that this petition is so fervently offered in our behalf by saints whose prayers prevail with God, but whom we have never seen nor known nor heard of, and whose intercessions for us we shall never know till the day when all secrets are revealed. And so, even when our own sins press the most heavily upon us, and we feel the most keenly our own need of forgiveness, we must pray for the whole Church on earth as well as for ourselves, as David in his penitential psalm, after praying for the pardon of his own sin, says, "O be favourable and gracious unto Zion: build Thou the walls of Jerusalem (Ps. li. 18). And we may feel assured that if we thus include our brethren in our prayers for forgiveness, we shall have a share in all the prayers which they are offering at all times and everywhere before the mercyseat of God. And can we doubt that if we thus pray, we shall be heard and answered? when, besides having our Lord as our Advocate with the Father, and the Propitiation for our sins" (1 S. John ii. 1, 2), we produce the very words of our Advocate, with which He has taught us beforehand to plead for forgiveness? If "whatsoever we ask the Father in His Name, He will give us" (S. John xvi. 23), how much more efficaciously do we ask when, in what we ask in Christ's Name, we use the very words which Christ Himself has taught us!1 In considering God's promises to forgive sins, Donne asks, “Does He mean all my sins? He knows what original sin is, and I do not: and will He forgive me sin in that root, and sin in the branches— original sin and actual sin too? He knows my secret sins, and I do not will He forgive my manifest sins and those too! 1 "Et cum Ipsum habeamus apud Patrem Advocatum pro peccatis nostris, (1 Joan. ii.) quando peccatores pro delictis nostris petimus, Advocati nostri verba promamus. Nam cum dicat quia quodcunque petierimus a Patre in Nomine Ejus dabit nobis, (Joan. xvi.) quanto efficacius impetramus quod petimus in Christi Nomine, si petamus Ipsius oratione ?" (S. Cypr. de orat. Dom.) He knows my relapses into sins repented; and will He forgive my faint relapses, and my rebellious relapses after them? Will His mercy dive into my heart, and forgive my sinful thoughts there, and shed upon my lips, and forgive my blasphemous words there, and bathe the members of this body, and forgive my unclean actions there? Will He contract Himself into Himself and meet me there, and forgive my sins against Himself; and scatter Himself upon the world, and forgive my sins against my neighbour; and imprison Himself in me, and forgive my sins against myself? Will He forgive those sins wherein my practice has exceeded my parents, and those wherein my example hath misled my children? Will He forgive that dim sight which I have of sins now, when sins scarce appear to be sins unto me; and will He forgive that over-quick sight, when I shall see my sins through Satan's multiplying glass of desperation, when I shall see them greater than His mercy, on my deathbed? In that He said, all, He left out nothing,' is the apostle's argument; and He is not almighty if He cannot, His mercy endureth not for ever if He do not forgive all." And again, "There is no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus,'-not if every grain of dust were an Ahitophel, and gave counsel against me; not if every sand upon the shore were a Rabshakeh, and railed against me; not if every atom in the air were a Satan, an adversary, an accuser; nor if every drop in the sea were an Abaddon, an Apollyon, a destroyer: there could be no condemnation, if He is my Witness." The promise is ours so often as, in true penitence and faith and charity we go to claim it, "I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb. viii. 12) 6 277 "AS WE FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS." THAT this is a very important clause of this petition is evident from the fact that, at the conclusion of the Prayer, our Lord immediately reverts to explain and enforce this particular portion of it, saying, "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses" (S. Matt. vi. 14, 15). So also in S. Luke's Gospel, (though not in connection with this Prayer,) our Lord says, "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven" (vi. 37). He also spake a parable of which this lesson is the obvious moral: "Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee? So likewise shall My Heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses " (S. Matt. xviii. 