Part 6

Forgiveness, ransom from eternal death, deliverance from the terrible inflictions of Almighty wrath, gracious reception into GOD’S own family, and full participation of His inexhaustible love and benediction, how can sinners consent not to value this when given or offered, not to desire and seek it when needed? Yet so it is. There is many an one of our poorest possessions which we cherish more fondly; there is many an unobtained bauble which we would make more real effort to obtain.

Ask yourselves, seriously, and answer to yourselves, honestly, my fellow-sinners, whether it is not so. All of you believe that you have been forgiven some thing, nay, many things. You do not suppose that you are carrying about, each one of you, the unmitigated condemnation of original sin; the full burthen of every transgression and omission of your whole lives, from the first exercise of your self-will in childhood, to that in which you offended but an hour since. You know, indeed, that much remains written against you; but you believe that much more has been blotted out; that GOD has been propitiated and reconciled to fallen man by the sacrifice and intercession of His Son; that wrath has been displaced by love; that the way of return is open; that the ears of mercy are unclosed; that the arms of grace are stretched out to unfold all those, who by birth inherited banishment, and were kept in exile by the fiery sword which turned every way and allowed none to pass to the paradise of bliss and the tree of life. What Adam lost, that and much more has Christ won. In Him you already have regained much; through Him you may have all and abound.

This you know. How much of it do you feel? Where is your joy of deliverance? where your heart-leapings of praise? where your homage of gratitude for what has been forgiven? And where are your yearnings, your wrestling prayers, your strenuous efforts after the forgiveness yet needed? the cries and struggles of drowning men, grasping in your fresh peril the again stretched out rope of deliverance; imploring to be taken up once more into the ark of salvation; to be landed yet again on the shore of hope? Alas! where? Is not forgiveness obtained, unheeded; forgiveness not obtained, unsought? Not altogether, GOD be praised! There are some who never forget their deliverance; who have learnt from it gratitude for the past, and hope and direction for the future. There are some who are wont to gaze upon the book of the Divine account of them (that is, so much of it as is revealed), and as they gaze, to keep moist with the tears of humble penitence and love, the red stain of Christ’s blood, which hides, nay, has obliterated so many of the black items against them; and who, seeing how much is cancelled, cannot bear that aught should remain uncancelled, and therefore rest not, nor cease from pleading and entreating, while one single black figure is uncovered by the crimson mark of remission.

Some of you, my brethren, surely there are, who, looking back, perhaps upon a youth of wild and wicked folly, or a manhood of worldliness, or much of an old age of dull, spiritual indifference, from the thraldom of which, by GOD’S grace, you have been delivered, whose fearful guilt, you have reason to believe, has been remitted; some of you, I say, surely there are, who so appreciate the obtained mercy as to think nothing comparable to it, no gratitude enough for it; and who, therefore, when need of more forgiveness arises (as, of course, it constantly does), betake yourselves early, with the first fruits of your desires, and the quick steps of urgent, craving want, to the fountain that ever floweth, by whose waters alone you can be cleansed and refreshed. Yes, there are such; a few of them; and they do value, they do seek forgiveness.

But, do the many? Judge for yourselves, brethren. Trace back, all of you, as far as you can, the course of your respective lives; review your old habits, your former careers of transgression or omission; or pick out some single sin, if you will of recent date; some one of those many offences against which GOD’S wrath is pronounced, and on account of which it must descend, unless forgiveness is secured. Is it a lie, a filthy jest, a profane speech, a word of slander? Is it a thought of malice, an encouraged lust, a meditated misdeed? Is it an act of fraud? Did you use false balances, or adulterate your wares, or drive an unfair bargain, exacting more, or giving less than was right? Did you pilfer from your employer, or rob him of your bought service, or betray his interest? Is it direct ungodliness? Did you act in defiance of GOD’S known commandment? Did you profane His holy day? Did you disregard His fear? Did you withhold aught that He claims of service, of prayer, of praise, of money, time, talents, influence, of example?

