06 - Meditation 6
MEDITATION VI.
“FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS, AS WE FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS.”
AMONG the innumerable proofs of the deep degradation into which man lias fallen by sin, and in which he continues to live, there are few at once more striking and more painful than the inconsistency which characterizes his conduct in every case where his eternal interests are concerned. This inconsistency is the more surprising, since he is very far from manifesting it when the interests, the hopes, or the fears which relate to this life are in question. Do you want a proof of this? If I were to come, like the messenger who brought to the patriarch Job the tidings of his misfortunes, and to tell you that the failure of a considerable house had involved you in the loss of all your property, and that you had nothing left but debts to an immense amount, for which you would speedily be exposed to a legal prosecution; or were I to inform you, that you carried in your constitution the germ of a mortal disease that would soon bring you down to the grave; or that you lay under the weight of an accusation which, according to the laws of your country, might entail upon you the most frightful consequences, you would immediately be filled with the deepest concern and anxiety, or, perhaps, surrender yourselves to utter despair. And this would only be acting consistently, consistently with nature and with the wants of your being. If, again, you were told that you had yet within your power the means of retrieving your affairs, expelling from your constitution this mortal malacty, clearing yourself of the accusation which lay upon you, or of obtaining a full and free pardon, you would immediately lay hold of this means with joyful eagerness, and make use of it, though it might cost you much pain, and labor, fatigue, and many sacrifices. And this, also, would be acting consistently, consistently with nature, and with the requirements of your being. But if I come to the very same persons, who, in those cases, would have acted thus consistently, holding in my hand a book which they profess to acknowledge as of Divine authority; if I prove to them out of this very book, that they have contracted, not with man, but with God, a debt of enormous amount, for which they shall be called to an account; that they are attacked in the most important part of their being 1 with a mortal disease; that they are lying under the weight of an accusation which will entail upon them an infinite punishment, a boundless and never ending misery, and that too not before the bar of human justice, but of Divine justice, whose decrees are inevitable and eternal, we see those very same persons remaining perfectly tranquil and secure in the consciousness of that debt, without the least uneasiness under the pressure of that disease, and maintaining the coolest indifference with regard to that accusation! Is not this an inconsistency which has in it something the appearance of madness? Would not you yourselves say, that the man who acted thus in the cases which I have supposed, had lost his senses? Yes, you would say so, and your decision would be in accordance with the Word of God, which tells such persons, that, “ Professing themselves wise they have become fools; bavin? their understanding darkened. being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” Mark these words
"because of the blindness of their heart;” it is in the blindness or hardness of the heart rather than iii the darkness and ignorance of the understanding, that the cause of this inconsistency or folly consists. This is for man positively to deny his responsibility before God; it is to deny the Divine justice; -it is to be practically an Atheist!
Assuredly it is not to such men that the petition, which we have to consider this day, is suited: “ Forgive us our debts/’’ or “Forgive us our trespasses!” This prayer in their mouths would be a fresh inconsistency, and perhaps a fresh act of hypocrisy. But you, serious souls, in whom conscience, in accordance with the Word of God, asserts its sacred rights; you who feel the weight of a fearful responsibility, humble, contrite sinners; to you Jesus has taught it, and it is you whom we would call to hear it! Oh! come listen to these words; I know that you have need of them; to you they will be a balm for your bleeding wounds, a heavenly dew upon a thirsty ground, life in the midst of death!
What is it that we ask our heavenly Father to forgive us? Wherein does this forgiveness consist 1 What are the marks whereby we shall know that we are partakers of it? Such are the three questions which we propose briefly to answer.
