Page images
PDF
EPUB

destly, diligently and patiently recommend his Estate to God, and follow its Intereft, and leave the Succefs to him: For fuch 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 elfe 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 exactl y 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 yours be altered by any After-Accident. Let nothing make you break your Promise, unless it be unlawful or impoffible: That is, either out of your Natural, or out of your Civil Power, yourself being under the Power of another; or that it be intolerably inconvenient to yourself, and of no (a) Advantage to another: Or that you have Leave expreffed, or reasonably presumed,

(a) Surgam ad sponsalia quia promifi, quamvis non concoxerim, fed non fi febricitavero: Sub eft enim tacita exceptio, Si potero, fi debebo. Senec.

:

Effice ut idem status fit cùm exigitur, qui fuit cùm promitterem. Deftituere levitas pon erit, fi aliquid intervenerit novi. Eadem mihi omnia præsta, & idem sum. 1. 4. c. 39. de Benefic.

[blocks in formation]

12. Let no Man take Wages or Fees for a Work that he cannot do, or cannot with Probability undertake, or in fome Sense profitably, and with Eafe, or with Advantage manage. Phyficians must not meddle with defperate 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 fome little Eafe. Advocates must deal plainly with their Clients, and tell them the true State and Danger of their Cafe; and must not pretend Confidence in an evil Caufe: But when he hath so cleared his own Innocence, if the Client will have collateral and legal Ad

[ocr errors]

Advantages obtained by his Industry, he may engage his Endeavour, provided he do no Injury to the right Caufe of any Man's Person.

13. Let no Man appropriate to his own Use what God by a special Mercy, or the Republick hath made common : For that is both against Justice Brassavel. In and Charity too: And by miraculous Accidents God exam. fimpl. hath declared his Difpleasure against such Inclofure. 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, the Manna ceafed 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 happen'd in Epire, when Lysimachus laid an Impost upon the Tragafaan Salt, it vanished till Lysimachus left it it publick. And when the Procurators of King Antigonus imposed a Athena. DeRate upon the fick People that came to Edepfum to ipnof. L. 3. drink the Waters, which were lately sprung, and were very healthful, instantly the Waters dried up, and the Hope of Gain perished.

Calius Rhod.

1. 9. C. 12.

The Sum of all is in these Words of St. Paul, [Let 1 Thef. 4.6. no Man go beyond and defraud his Brother in any Matter, because the Lord is the Avenger of all fuch.] And our Bleffed Saviour in the enumerating the Duties of Justice, befides the Commandment of [Do not Lev, 19. 13. Steal] adds [Defraud not] forbidding (as a distinct 1 Cor. 6. 8. Explication of the Old Law) the tacit and fecret Matt. 10. 19. Theft of abusing our Brother in Civil Contracts. And it needs no other Arguments to enforce this Caution, but only that the Lord hath undertaken to avenge all fuch Perfons. 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 Justice to be as a Canker-Worm, eating up all the other Increase : It procures Beggary, and a declining Eftate, or a Caitiff cursed Spirit, an ill Name, the Curse of the injured and oppressed Person, and a Fool or a Prodigal to be his Heir.

SECT.

SECT. IV.

:

Chinon vuol rendere, fa mal apren.

dere.

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 poffeffes another Man's Goods to the right Owner's Prejudice; then he that took them at firit without Leave is the fame Thing in every Instant of his Poffeffion, which the Debtor is after the Time in which he should and could have made Payment. For in all Sins we are to diftinguish the tranfient or passing Act from the remaining Effect or Evil. The Act of Stealing was foon 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 fuffering Punishment, and repenting, and asking Pardon, and judging and condemning himself, doing Acts of Justice and Charity, in Oppofition and Contradiction to that evil Action. But because in the Cafe 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

Sufferer all the while: And that any Man should be Si tu culpâ the worse for me, and my directAct, and by my Intendatum eft tion, is against the Rule of Equity, of Justice, and of damnum, jure Charity; I do not that to others which I would have fuper his farisfacere te o 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 wrong fully detained: Restored it (I mean) actually or in purpose and defire, which we must really perform when we can. And And this Doctrine, befides its evident and apparent Reasonableness, is derived from the express Words of Scripture, reckoning Reftitution to be a Part of Repentance, necessary in Order to the Remiffion of our Sins. [If the Wicked restore the Pledge, give again (a) that he had robbed, &c. he shall surely live,

portet.

not die.]

he Thall

Ezek. 33.