Brethren, most of you follow, or have followed, some bad habit; at least, each of you has committed, and can now bring to quick remembrance, some one evident, wilful sin. Now GOD forbade that sin, and warned you of condemnation if you did it. GOD witnessed its commission. His displeasure arose; He registered it in heaven; He wrote down _death_, _eternal death_, against it; and angels, beholding what He did, prepared themselves to fly with the lightning’s speed and execute that sentence, at the first motion of His commanding will. The sentence is not executed. The sin has, or has not, brought you inconvenience, perplexity, contempt, pain, sickness, loss. But, at any rate, it has _not_ brought you death. Brethren, why not? Do you know? do you imagine? do you care? Is the sentence still impending, or has it been reversed? Are you forgiven? or have you yet to seek forgiveness? Do you concern yourselves at all about the matter? If you have forgiveness, do you really value it? If you have it not, do you really seek it? Oh! judge yourselves, brethren, that ye be not judged of the LORD.

I can imagine the comparatively religious ready to urge, “Thus saying, you reproach us also; you bring all in guilty; you do not allow that any are in the right.” Even so, brethren, for there is none clear in this matter. The standard of right is so high, that all come short of it. Infirmity checks the accomplishment of our best purposes. Sin defiles even our holy things. The flesh ever resists the spirit, and too often blinds and deadens it. And so our warmest desires are often all but cold; our greatest industry is but little removed from sloth. We _cannot_ do the things, nor think the thoughts that we would, in perfection. Let us gather consolation from the fact, that this is a law even of our regenerate being, when we fall short of what we desire and aim at; but let us not thereby justify ourselves in spiritual indifference, nor suppose that a general culpability exonerates the individual. Much will always be amiss, through the opposition of the flesh, and through the difficulty of discerning spiritual things; and much allowance we may hope will be made for us: but, much that _is_ amiss, might be corrected, and ought to be; nay, unless it is, we shall be without excuse. It is so, be assured, in this matter of forgiveness. At the best, we shall never, in this world, appreciate it fully, when bestowed; nor seek it with sufficient earnestness, when needed. But, if we concern ourselves to think right thoughts about it; if we ascertain more clearly what it is, and how obtained, we shall speedily become more grateful for it, more eager to obtain it, more sure partakers of it. Let me throw out a few suggestions, which, by GOD’S blessing, may help to bring us nearer to this better state.

First, consider what Divine forgiveness is. It is not capricious reversal of the sentence, “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” Divine justice does not give up its claim. Divine truth does not belie itself; Divine resoluteness become fickle. GOD is not a man, that He should repent, or that He should say and not do, or that He should come to love what once He hated. GOD might have been freely reconciled to the transgressor, if He had not made transgression sin. He might, even then, have left the sinner alone, imposing no other punishment than exile from His presence, if He had not solemnly declared, “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” But now, His holiness, His justice, and His truth are irrevocably pledged to banish and destroy transgressors. It can never be otherwise. Holiness cannot tolerate near unholiness: like Satan from heaven, like Adam and Eve from paradise, it must be cast out. Justice cannot acquit the guilty. Truth can never say, “Thou shalt not die,” to him to whom it has already said, “Thou shalt die.” There is no such forgiveness. If you transgress, you are a sinner; if you sin, you are condemned; if you are condemned, you must die. GOD has said it, and there is no variableness, or shadow of turning, in Him.

We are wont to think otherwise. We fancy that sin, though wrong, is not destructive: we wrap ourselves in false security, and flatter and mislead others, by a perverse assurance that GOD will not be extreme to mark what is done amiss. Yea, we think we have Scripture warrant for so doing. We read of Divine promises which were never realised, and Divine threats which were never executed; and we gather from them that, like our poor fickle selves, GOD easily goes back from His resolution of favour or wrath.

But let us look again at those promises and threats, and we shall see that, if they were not fulfilled, it was not because GOD changed, but because the objects changed on whom He had resolved to operate, for good or evil. Jerusalem (bound to GOD by a covenant of allegiance) was promised perpetual preservation. Jerusalem forsook the allegiance, and therefore was destroyed. Nineveh’s cry of wickedness provoked the LORD to threaten it with destruction within forty days; but when those forty days were expired there was no cry of _wickedness_ to be answered; but a cry of repentance, a pledge of amendment, a nation’s voice and posture of worship. GOD did not change, but Nineveh did. The judgment was ready to fall; but there was no object for it to fall upon, and so it fell not. If the righteous ceases to be righteous, the promises made to his righteousness cannot be fulfilled; if the sinner becomes sinless, the sentence of sin cannot be executed upon him. “At what instant,” says GOD, by Jeremiah, “I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it; If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.” {90} And the like is elsewhere declared of individuals.