What do we ask our heavenly Father to forgive us in this petition? Learn from the man who, perhaps, having lived the greater part of his life in that stupid indifference of which we have just spoken, has felt a conscience, whose voice he too long neglected, awaking within him. He, too, had been guilty of that fatal inconsistency, that inconceivable folly which we have indicated; he had lost sight of his responsibility, the law of his God, and the judgment of eternity; referring everything to this present life, he had confined his hopes and fears within the narrow space which separates us from the tomb, foolishly expecting to find happiness therein: if but the desires of his heart might be fulfilled and his passions satisfied, he gave himself little trouble to ascertain whether his principles and his actions were in harmony with or in opposition to the supreme will of God, to whom he was to give an account of his life hereafter. But God, that God who “ willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather his conversion and life,” has arrested him in the way which was leading him to ruin; he has awakened him; either by some one of those heavy strokes of adversity and of death, which are sufficient to tear at once from the eyes of blinded man every veil of delusion, and to lay naked and undisguised before his awakened soul all the realities of life and of death; or by one of those attacks of sickness, which from time to time put a sudden termination to the visions of a deceitful world, and summon the soul before the tribunal of God to undergo a foreboded judgment; or by those disappointments and sufferings which so often strew the path of life, or by a direct appeal from the Word and Spirit, of God, fastening upon the soul a powerful and alarming conviction of the awful contrast between the man’s life and the demands of the moral law, which will be satisfied with nothing short of holiness. As soon as the conscience, by one or more of these causes, is awakened from its sleep of death, it asserts all its neglected rights; it utters within a painful and heart-rending cry; it erects a tribunal from which it exercises a tremendous judgment, before which it summons, as witnesses, all the recollections of the past life, recollections which, contrasted with God’s holiness, assume the form of abominable pollutions, guilty violations of the eternal will. His iniquities are thus set in order before him, and bring terror into his inmost soul. O how serious does his life then become! What an insupportable burden is his responsibility! How his actions change their nature in his eyes! Those things which before he called innocent and amiable follies, become what the Psalmist calls with grief “ the sins of his youth;: ’ what appeared to him in the past, venial faults, assume the character of crimes against the holy Majesty of God. Oh! how many guilty actions, how many idle words, how many impure thoughts, condemnable feelings of the heart, since the time the man began to think, to feel, to distinguish between right and wrong to the moment of this awakening, now unite to form a dark and foreboding cloud which covers the whole life, and ascends up to God to provoke his justice! Immortal, accountable being, thou mayest count the hairs upon thy head, the sands upon the sea-shore, or the stars in the heavens! yet canst thou never, never count thine offences. And yet all, all are written in the book of eternal justice, and form, that enormous unpayable debt of which our text speaks.
Dreaded conscience! holy and divine law! hast thou any other bitter recollections to call up to trouble my soul? Yes. answers the law! Yes, answers conscience! From thine infancy I commanded t.hee, saith the law, to “ honor thy father and thy mother;” and I accuse thee, saith conscience, of not having rendered their life happy by love, gratitude, and docility; I accuse thee of having made them shed bitter tears by thine ingratitude, obstinacy, and the incorrigible defects of thy character. I commanded thee, saith the law, to shun all impurity and all unrighteousness, to avoid all falsehood and all covetousness. And I accuse thee, saith conscience, recalling at the same time past recollections; I accuse thee before God of this action, and that secret unholy thought; I accuse thee of this indelicacy, and that act of injustice in thine affairs; I accuse thee of these rash judgments, and those slanderous words which thou rememberest to have pronounced: I accuse thee of those innumerable unhallowed desires which fall under the jurisdiction of the law. I commanded thee, saith the law, “ to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength;” and I accuse thee, saith conscience, with having lived without love to God, and without gratitude for his mercies; I accuse thee of having loved thyself more than God, of having loved a thousand objects more than God, and thus of having as many gods before him as thou hast bad passions; of having been all warmth, all fervor towards thine idols, but cold and indifferent, and full of secret enmity towards thy God. I commanded thee, saith the law, “ to love thy neighbor as thyself;” and I accuse thee, saith conscience, of having made thy brother feel, on a thousand occasions, not thy love, nor thy charity, but thy selfishness, thy severity, and thy pride. I accuse thee on all the points of the law, on all the pages of the Word of God, on all the clays of thy life; I accuse thee, and this accusation is written in letters of fire before God; it is engraven in the rock; you can never efface a single line of it. This is thy debt, from which thou canst never retrench a single farthing. And what is the issue of the judgment which is thus carried on before the tribunal -of the awakened conscience? What is the sentence pronounced by the law and ratified by the conscience? That sentence, which has been recorded beforehand by the finger of God, that man might not have it in his power to sin without knowing the consequences: “ Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them!” “The wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness!” “ Tribulation and anguish against every soul that doeth evil!” And Jesus Christ, the Sovereign Judge, setting the seal of his Divine authority to this sentence, pronounces, with those lips which cannot lie, the dreadful words, “ everlasting punishment; the worm that never dieth; outer darkness, where there is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth!
