4. Forgiveness should be accompanied with a meeting or interview between the persons who have been at variance, that they may ratify and confirm their agreement by all suitable expressions of love and kindness; and this is properly called reconciliation: and I cannot but advise persons under sickness, to send for those with whom they have had any difference, and to make up all breaches and divisions before they die. But if the shortness of time, or the distance of their abode, or any other obstacle should hinder such a personal meeting, there is no doubt that the union of affections, and the loving and peaceable disposition of the soul will make such a reconciliation as will be pleasing in the sight of GOD.

Lastly. Forgiveness must be attested by doing good offices towards the person offending. Though the rules of prudence would advise you not to take a man into your bosom whom you find unqualified for friendship, yet religion will oblige you to show him all the acts of kindness that lie in your power. It will induce you to declare all the good, and conceal all the evil you know of him; to think the best, and speak the fairest of his reputation; effectually to promote his temporal interest, and seriously to advise him about his eternal concerns; to be liberal of your substance towards the relief of his necessities, and merciful in cancelling those debts and obligations which his trying circumstances may not suffer him to discharge.

There are further some important instructions which you should receive concerning your duty of seeking forgiveness and reconciliation from those whom you have offended. The sum of your duty in this case is comprehended in this single word, restitution, which is an act of justice restoring to an injured person what has been wrongfully taken from him, and giving him an equivalent for the losses he has sustained for the

his own. For the better understanding of should consider first how one man may be nother.

in may be injured in his body, which is 1 Abridged from Coney.

then done, when any mischief or violence is committed upon the body by beating or misusing it.

2ndly. A man may be injured in his reputation, which is commonly done by detraction, whispering, evil-speaking, backbiting. For all these are manifest and real injuries to him, inasmuch as they weaken his credit in the world, prove a hindrance to his business and employment, and take away that good name, which is sweeter than precious ointment, and rather to be chosen than great riches.

3rdly. A man may be injured in his goods or worldly concerns; and that by slighting or under-valuing his commodities; by unjustly taking away or stealing any part of his substance; by imposing upon his ignorance; by making an advantage of his necessities; or by over-reaching him in bargaining and traffic. If you have been guilty of the breach of your duty in any one of these particulars, it must be your aim to find means for quieting your conscience, and pacifying the wrath of a Just GOD, by making a sufficient restitution to your neighbour; and this suggests a further particular, viz. :

II. The persons to whom you are to make satisfaction; and they, without doubt, must be in the first place, those who have been injured by you, if they be alive, and require it at your hands: for they may be dead, and so not capable of receiving satisfaction from you; or they may be alive, and if they please, relinquish their right and forgive you. But if neither death nor forgiveness have altered the case, and the very person can be found to whom restitution is due, GOD Himself has determined your duty in the fifth chapter of Numbers, and the seventh verse. "Ye shall recompense your trespass with the principal thereof, and add unto it the fifth part thereof, and give it unto him against whom you have trespassed." The justice of this command is set forth to us in the New Testament, in the noted example of Zaccheus.

But upon supposition that the persons injured are 1 Or a man may be injured in his family by the seduction of wife or daughter, or in his soul by temptation. In these cases consult a spiritual guide.