21, 25). And the whole tenor of our Lord's teaching, faithfully echoed by that of His Apostles, warns us that "without charity," (which S. Chrysostom calls "the root and fountain and mother of all virtues," and of which forgiveness is a principal fruit,) "whosoever liveth is counted dead before God." It must be admitted, however, that the duty of loving our enemies, and forgiving those that have wronged us in name, body, or estate, is a very difficult one-nay, to flesh and blood well-nigh impossible to perform. But as "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God" (1 Cor. xv. 50),2 and as 1 ῥίζα καὶ πηγὴ καὶ μήτηρ ἁπάντων τῶν ἀγάθων. 2 Σάρκα γὰρ ἐνταῦθα τὰς πονηρὰς πράξεις καλεῖ. ὅταν λέγῃ, τοῦτο δὲ φῆμι, οὐδὲν ἀλλὰ λέγει, ἢ ὅτι διὰ ταῦτα εἶπον, ἵνα μάθῃς ὅτι πονηραὶ πράξεις εἰς βασιλείαν οὐκ εἰσάγουσιν (S. Chrys. in Ep. i ad Cor. Hom. 42). it is incumbent on Christians to mortify their corruptions; and as the grace of God makes possible to us that which to unassisted nature is impossible, there can be no real and valid excuse for the non-performance of this duty. It is so contrary to the dictates of our corrupted and perverted nature that Aristotle, placing Revenge and Resentment as a mean between the vicious extremes of cruelty on the one hand and abjectness of spirit on the other, reckons it among the moral virtues, and says that to be revenged is more honourable than to be reconciled.1 Plato in his Book of Laws maintains that Justice calls for the exercise of Revenge, not only in the case of national satisfaction, but also of personal retaliation. Seneca maintains that pardon is the remission of a deserved punishment, and to pardon a transgressor who ought to be punished is a degree of clemency that no wise man will be guilty of. Cicero says that it is the first office of Justice to hurt no man, unless he be first provoked by an injury; on which Lactantius observes, "O how simple and true a sentiment he has spoiled by the addition of two words." It must be allowed, however, that there are not wanting among the writings of the heathen philosophers and poets statements which might have been accredited to Christian authors. Juvenal says that "Revenge is the pleasure of a weak and little mind;"3 and Horace, that "Anger is a short madness, which, if indulged, will cause regret."4 Plutarch tells us that the Pythagoreans, if at any time they broke out 1 Rhet. 1. ix. c. 1. 2 "O quam simplicem veramque sententiam duorum verborum adjectio corrupit." 3" Quippe minuti Semper et infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas Ultio." (Sat. xiii. 189.) 4 "Qui non moderabitur iræ into opprobrious language, before sunset they gave one another their hands, and with them a discharge from all injuries, and so with a mutual reconciliation parted friends. It is easy, indeed, to philosophise on the subject, and to see in our calmer moods how obedience to this command to forgive others and forbear from revenge conduces to our personal dignity, comfort, peace, and perfection. To our personal dignity, for as Solomon tells us, "It is the glory of a man to pass by a transgression" (Prov. xix. 11),' and the name of Humanity has been given to Compassion and Mercy, as being the most excellent characteristic of the human nature;2 whereas, on the contrary, "anger is a great weakness, and therefore lodgeth most in the weakest. Ants and pismires and such little creatures are most busy with their stings; whereas strong and courageous creatures must be provoked before they will be injurious."3 And of those who are most ready to resent their wrongs, it is to be feared that the words of Virgil concerning the bees are too often true-while they put forth their sting, they lose their life, their very soul, in the wound they give another. To forbear revenge conduces also to our comfort, for as Shelley says— 1 66 Magni animi est injurias despicere (Sen. de irâ ii. 32).—“ Vir mitissimus, et ob hoc quoque maximus” (Plin. Ep. xxii. lib. 8). "Wrong he sustains with temper, looks on Heaven, Naught but what wounds his virtue wounds his peace." (Young's "Night Thoughts," Night 8.) 2 οὐχ ὁρᾷς ὅτι ἀνθρώπινον πρᾶγμα καλοῦμεν, τὸ ἐλέου γέμον καὶ φιλανθρωπίας ; Ὅταν δὲ ὠμόν τι καὶ ἀπηνὲς ἐργάσηται ἀπάνθρωπον τὸν τοιοῦτον ὀνομάζομεν· οὐκοῦν τὸν χαρακτῆρα τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐλεεῖν, τοῦ δὲ θηρίου ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐναντίου ὑπογραφομεν, λέγοντες ἀεὶ, μὴ γὰρ ἄνθρωπος ; Onpiovkówv (S. Chrys. in Ep. 1 ad Cor. Hom. 9). 3 Bishop Hopkins. 4 "Illis ira modum supra est, læsæque venenum (Georg. iv. 236.) |