O how dreadful is the inward travail which works in the awakened conscience as in a furnace, when these truths are brought home to it as overwhelming realities! What days of anguish! what nights of sleepless restlessness! what hours of mental agony! It is in this, it is in this the soul finds its Gethsemane and its Calvary! Christians! pray for such souls!
Worldlings and unbelievers! profane not with a smile of derision such holy sufferings! for woe to the man who experiences nothing of them in this life! God may indeed deal leniently with you; he may lead you by less painful paths; he may give you to feel your misery and the greatness of your debt by degrees, and in proportion as he himself diminishes the amount of it; because he sees that an entire, an instantaneous view of the evil within you would be too much for your weakness, and would drive you to despair. But I repeat it woe to the man who never undergoes that inward judgment which we have described, until he appears before the tribunal of his Judge! Woe to the man who never becomes sensible of his debt, until God spreads it out before his eyes at the last day, and who never condemns himself until he is condemned by the Judge of quick and dead! But is it so, my brethren? Must we then desire for you this terrible awakening of conscience, this judgment of the soul, these agonies, these conflicts, and this anguish of mind? Yes, my beloved brethren; yes, we desire them, for it is out of this judgment that righteousness arises; it is out of this death that life springs up; it is from this condemnation that salvation issues; it is from the depths of this abyss that the soul, for the first time, cries, with understanding, “ Forgive, forgive us our debts!” Would to God that this word, this single word, might escape from your agonizing consciences, your suffering souls! we would then be without anxiety for any of you; you would be saved. My brethren! does this idea appear strange to you? Would you fear to rest the salvation of your immortal souls upon the efficacy of a prayer so simple, and so soon uttered? Weary, heavy laden souls! do you hesitate in painful doubt? When conscience cries, when the law condemns, are you tempted to say that you know not if you shall find pardon with the Lord?
O how happy we are to be able, now, with the Word of God in our hands, to come forward to meet this distressing doubt, and having spoken to you of sin, to speak to you of pardon! Ah! indeed, you would have reason still to fear, still to doubt, if it were a man, yea, if it were an angel of God that encouraged you to say, “Forgive us our trespasses!” but it is Jesus Christ himself, “the true God and eternal life,” who came “ from the bosom of the Father,” to reveal to us his purposes and his sovereign will. He knows, then, he knows perfectly if there be pardon for sinners with God. And what more solemn declaration of pardon could he have given us, than to command us to say to God, with entire confidence, “ Forgive us our trespasses.’’ But further, He who thus encourages us to pray, is our Judge, who shall decide upon our life, and upon our eternity. And to pronounce a sentence of condemnation upon a single soul which he himself has directed to ask for pardon, and which shall have done so, would be to deny himself and to deceive us. But no: we may present ourselves before the tribunal of God with the prayer which we are considering-, and offer it up to our Judge as an undeniable title, since it is his own word, and we may say to him, “ Lord, I am a sinner; I have pronounced condemnation upon myself; I deserve eternal death; but here is thy word which cannot lie; thou hast taught me to say to my God, ’ Forgive!’ I confide in thee!” Which of you will doubt the salvation of such a sinner? But the doubting soul may still object “ Since the law of God condemns me, how can I be justified?” Can God deny himself? Can he, in contradiction to his own direct declaration, “hold the sinner guiltless?” And when his law, his inviolable law, curses, can he bless? Here, my brethren, we would have nothing, absolutely nothing, to say in reply, were we not authorized to tell you, that he who directs us to pray”, “ Forgive us,” is our Saviour, our Redeemer, as well as our God and our Judge. Oh! yes; it is from the cross, where he died in our stead, that Jesus Christ invites us to cry with confidence for pardon and grace. It was there he paid the whole of our debt, the least farthing of which we never could have paid ourselves: it was there he shed “ the blood of the New Testament for the remission of sins;” it was there he paid the ransom of his people; there he washed away their iniquity, and obtained an eternal right of property in them as the fruit of his sufferings, and “ the travail of his soul!” “ Who then shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect 1 It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth 1 It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us!” Yes. he intercedes, he carries on his mediatorial work, he will not leave it imperfect. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous.” He presents our imperfect prayers to God, purified by passing through his divine lips. Whenever a sinner upon earth cries from the midst of his misery and the anguish of his soul, “ Forgive me my trespasses/’ the Saviour, who taught him that prayer, repeats with compassion, “ Father, forgive him his trespasses.”
