of repentance: which needs startle men the less, because conscience never obliges men to impossibilities. He that hath stolen more than he is worth, is in the same condition with him who hath borrowed more than he can pay; a true and hearty desire to restore is and ought to be received as satisfaction: "If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live, he shall not die," (Ezek. xxxiii. 15.) Robbery and violence would be too gainful a trade, if a man might quit all scores by repentance, and detain all he hath gotten; or if the father's repentance might serve the turn, and the benefit of the transgression be transmitted as an inheritance to the son. If the pledge remain, it must be restored; the retaining it is committing a new iniquity, and forfeits any benefit of the promise; if he hath

it not, nor is able to procure it, his hearty repentance is enough without reparation: but to enjoy and to look every day upon the spoil, and yet to profess repentance, is an affront to God Almighty, and a greater sin than the first act of violence, when he did not pretend to think of him, and so did not think of displeasing him: whereas now he pretends to reconcile himself to God, and mocks him with repentance, whilst he retains the fruit of his wickedness with the same pleasure he committed it. He who is truly penitent, restores what he hath left to the person that was deprived of it, and pays the rest in devout sorrow for his trespass.It is a weak and a vain imagination, to think that a man who hath been in rebellion, and thereby robbed any man of his goods of what kind soever, and is sorry for it, can pacify God for his rebellion, and keep those goods still to himself, without the true owner's consent: he ought to restore them, though the other doth not ask them, or know where they are. Nor is his case better, who enjoys them by purchase or gift, or exchange from another man, without having himself any part or share in the rapine, if he knows that they were unjustly taken, and do of right belong to another; he is bound to re

store them.

Nor is a third excuse better than the other two; I was myself robbed by others, and am no gainer by what I have taken, but have only repaired what was one way or another taken from me: which would not be just, if I had robbed the same person who robbed me, except I could rescue my own goods again out of his hands; and jus tice will not allow that, by any act of violence, because I cannot be judge in my own interest: but to take what belongs to another man, because I know not who hath done the like to me, is so contrary to all the elements of equity, that no man can pretend to repent and to believe it together. Instead of restoring the pledge, to hug it every day in my arms and take delight in it, whilst it may be the true owner wants it, or dares not demand it, is a manifest evidence that I think I do not stand in need of the pardon the prophet pronounces; or that I believe I can obtain it another way, and upon easier conditions. And, indeed, if it could fall into a man's natural conception or imagination how a man can think it possible to be absolved from the payment of a debt which he doth not acknowledge to be due, hor pretend to be willing to pay if he were able; or how a man can hope to procure a release for a tres

pass, when he is able pay the damage, or some part thereof, yet obstinately refuses to do it at the time he desires the release; the condition and obstinacy would be the less admirable. It is natural enough for powerful and proud oppressors not to ask pardon for an injury, which they to whom it is done cannot call to justice for; and for a desperate bankrupt not to ask a release from a man, who hath no evidence of the debt which he claims, or means to recover it, if it were confessed: but to confess so much weakness as to beg and sue for a pardon, and to have so much impudence and folly as not to perform the condition, without which the pardon is void and of no effect; to ride upon the same horse to the man from whom he stole it, and desire his release without so much as offering to restore it, is such a circle of brutish madness, that it cannot fall into the mind of man endowed with reason, though void of religion. Therefore it cannot be a breach of charity to believe that men of that temper, who pretend to be sorry and to repent the having done that which they find not safe to justify, and yet retain to themselves the full benefit of their unrighteousness, do not in truth believe that they did amiss; and so are

no otherwise sorry than men are who have lost their labour, and repent only that they ventured so much for so little profit: whereas if they felt any compunction of conscience, which is but a preparation to repentance, they would remember any success they had in their wickedness, as a bitter judgment of God upon them, and would run from what they have got by it, as from a strong enemy that encloses and shuts them up, that repentance may not enter into their hearts.

There is another kind of reparation, and restitution, that is a child of repentance; a fruit that repentance cannot choose but bear; which is, repairing a man's reputation, restoring his good name, which be hath taken or endeavoured to take from him by calumnies and slanders: which is a greater robbery than plundering a man's house, or robbing him of his goods. If the tongue be sharp enough to give wounds, it must be at the charge of balsam to put into them; not only such as will heal the wound, but such as will wipe out the scar, and leave no mark behind it. Nor will private acknowledgment to the person injured, be any manifestation or evidence of repentance; fear may produce that, out