Thus only does GOD change His word; thus only is there forgiveness with Him. The sinner must change his sin, for sinlessness; and then for wrath he shall have favour. But this change he cannot make. He cannot wipe out or undo the past; he cannot bring a clean thing out of an unclean; he cannot repair the breaches in his soul; he cannot strengthen the things that are ready to perish. Vain, then, is his idle trust in the non-fulfilment of a published threat; and vain are all his efforts to avert that threat. While he is a sinner, GOD will not forgive him; and a sinner he can never cease to be.

But, what man cannot do himself, Christ has done for him. Having in His own person satisfied the Divine law, and stood sinless and accepted before the Father, He has made Himself the human source of faculties and graces, by which other men, joined to Him, may partake of the infinite merits of His atonement, His tasting of death for every man; and may also be cleansed, and restored, and strengthened, and become again sinless; escaping the guilt, and putting away the corruption of sin. There is _such_ forgiveness. Mark, it is not an indulgent Father’s concession to the mere request of His loved Son. It is not, again, such a substitution of the innocent for the guilty, that no more account of sinners is taken; nor is it a compromise by which _one_ death is accepted instead of _many_. It is a merited power, vested in the GOD-MAN, to be the source of absolution and sanctification. It is a purchased right to apply that power to all who will observe prescribed conditions. Christ holds and exercises that power. It is in Him to save whom He will; it is in Him to desire to save all.

But still, He has not handed over the forgiveness to all. Nay, let it be said with all reverence, He _cannot_ so hand it over. Men must come to Him for it; they must be joined to Him to derive it; they must become like Him to be saved by Him. On conditions He received the power of salvation, and on conditions He imparts it. Those who do not observe these conditions, so far from escaping condemnation through what He has done, and what He has attained unto, do thereby become subject to surer and worse condemnation. The same work, the same authority, which made Him the Saviour of all men, made Him also the Judge of all; and imposed the inflexible law, that every one that would not be saved by Him must be destroyed by Him.

Now, in this day of grace, He is labouring to save: and He will save to the uttermost all who seek His salvation. But, by and by, He must come to judge; and then, whosoever has not been already saved, must be utterly destroyed. Are you forgiven? Christ has forgiven you. Are you seeking forgiveness? If you seek it aright, Christ will bestow it. Are you not forgiven? Will you not seek forgiveness? Then, rely upon it, you must be condemned; and that not only or chiefly by the law, but by the Gospel, the dispensation on the one hand of unspeakable goodness, on the other of unpardonable severity. If Christ is not made your Saviour, He will be your destroyer. There is forgiveness with Him. There is no forgiveness elsewhere.

Let me press this upon you, dear brethren, even though in so doing I repeat what I have already said. There is no forgiveness with GOD, the Father, apart from Christ, the Saviour. There is no forgiveness, for the Saviour’s sake, to those who do not belong to the Saviour. You must not go to the Father and plead, while you continue in your sin, that, since One has died for sins, there is no longer any such thing as sin. You must not suppose that holiness, and justice, and truth are set at nought in all other cases, because they have been maintained in one. You must not expect that He who once refused forgiveness, now freely grants it to the same persons in the same state; that He is changed, and, therefore, you need not be. No! to find any comfort in the assurance, “There is forgiveness with Thee,” and to verify it in your own case, you must have observed, and be still observing, the prescribed conditions. You must have become Christ’s, and Christ have become yours. You must have obtained the pardon from Him, and you must hold it through Him; and He must testify thereof, and plead for you, ere the Father will pronounce His absolution: “The LORD hath put away thy sins: thou shalt not die.”

But how is all this to be done? Not by idly assenting to the truth, that it ought to be done. Not by mere thinking and talking of Christ. Not by working upon your feelings, and warming your affections, by the contemplation of Him as a historical character; not even by making mention of Him in your prayers, and pleading His merits, and asking to be wrapped in His imputed righteousness; but by intelligently, and heartily, and actively observing the conditions and using the means of salvation, which Christ has proposed to you, and put within your reach.