Yea, he himself, as God, as Judge, as Saviour, has the eternal right to pardon sin. It was he who said to the penitent in the Gospel, “Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace!” It was he who declared that the publican “went down to his house justified,” after having prayed with humility and penitence, “ God be merciful unto me a sinner.” It was he that opened Paradise to the imploring malefactor upon the cross. But that which crowns the delightful assurance with which the penitent sinner can ask of God the pardon which shall give him happiness, peace, and life, is that this pardon, being the work of Christ, is complete and perfect. Not only does Jesus repair for the pardoned sinner all the disasters of sin, but he restores to him all the privileges of which he would never have been deprived if he had never sinned. The pardon published in the Gospel is not merely negative, it is positive; it not only releases the soul that thus prays from the punishment of sin, and from all its dreadful consequences, but it also includes the gifts of grace, peace, and the love of God. We can conceive that the pardon of God might only have been negative, that it might only have brought us exemption from the penalty of sin, and from the condemnation which it deserves, and that we might afterwards have been left to ourselves to secure our own happiness, like the criminal, who only receives a pardon and nothing more. We can conceive that Jesus might only have paid the mighty debt of our I sins, and then left us in poverty. And even this would have been a great mercy, calculated to fill us with deep and eternal gratitude. But he does more, infinitely more. He is not satisfied with merely averting from our guilty heads the just condemnation of the law against sin, but he has procured for us, in its stead, all the benefits and blessings of the divine mercy. He was not content with merely closing beneath our feet the gulf of eternal misery which sin had opened up, but he has unveiled to the eye of the repentant sinner the beautiful and cheering prospect of the pure enjoyments and of the eternal felicity of those beings which never sinned.
Yes, mourning sinner, in whose conscience the judgment of God is passing, pray, pray at the foot of the Saviour’s cross, “ Forgive us our trespasses!” and thou shalt feel the bitter and deadly fruits of sin which poison thy life, giving place to the fruits of pardon and righteousness, anguish to peace, the indignation and wrath of God to the love of a tender Father, and to that Spirit of adoption whereby thou shalt say to him, “Abba! Father!” Behold, penitent sinner, whom Jesus has taught to pray! Thy prayer ascending up to heaven, dissipates the “outer darkness” which hitherto covered thy conscience with a vail of night; the soft light of “the Sun of Righteousness with healing in his wings,” ariseth upon thee! Hearken! the “ weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth,” of which the groanings of thy heart were but a sad prelude, die away, and are succeeded by that new song of deliverance, “ Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, be glory and dominion for ever and ever!” Here is the chorus of the heavenly host superseding the cry of despair!
It is heaven taking the place of hell! It is eternal life instead of eternal misery!