15

28 ἐπαινέσας

* The Practice of this Part of Justice, ἰς τὸν πεπρα

to be directed by the following Rules.

Rules of making Restitution.

1

κότα, ἐδέν τι ἦτον τ πεπραγ

[ocr errors]

1. Whosoever is an effective real Cause of doing μένων αὐτ his Neighbour Wrong, by what Instrument foever he 78979 does it, whether by commanding or incouraging it, γίνεται. Totilas apud by counselling or commending (a) it, by acting it, Procop, Goth or not (6) hindring it when he might and ought, by 3. concealing it or receiving it) is bound to make Refti- Qui laudat fervum fugi tution to his Neighbour; if without him the Injury tivum tenehad not been done, but by him or his Assistance it tur. Non enim oporter was. For by the same Reason that every one of these laudando auis guilty of the Sin, and is Cause of the Injury, by geri malum : the fame they are bound to make Reparation; be-Ulpian in lib. cause by him his Neighbour is made worse, and vo corrupto. therefore is to be put into that State from whence he was forced. And suppose that thou hast perswaded πρησμέan Injury to be done to thy Neighbour, which others να τῷ ἀν would have perswaded if thou hadst not, yet thou art νάψαντος, still obliged, because thou really didst cause the In- ἀλλὰ κτε jury; just as they had been obliged if they had done καταστη it: And thou art not at all the less bound Persons as ill inclined as thou wert.

1. c. de Ser

(b) Ο έμ

σαι γυνα

by having μένε. δρα

σαι ή τοι

in Michael.

2. He that commanded the Injury to be done, στον ὅλως is first bound; then he that did it; and after these, μὴ βολη they also are obliged who did so assist, as without θέντα. them the Thing would not have been done. If Satis-Nicet. Choniat. faction be made by any of the former, the latter is Com tied to Repentance, but no Restitution: But if the Sic Syri ab injured Perfon be not righted, every one of them is Amphyctio wholly guilty of the Injustice, and therefore bound nibus, judici to Restitution fingly and intirely.

damnati, quia pirati

3. Whosoever intends a little Injury to his Neigh-cam non pro

hibuerunt

bour, and acts it, and by it a greater Evil accidentally cùm pote

comes, rant,

dare noluifti

Etiamfi par- comes, he is obliged to make an entire Reparation sem damni of all the Injury, of that which he intended, and of in totum quafi that which he intended not, but yet acted by his own prudens de- Instrument going farther than he at first purposed it. deris tenen- He that fets Fire on a Plane-Tree to spite his Neighdus es. Ex toto enim no. bour, and the Plane-Tree set Fire on his Neighluiffe deber bour's Houfe, is bound to pay for all the Loss. bequi impru-cause it did all arife from his own ill Intention. It dentia defenditur. Sen. is like Murther committed by a drunken Person, Contr. Invo- involuntary in some of the Effect, but voluntary in luntarium or-the other Parts of it, and in all the Cause; and luntario cen- therefore the guilty Person is answerable for all of it. fetur pro vo- And when Ariathes the Cappadocian King had but in Juntario. Stra- Wantonness stopped the Mouth of the River Mela

tum ex vo

د

nus, although he intended no Evil, yet Euphrates being fwelled by that Means, and bearing away fome of the Strand of Cappodocia, did great Spoil to the Phrygians and Galatians: He therefore by the Roman Senate was condemned in Three Hundred Talents towards Reparation of the Damage. Much rather therefore when the leffer Part of the Evil was directly intended.

4. He that hinders a charitable Person from giving Alms to a poor Man, is tied to Restitution, if he hindred him by Fraud or Violence; because it was a Right which the poor Man had when the good Man had defigned and resolved it, and the Fraud or Violence hinders the Effect, but not the Purpose: And there. fore he who used the Deceit or the Force is injurious, Πλέυνεκ and did Damage to the poor Man. But if the Alms were hindred only by Intreaty, the Hinderer is not & βοηθή- tied to Reftitution, because Intreaty took not Liberty σας χρή- away from the Giver, but left him still Master of his μασι δι' αν own Act, and he had Power to alter his Purpose, and νελευθερί fo long there was no Injustice done. The same is the Cafe of a Teftator giving a Legacy either by Kindc. 4. nefs or by Promise and common Right. He that hinders the charitable Legacy by Fraud or Violence, or the due Legacy by Intreaty, is equally_obliged to Restitution. The Reason of the latter Part of this Cafe is, because he that intreats or perfuades to a Sin,

all, Ech.l.s.c.

is

« PreviousContinue »