in the scrutiny of his conscience and confession of his sins, consider those sins which are only condemned in the court of conscience, and no where else. For there are certain secresies and retirements, places of darkness and artificial veils, with which the devil uses to hide our sins from us, and to incorporate them into our affections by a constant uninterrupted practice, before they be prejudiced or discovered. 1. There are many sins which have reputation, and are accounted honour; as fighting a duel, answering a blow with a blow, carrying armies into a neighbouring country, robbing with a navy, violently seizing upon a kingdom. 2. Others are permitted by law; as usury in all countries : and because every excess of it is a certain sin, the permission of so suspected a matter makes it ready for us, and instructs the temptation. 3. Some things are not forbidden by laws; as lying in ordinary discourse, jeering, scoffing, intemperate eating, ingratitude, selling too dear, circumventing another in contracts, importunate intreaties, and temptation of persons to many instances of sin, pride, and ambition. 4. Some others do not reckon they sin against GOD, if the laws have seized upon the person; and many that are imprisoned for debt think themselves disobliged from payment; and when they pay the penalty, think they owe nothing for the scandal and disobedience. 5. Some sins are thought not considerable, but go under the title of sins of infirmity, or inseparable accidents of mortality; such as idle thoughts, foolish talking, looser revellings, impatience, anger, and all the events of evil company. 6. Lastly, many things are thought to be no sins; such as mispending of their time, whole days or months of useless and impertinent employment, long gaming, winning men's money in greater portions, censuring men's actions, curiosity, equivocating in the prices and secrets of buying and selling, rudeness, speaking truths enviously, doing good to evil purposes, and the like. Under the dark shadow of these unhappy and fruitless yew-trees, the enemy of mankind makes very many to lie hid from themselves, sewing before their nakedness the fig-leaves of popular and idol reputation, and impunity, public permission, a temporal penalty,

infirmity, prejudice, and direct error in judgment, and ignorance. You should in all these cases be observant, lest the fallacy prevail upon you to evil purposes of death or diminution of your good; and that those things which in your life passed without observation, may now be brought forth and pass under saws and harrows, that is, the severity and censure of sorrow and condemnation. To which I add, for the likeness of the thing, that the matter of omission be considered; for in them lies the bigger half of our failings; and yet in many instances they are undiscerned, because they very often sit down by the conscience, but never upon it and they are usually looked upon as poor men do upon their not having coach and horses, or as that knowledge is missed by boys and hinds which they never had it will be hard to make them understand their ignorance; it requires knowledge to perceive it; and therefore he that can perceive it, hath it not. That which is to be confessed and repented of is omission of duty in direct instances and matters of commandment, or collateral and personal obligations, and is especially to be considered by kings and prelates, by governors and rich persons, by guides of souls and presidents of learning in public charge, and by all other in their proportions. You must take care that your confession be as minute and particular as it can, and that as few sins as may be, be intrusted to the general prayer of pardon for all sins; for by being particular and enumerative of the variety of evils which have disordered your life, your repentance is disposed to be more pungent and afflictive, and therefore more salutary and medicinal; it hath in it more sincerity, and makes a better judgment of the final condition of the man; and from thence it is certain, the hopes of the sick man can be more confident and reasonable."

"Then shall the minister examine whether he be in charity with all the world; exhorting him to forgive from the bottom of his heart, all persons that have offended him; and if he hath offended any other to ask them forgiveness; and where he hath done wrong

or injury to any man, that he make amends to the uttermost of his power."

In this rubric we find the Church pointing out the necessity of two acts of charity, namely, forgiveness and restitution; or in other words, the forgiving those who have injured us, and the obtaining forgiveness from those whom we have injured. There is yet another act of charity which the Church has incorporated in the following rubric:

"The minister should not omit earnestly to move such sick persons as are of ability to be liberal to the poor."

The Church thus brings before us the obligations of charity in all its branches. And of what great importance is this Divine grace in the settlement of the affairs of the soul when taking its last farewell of the body, she, as the keeper of Holy Writ most fully declares, at this critical period calling solemnly to our minds the truth that our forgiveness by GoD is proportioned to the degree and manner of our forgiveness of our brethren. "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly FATHER will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your FATHER forgive your trespasses." These were the words of our Blessed SAVIOUR Who hath taught us by a wonderful example to forgive our enemies, and to seek to be filled with love even towards those who most bitterly persecute And since that man cannot be deemed truly penitent for the injuries he has done his neighbour, who refuses to ask forgiveness of him, or will not make restitution to him for losses he has sustained through him, or satisfaction for wrong done him, but would most assuredly repeat his injuries, whenever the temptation again occurred of so doing; the Church has in her wisdom declared the necessity of this part of charity to the safe conduct of the sick man in his dying hour, by which monition she would seem to bring before us the words of our SAVIOUR, "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the

us.