As soon as Christ had accomplished His work on earth, and had been exalted to be the new head of the human race, the source of pardon and grace, calling in the powers of His Godhead, He established supernatural means whereby other men might be actually joined, and kept joined, to Him, and might derive from Him the properties and privileges of a renewed and perfected nature. The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the blessed Trinity, became the wonderful agent to effect and maintain this union and communication, providing mysteriously for the gradual subjugation and destruction of the old nature, with its guilt and proneness to sin, and for the development and establishment of spiritual excellence in all those who become objects of His operations. To become such objects, it is necessary that men should be prequalified (and He gives them the power, if they ask it), by realising the misery and condemnation of their natural state, by sorrowing over and renouncing their sins, by desiring pardon and grace, and by believing that Christ had them to bestow; and, then, after becoming thus prequalified, it is further necessary, that they should make appointed use of certain outward ordinances, in the due observance of which He pledges Himself to meet them, and to apply to them the merits and the graces, in the possession of which they shall be accounted dead with Christ unto sin, and alive with Him unto righteousness. On none but those thus qualified will the Spirit operate; and on these only, when they come to Him and invite His operation in appointed ways. Such, my brethren, is the doctrine of forgiveness; such is the law of its bestowal. There is forgiveness with God of this kind, and on these terms; but there is no other forgiveness.

It is because we are not fully persuaded of this truth, that we are so indifferent, so apathetic, so unthankful, so unrighteous. We do not appreciate forgiveness, through not understanding it; we do not duly seek it, through not considering how only it is to be obtained.

Dear brethren, let us strive to be wiser and better. First, let us qualify ourselves for the application to us of forgiveness, by realising the guilt and condemnation of sin; by convincing ourselves that we are sinners, and by ascertaining in what we sin; by sorrowing for sin, loathing it, and desiring to get free of it; by giving up its work, forsaking its haunts, and restoring, as far as may be, its plunder (_i.e._, by labouring to undo what we have done amiss). Then let us meditate on pardon, and holiness; on the happy freedom and glorious privileges of those who are forgiven and sanctified in Christ, till our reason and affections unite in demanding that our lips and lives should seek forgiveness and sanctification. We have already learned _where_ and _how_ to seek. Let us hasten to use our knowledge. Let us seek the Spirit where He is to be found; let us submit ourselves to Him, and ask His blessing in the prescribed ways; the ways revealed to us in the Bible, and made accessible to us through the Church of Christ: baptism once, for death and burial with Christ unto sin, and new birth unto righteousness; holy communion frequently, for the sustenance of the new life, the meat and drink of the Spirit; and the ministry of reconciliation ever, as the constant salve for the soul’s constant wounds.

Commending to your full and serious consideration the great importance of all the Gospel-ordinances, and bidding you remember (and profit by the remembrance) the sin and danger of neglecting any one of them, let me now confine your attention, for a few minutes, to the application of forgiveness by the authorised ministers of reconciliation, in what is called ministerial absolution. Whenever you draw near to GOD in the sanctuary, and make a public confession of your sins, whether in the ordinary daily service, or in the office for the holy communion, immediately after such confession, the priest is directed to stand up and pronounce what is called an absolution; in the one case declaring, that “GOD pardoneth and absolveth,” in the other, praying that He may do so. Whenever private scruples and peculiar spiritual difficulties keep you from the holy communion, you are exhorted to go to some discreet and learned minister, that you may receive the benefit of absolution; and whenever you are laid on a bed of sickness, and the clergyman is summoned to your side, he is directed to move you to a special confession, if you feel your conscience troubled by any weighty matter, and if you humbly and heartily desire it, to absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. All of you know that such things are to be found in the Prayer-Book. Some of you treat them with perfect indifference, caring not that they are there, neither assenting to them or opposing them. Others accept the poor explanation, that they are mere kind, comfortable delusions for weak minds. Others kick against them, and denounce them as relics of Popery and instruments of priestcraft, indignantly repelling the notion, that there is any such forgiveness promised or allowed by the Word of GOD.

Hear me dispassionately, dear brethren, while in few words (and, GOD knows, without any party bias) I endeavour to vindicate the Church’s teaching; and to guard it against both superstitious misuse and profane contempt. You know, of course, that Christ, in His life-time on earth, before His passion, commissioned certain disciples to go before Him into every city whither He Himself would come, and when they entered into any house, to pronounce peace upon its tenants, with the assurance that His peace should, in such case, always rest upon them, if they were worthy. You know, too, that just before His ascension, He invested the apostles with the power of remitting and retaining sins; and that they both exercised that power themselves, by absolving and excommunicating, and also handed it on to others—so that St. Paul tells the Corinthian presbyters, that to whomsoever they forgive anything, He forgives also, and that his forgiveness is the forgiveness of Christ. And you likewise know (if you are conversant with Church history) that the doctrine of ministerial absolution, and the practice of administering it, have been steadily maintained in all parts of the Church, from the apostolic age to the present.