of his person*. A prince must be used conscionably as well as a common person, and a beggar be treated justly as well as a prince; with this only indifference, that to poor persons the utmost measure and extent of justice is unmerciful, which to a rich person is innocent, because it is just, and he needs not thy mercy and remission..

9. Let no man for his own poverty become more oppressing and cruel in his bargain, but quietly, modestly, diligently and patiently recommend his estate to God, and follow its interest, and leave the success to him for such courses will more probably advance his trade, they will certainly procure him a blessing and a recompence, and if they cure not his poverty, they will take away the evil of it; and there is nothing else in it that can trouble him.

10. Detain not the wages of the hireling; for every degree of detention of it beyond the time is injustice and uncharitableness, and grinds his face till tears and blood come out but pay him exactly according to covenant, or according to his needs.

:

11. Religiously keep all promises and covenants, though made to your disadvantage, though afterwards, you perceive you might have done better: and let not any precedent act of your's be altered by any after-accident. Let nothing make break your promise, unless it be unlawful or impossible: that is, either out of your natural, or out of power, yourself being under the power of another; or that it be intolerably inconvenient to yourself, and of no

you

your civil

* Mercantia non vuol nè amici nè parenti.

advantage * to another: or that you have leave expressed, or reasonably presumed..

12. Let no man take wages or fees for a work that he cannot do, or cannot with probability undertake, or in some sense profitably, and with ease, or with advantage manage. Physicians must not meddle with desperate diseases, and known to be incurable, without declaring their sense before-hand: that if the patient please he may entertain him at adventure, or to do him some little ease. Advocates must deal plainly with their clients, and tell them the true state and danger of their case; and must not pretend confidence in an evil cause; but when he hath so cleared his own innocence, if the client will have collateral and legal advantages obtained by his industry, he may engage his endeavour, provided he do no injury to the right cause or any man's person.

13. Let no man appropriate to his own use what God, by a special mercy, or the republic hath made common: for that is both against justice and charity too; and, by miraculous accidents, God hath declared his displeasure against such enclosure. When the Kings of Naples enclosed the gardens of Oenotria, where the best Manna of Calabria descends, that no man might gather it without paying tribute,

* Surgam ad sponsalia quia promisi, quamvis non concoxerim ; sed non si febricitavero: Sub est enim tacita exceptio, Si potero, si debebo.

Senec.

Effice ut idem status sit cùm exigitur, qui fuit cùm promitterem. Destituere levitas non erit, si aliquid intervenerit novi. Eadem mihi omnia præsta, et idem sum. 1. 4. c. 39. de Benefic.

the Manna ceased till the tribute was taken off, and then it came again': and so, when after the third trial, the princes found they could not have that in proper which God made to be common, they left it as free as God gave it. The like happened in Epire, when Lysimachus laid an impost upon the Tragascan salt, it vanished till Lysimachus left it public *. And when the procurators of King Antigonus imposed a rate upon the sick people that came to Edepsum to drink the waters, which were lately sprung, and were very healthful, instantly the waters dried up, and the hope of gain perished.

. The sum of all is in these words of St. Paul, [Let no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such. 1 Thes. iv. 6.] And our Blessed Saviour, in the enumerating the duties of justice, besides the commandment of [Do not steal] adds [defraud not, Lev. xix. 13. 1 Cor. vi. 8. Matt. x. 19.] forbidding (as a distinct explication of the old law) the tacit and secret theft of abusing our brother in civil contracts. And it needs no other arguments to inforce this caution, but only that the Lord hath undertaken to avenge all such persons. And as he always does it in the great day of recompences; so very often he does it here, by making the unclean portion of injustice to be as a canker-worm, eating up all the other increase: it procures beggary, and a declining estate, or a catiff cursed spirit, an ill name, the curse of the injured and oppressed person, and a fool or a prodigal to be his heir.

*Calius Rhod. 1. 9. c. 12. Athna. Deipnos. 1. 3.

SECT. IV.

Of Restitution.

RESTITUTION is that part of justice to which a man is obliged by a precedent contract, or a foregoing fault, by his own act or another man's, either with or without his will. He that borrows is bound to pay, and much more he that steals or cheats *. For if he that borrows, and pays not when he is able, be an unjust person and a robber, because he possesses another man's goods to the right owner's prejudice; then he that took them at first without leave is the same thing in every instant of his possession, which the debtor is after the time in which he should and could have made payment. For in all sins we are to distinguish the transient or passing act from the remaining effect or evil. The act of stealing was soon over and cannot be undone, and for it the sinner is only answerable to God, or his vicegerent, and he is in a particular manner appointed to expiate it by suffering punishment, and repenting, and asking pardon, and judging and condemning himself, doing acts of justice and charity, in opposition and contradiction to that evil action. But because in the case of stealing there is an injury done to our neighbour, and the evil still remains after the action is past, therefore for this we are accountable to our neighbour, and we are to take the evil off from him which we brought upon him, or else he is an injured person, a * Chi non vuol renderc, fa mal aprendere.

sufferer all the while: and, that any man should be the worse for me, and my direct act, and by my intention, is against the rule of equity, of justice, and of charity; I do not that to others which I would have done to myself, for I grow richer upon the ruins of his fortune. Upon this ground it is a determined rule in divinity, our sin can never be pardoned till we have restored what we unjustly took, or wrongfully detained*. Restored it (I mean) actually or in purpose and desire, which we must really perform when we can. And this doctrine, besides its evident and apparent reasonableness, is derived from the express words of scripture, reckoning restitution to be a part of repentance, necessary in order to the remission of our sins. [If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, &c. he shall surely live, he shall not die.] (Ezek. xxxiii. 15). The practice of this part of justice, is to be directed by the following rules.

Rules for making Restitution.

1. Whosoever is an effective real cause of doing his neighbour wrong, by what instrument soever he does it, whether by commanding or encouraging it, by counselling or commending it, by acting it, or not hindering it when he might and ought, by concealing it or receiving it, is bound to make restitution to his neighbour; if without him the injury had not been done, but by him or his assistance it was, For, by the same reason that every one of these

* Si tuâ culpâ datum est damnum, jure super his satisfacere te oportet,