This, this is what those pardoned sinners knew and felt in their heart, who exclaimed, even in this world, and from amid their conflicts and trials, “ Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!” “ Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity!” “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
“There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” “ Who shall separate us from the love of God.” But if sin still return to trouble this peace of forgiveness; if the view of your unfaithfulness and of your corruptions disquiet your soul; if, in your temptations and conflicts, you fall perhaps often; if, as you advance in the Christian life, you make, alas! painful discoveries in the depths of your heart; if your love to Him who hath forgiven you, languish in a heart still cleaving to the dust then, pardoned souls, return again and again to the fountain which God hath opened on Calvary for the cleansing away of sin and of uncleanness; return to repentance, and remember that Jesus Christ hath taught you as long as you live to pray. “ Forgive us our trespasses!” Yes, as we must say every day for the support of our bodies, “ Give us this day our daily bread,” let this petition, “ Forgive us our trespasses,” also, be the nourishment of our souls. And remember that this prayer is likewise a promise, a promise of pardon, ever new. from Him who taught us to use it. Let us treasure it up in our hearts during the whole course of our pilgrimage on earth, that every morning and every evening it may renew and maintain peace in our hearts, that it may be our succor and our safeguard to the bed of death to soothe its anguish, to the agonies of dissolution to dispel their terrors, and even to the throne of our Judge, where it will open unto us a free entrance into the eternal kingdom.
Oh! I rejoice to repeat it, that to the sincere and penitent soul, the soul that sends up to God the prayer upon which we are meditating”, the pardon which is here promised, is entire and complete; a pardon without reserve, and which embraces our whole life, our death, and our eternity. “ Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool.” “ I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins.” In those clays, and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found!”
We could have wished, my brethren, before concluding, to have pointed out to you some marks whereby you might be able to determine for }^ourselves, individually, whether you had obtained that inestimable pardon which, in accordance with our petition, we have been considering. This inquiry is, indeed, of the highest importance. Am I pardoned, or am I not? is the most solemn question that an immortal being can put to himself, a question which involves eternal condemnation or eternal salvation, curse or blessing, death or life. All the powers of the universe, all the sophistry of unbelief, all the delusions of the world cannot extricate us from this fearful alternative. Well, then, if, to assist you in determining this question now, which, perhaps, with regard to many of us, shall soon be decided at the bar of our Judge, we were to choose the marks by which you might know how it. stood with you in this respect, we would ask you, first. Are you acquainted with true repentance? Has the feeling of your sins, of your transgressions of God’s law, made you feel something like what we have described in the first part of our discourse? For you must see yourselves, that to ask pardon of God for sins which you acknowledge not, which you feel not, which give you no uneasiness, and which you deplore not, is a mockery, an act of hypocrisy. If such were your case, we should conclude that you had never really used the petition which we are considering, and that you are not pardoned.
We would then demand, Do you believe in that Saviour who teaches you to ask the pardon of your sins, having first obtained it for you by his death? Do you believe in that pardon? For you perceive yourselves, that to ask of God a favor, in the existence of which you do not believe, would again be a mockery, an act of hypocrisy. And we should have reason to conclude, if such were your state, that you had never yet prayed, and that you are still unpardoned.
And, lastly, we would demand, Do you feel some gratitude, some love for that divine Saviour who hath pardoned you? Do you hate sin in every form? Do you tremble at the thought of offending, in any possible way, the God to whom you apply for pardon? Do you feel that every voluntary sin which you may commit, becomes a source of torment to your heart, which is bound to love God and to find its happiness in keeping his commandments’? For you understand yourselves, that to say to God, “ Forgive us our trespasses,” and yet to take pleasure in sin, would be an act of hypocrisy, the most infallible mark to the man who is guilty of it, that he is still without pardon. Ah! woe to the man who, when he asks of God the pardon of his sins, thinks that he also asks the privilege of continuing in sin! Woe to the man who says, “ Let us continue in sin that grace may abound!” Oh! the first thing that is required here is sincerity and uprightness, without which there can be neither prayer nor pardon!
