To ground the recompense of virtuous actions upon the approbation of others is too uncertain and unsafe a foundation, especially in so corrupt and ignorant an age as this, wherein the good opinion of the vulgar is injurious:  upon whom do you rely to show you what is recommendable?  God defend me from being an honest man, according to the descriptions of honour I daily see every one make of himself: 

“Quae fuerant vitia, mores sunt.”

     ["What before had been vices are now manners.”—­Seneca, Ep., 39.]

Some of my friends have at times schooled and scolded me with great sincerity and plainness, either of their own voluntary motion, or by me entreated to it as to an office, which to a well-composed soul surpasses not only in utility, but in kindness, all other offices of friendship:  I have always received them with the most open arms, both of courtesy and acknowledgment; but to say the truth, I have often found so much false measure, both in their reproaches and praises, that I had not done much amiss, rather to have done ill, than to have done well according to their notions.  We, who live private lives, not exposed to any other view than our own, ought chiefly to have settled a pattern within ourselves by which to try our actions:  and according to that, sometimes to encourage and sometimes to correct ourselves.  I have my laws and my judicature to judge of myself, and apply myself more to these than to any other rules:  I do, indeed, restrain my actions according to others; but extend them not by any other rule than my own.  You yourself only know if you are cowardly and cruel, loyal and devout:  others see you not, and only guess at you by uncertain conjectures, and do not so much see your nature as your art; rely not therefore upon their opinions, but stick to your own: 

     “Tuo tibi judicio est utendum....  Virtutis et vitiorum grave ipsius
     conscientiae pondus est:  qua sublata, jacent omnia.”

["Thou must employ thy own judgment upon thyself; great is the weight of thy own conscience in the discovery of virtues and vices:  which taken away, all things are lost.”  —­Cicero, De Nat.  Dei, iii. 35; Tusc.  Quaes., i. 25.]

But the saying that repentance immediately follows the sin seems not to have respect to sin in its high estate, which is lodged in us as in its own proper habitation.  One may disown and retract the vices that surprise us, and to which we are hurried by passions; but those which by a long habit are rooted in a strong and vigorous will are not subject to contradiction.  Repentance is no other but a recanting of the will and an opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.  It makes this person disown his former virtue and continency: 

         “Quae mens est hodie, cur eadem non puero fait? 
          Vel cur his animis incolumes non redeunt genae?”

["What my mind is, why was it not the same, when I was a boy? or
why do not the cheeks return to these feelings?”
—­Horace, Od., v. 10, 7.]