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II. True repentance is, then, always consummated in actual reformation of life. It therefore carries in its very essence, the idea of restitution. For no man can cordially disallow or reprobate his sinful course of life, who does not redress the wrongs he has done, to the utmost limit of his power. To God he can make no restitution, only as he refunds to his creatures, whom he has injured. If, then, any one is convicted in his own mind, that he has injured the person, character, or the property of his neighbor, by word or deed, and has it in his power, by word or deed, to undo the evil he has done, or to restore what be has unjustly taken away, be will certainly do it, if his repentance be according to either the law of Moses or the gospel of Christ. Otherwise his repentance is of no value; for God can not, without trampling on his own law, and dishonoring his own character, forgive any man who is conscious of any sin he has done to any man, unless to the utmost extent of his power he make good the injury he has done. Thus saith the Lord, "If a soul sin /39/and commit a trespass against the Lord, and he unto his neighbor in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship [i.e., trading], or in anything taken away by violence, or has deceived his neighbor, or has found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, or sweareth falsely; in any or all these that a man doeth, sinning therein: then it shall be, because he hath sinned and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he has deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or that lost thing which he found, or all that about which be has sworn falsely, he shall even restore in the principal, and shall add a fifth part more thereto, and give it to him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass-offering, and he shall bring his trespass-offering to the Lord, and the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and it shall be forgiven him." Levit. vi. 1-7. Sin-offerings without repentance, and repentance without sin-offerings, are equally ineffectual before God. We sin against God always, when we sin against man; and therefore, after making all things right with man, we can only, through sacrifice, which makes the matter right with God, obtain forgiveness. To the same effect, Jesus speaks, Matt. v. 23, 24, "Be reconciled to your brother," first make the matter right with him, "and then come and offer your gift." [NOTE: See my Essay on Regeneration, on the words repentance and reparation.]