But, my brethren, however suited these marks of pardon may be to enlighten, us as to the great question at issue, we will not stop at the consideration of them, because our Lord himself has selected and pointed out another, in reference to which we entreat you to examine yourselves. This mark is contained in the last words of our petition, “ Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” that is those that have offended us. To forgive those that have offended us; “ to love our enemies; to bless them that curse us; to pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us,” is, you know, a point of Christian morality directly opposed to the disposition of the unconverted man; this is, I would say, a duty purely impossible to any sinner who has not received the pardon of his God. But it is also a necessary fruit of pardon, a fruit which always grows on the tree of the grace of God. It must be found in the hearts of those who are the recipients of that grace. Ah! I would ask, is it possible for a man who is oppressed with the burden of his offences against God, a man who has “a broken and contrite heart.” a man from whom the acute feeling of his iniquities has wrung this cry of humiliation and anguish, “ Forgive us our trespasses!” is it possible for such a man to cherish in his heart resentment, hatred, animosity for those miserable offences which he may have experienced from his fellow-sinners? Can the soul that knows the immense price at which -it has been redeemed; that knows a Saviour’s love and the example which he has given us for our imitation: that sees him leaving the abodes of blessedness, that he might come to “ seek” it and to “ save” it from its misery, taking upon him its sins and its infirmities, submitting to be “led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep is dumb before her shearers, opening not his mouth;” even him, who “when he was reviled, reviled not again “ who prayed upon the cross, “ Father, forgive them:” can the soul that places its hope in such a Saviour, and receives from him a pardon purchased at such a price, refuse to pardon others with cheerfulness and with love? The pardon of God produces love, and love always pardons, not “ seven times, but seventy times seven!” To love, to love is a primary object with the pardoned soul. Hatred would hence be its punishment; love is its happiness, and forgiveness, long-suffering, and charity become necessary to its repose, and its peace.
Thus that which is “impossible with men is possible with God;” thus the “Saviour’s yoke is easy, and his burden light.” If we love not 3 if we forgive not, it is because we know not the Saviour, we feel not our misery, we enjoy not the pardon of God, we have never prayed, “ Forgive us our trespasses!” For the disciple of Jesus these motives are sufficient, we shall add nothing to them. But if there be any one in this assembly who does not feel in his heart the necessity of exercising this Christian duty, who can cherish in his bosom in any degree, or against, any person, a feeling of resentment, of ill-will, or of hatred, or a desire of revenge, and who, notwithstanding this, imagines that he can approach God and say to him, “ Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” to such a man I would say, “ Every time you repeat this petition in public or in private, you call down from God a curse upon your head!”
Let not this judgment surprise you. You have received an injury; some one has spoken evil of you; has blackened your character; has maligned you, or wronged you in some way or other. Yielding to the inclination of your own heart, you repel this injurious language by injurious language, this evil speaking by evil speaking. Then you go and say to God, “ Forgive as I forgive!” Is not this to say, Crush me with the weight of thine indignation and of thy wrath which my sins have provoked. Withhold from me thy mercy and thy love! Or; perhaps, you render not evil for evil, injury for injury, but you keep in the bottom of your heart a feeling of resentment for an injury received; or, perhaps, you say, This person has offended me, but I seek no revenge, I will do him no harm, I will have nothing to do with him, I will never see him more. And you go to God and say, “ Forgive me as I forgive!” Is not this to say, “ Never pardon me! Leave me to my misery; and to all the frightful consequences of my transgressions! Let not heaven open to receive me! Deprive me forever of the joys of communion with thee and of thy presence!” Is not this to demand of God the most frightful condemnation!
Alas! I dare not follow this awful contrast into the depths of the heart; I fear we should all be condemned by it; I fear it too often happens that we use this prayer, when our hearts are not enlarged to love all men as God loves them. I fear that we have all reason to ask pardon of God for the manner in which we have asked his forgiveness.
Yes, Lord, pardon even our prayers, even our acts of devotion! Forgive us more fully than we forgive others! Communicate to our hearts something of that infinite love wherewith thou hast loved us. Teach us to love and to forgive.
Oh! once more we ask thee forgive forgive!
Amen.