It is good always to be doing some good out of hand,
while we think on it; grace shall the better stand with us and
increase also, to go the further in the other afterward.
And this I would answer, if the man had there done the one out of
hand--the giving, I mean, of half in alms--and not so much as
spoken of restitution till afterward. Whereas now, though he spoke
the one in order before the other (and yet all at one time) it
remained still in his liberty to put them both in execution, after
such order as he should then think expedient. But now, cousin, did
the spirit of God temper the tongue of Zachaeus in the utterance
of these words in such wise that it may well appear that the
saying of the wise man is verified in them, where he saith, "To
God it belongeth to govern the tongue." For here, when he said
that he would give half of his goods unto poor people and yet
beside that not only recompense any man whom he had wronged but
more than recompense him by three times as much again, he doubly
reproved the false suspicion of the people. For they accounted him
for so evil that they reckoned in their mind all his goods wrongly
gotten, because he was grown to substance in that office that was
commonly misused with extortion. But his words declared that he
was deep enough in his reckoning so that, if half his goods were
given away, he would yet be well able to yield every man his due
with the other half--and yet leave himself no beggar either, for
he said not he would give away all.
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