LXIV. SERM. as when it was in his own; for injustice can never deprive a man of his right to what he hath justly gotten; for that is still in him, wheresoever the thing itself lies, whether in his hands or yours; and therefore if ye have unjustly got it from him, ye are bound to restore it to him again, by the same laws which oblige you to pay every one their own; and until ye do that, ye are his debtors, and ought to take as much care to pay him, as ye do to pay any bond or bill that you ever signed. August. Epist. 54. ad Mace donium. But that which should most of all excite and prevail with you to restore whatsoever ye have either got or kept unjustly from other men, is because till this be done, your sin can never be pardoned; for it is plain, there can be no pardon without true repentance; and it is as plain, that there can be no true repentance without restitution; for no man can be said to be truly penitent for any sin, that still continues in it; but as I observed before, he that sinned in getting his neighbour's goods, still continues in the same sin, until he hath restored them to him; for he wrongs him as much by unlawful keeping, as he did by unlawful getting of them. And therefore it is in vain to pretend that you are sorry for the sin, until you restore what you got by it. As St. Augustine observes, Si enim res aliena propter quam peccatum est, cum reddi possit, non redditur, non agitur pænitentia, sed [Ep. 153. fingitur. If another man's goods, for which the sin was committed, be not restored when they may, repentance is not acted but feigned.' And therefore he adds, Si autem veraciter agitur, non remittetur peccatum, nisi restituatur ablatum. But if repentance be truly acted, the sin will not be forgiven, except what was taken away be restored.' Hence in the Old Law, when any one had robbed, or deceived, or defrauded his neighbour, as ever he desired to have his sin pardoned, he was first to restore what he had taken from him, with a fifth part more; when that was Lev. 6. 2, 3, done, he was to carry a ram for his trespass-offering to the priest, who with that made an atonement for him, and then his sin was forgiven. So that until he had made restitution, the priest could not accept of his offering, nor make an atonement for him, and so till then, his sin could not be pardoned. To this our Lord seems to allude, Matt. v. 23, 24. And it is $22.] &c. very observable, that Almighty God Himself, by the Prophet Ezekiel, promiseth to pardon such sins only upon these terms, "If the wicked," saith He, "restore the pledge, give Ezek.33.15. again that he hath robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity, he shall surely live, he shall not die." But we need not have gone any further than my text itself, to have proved this; for here we find that upon Zaccheus's making restitution, our Lord presently said, "This day is Salvation come into this house." Whereby He hath given us to understand, that till that time the man had been in a state of sin and damnation; but now that he had restored whatsoever he had wronged others of, his sin was pardoned, and his soul should be saved. These things I thought good to put you in mind of at this time; because, as I fear, many among you have, by lying, or stealing, or cheating, or some unlawful way or other, got other men's money or goods into your hands; so, I hope, there are none of you but are now sorry for it, and heartily desire Almighty God to pardon it. But that I am sure He will never do, until you have restored, if ye be able, what ye have so gotten. It is in vain for you to expect it, He hath in effect told you that He will not; and how can ye expect that He should break His word for you? No, mistake not yourselves; so long as you are so unjust to others as not to restore what ye have wrongfully taken from them, ye have no ground to hope that God will be so merciful to you as to pardon the sins that ye have committed against Him; but rather, till that be done, ye must look for nothing but wrath and indignation from Him, and all the curses that He hath denounced against impenitent sinners. ye have got lawfully, for the sake of that which ye have unlawfully gotten; it will be a moth in your estates which will certainly eat them up, either in your own, or your Jer. 17. 11. children's time. And it would be well for you if that was all; for if ye live any longer without making restitution, ye may die also without doing it, and by consequence bewail your folly and madness in Hell-fire for evermore. He will curse what Let me therefore beseech and advise you all to go home and retire into your closet, or some private place, and there look back upon your lives, recollect yourselves, and consider SERM. seriously whether ye have not injured some person or other, by getting some part of their estates into your hands: and if, upon an impartial view, you find ye have, let not the sun go down before ye have at least resolved to make restitution as soon as possible: and likewise to express your repentance for defrauding others, by a more than ordinary liberality to the poor. Do this, and then you may firmly believe that God, for Christ's sake, will pardon your sin, and receive you again into His grace and favour; for then ye will do this day, as Zaccheus once did; and then Christ will say to every one of you, as he did to him, "This day is Salvation come into this house." Which God grant it may, through the same Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory for ever. Amen. SERMON LXV. A GOOD FRIDAY SERMON. ZECH. xii. part of verse 10. And they shall look upon Me Whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born. WE this day commemorate the Passion of our Blessed Saviour, the Passion of the Son of God, the greatest mystery that ever was known or heard of in the world: that light itself should be darkened, love rejected, innocence accused, justice condemned, life die, even God Himself suffer; who is able to think upon it without ecstasies and raptures? Who can speak of it without astonishment and admiration? And yet how strange soever it may seem to be, it is altogether as true too, as being attested by truth and veracity itself. And it is well for us it was so, even that He who suffered was truly God as well as Man; otherwise we had been all lost and undone for ever; for if He had not been Man, He could not have suffered at all for us; so if He had not been God too, He could not have saved us by His sufferings; all the virtue and efficacy of His Passions depending altogether upon the worth and excellency of the person that underwent them, who being God as well as Man, although He suffered only in His manhood, yet that manhood being at the same time united to the Godhead in the same Person, these His sufferings could not but be of infinite value and merit, as being the sufferings of God Himself, who is therefore said to have "purchased His Church with His own blood." Acts 20. 28. SERM. And this indeed is the only ground and foundation of all our hopes and expectations from Christ; for He being both perfect God and perfect Man in one and the same Person, did, by His one oblation of Himself once offered, make a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world; whereby there is none of us but in and through Him may now obtain both the pardon of all our sins, and the eternal happiness and Salvation of our souls, if we do but perform those easy conditions which are required of us, in order to our having the sufferings of our human nature in Christ, applied to our own particular persons that so we may be looked upon as having already undergone the punishment of our sins in Him, who died in our stead, and by virtue of His merit and Mediation for us, may be truly sanctified, and by consequence received into God's grace and favour here, and into His Kingdom and glory hereafter. And verily now that Christ hath done and suffered so much for us, we cannot surely but look upon ourselves as highly obliged to do and suffer all we can for Him, at least, all that He expects from us, which indeed is but very little, or rather, nothing in comparison of His love and kindness For what would He have us to do for Him? Only what He Himself hath commanded in the words of my text, saying, "They shall look upon Me Whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him," &c. to us. For that these words are to be understood of Christ, is certain from the infallible testimony of St. John himself, who having related the doleful tragedy of our Lord's Passion, how they pierced His hands and feet with nails, and His side with a spear, he saith, that "all this was done that the John 19.37. Scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, they shall look on Him Whom they have pierced." Where he plainly quotes the words of my text, and applies them to our Blessed Saviour; and indeed they cannot possibly be understood of any other person in the world; for none could speak these words but one who was both God and Man. That He was God, is plain from the former part of the verse, where He saith, “I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication." For it |