IX.

THE DIVINE FORGIVENESS.

[Sunday Evening, October 26, 1890.]

"For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it: Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."

PSALM 51: 16, 17.

Last Sunday evening I spoke upon the subject of Penalty, endeavoring to show by what laws human transgressions are visited with divine justice. I trust that if any were present who thought that, in this church, we do not believe in suffering for sin, they were then undeceived. Surely I gave them an opportunity of learning the truth upon that subject. No church holds more strenuously to the belief that every transgression and disobedience shall receive a just recompense of reward,-that "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

To-night we take up the other half of the theme, the Divine Forgiveness. Our song shall be of "Judgment and Mercy."

The cry of the soul in all generations has been, "Blot out my transgressions and remember mine iniquities no more." In the old legend the organ sunk in the sea still sent its plaintive music over

the billows and through the storms. Humanity, sunk in wretchedness and guilt, lifts its prayer for pardon over every wave of sorrow, and makes it heard through every tempest of life. All this indicates some real need in the human heart and demands some real comfort. It calls for an assurance that the Great Being behind us and above us is wise and loving; that he will make an end of sin and pain; that he will change the cry for mercy into a song of peace.

I. Although there is a genuine necessity for such assurance, many superstitious notions are still entertained about the idea of God's forgiveness. There is clay with the gold.

It is a mistake to suppose that God is altogether such an one as we are. He is not a magnified man. We, indeed, interpret him through our higher nature, through our best and purest affections and aspirations; but the trouble is that men have always attributed to him the lower rather than the higher elements. They have thought him capable of hatred and vengeance. They have attached to him their baser passions as well as their virtues. Even in Judaism, in its early stages, God is represented as having all the savagery of primitive man. He delights to exercise brute force. He disports himself in cruelties. He orders most shocking barbarities. He perpetrates crimes that fill us with horror, since Jesus prayed for his mur

derers. The mistake was natural enough, but it was a mistake. When a certain painter set up his masterpiece in the market-place, inviting the people to criticise, and to mark with a brush the features that they deemed capable of improvement, he found at the close of the day that his beautiful picture was covered and besmirched with blotches of paint. So do men take the brush, dip it into the mud and slime and ichor of their own bad passions, and daub the fairest conceptions of God, the benignant face of the Eternal.

"Not mine to look where cherubim

And seraph inay not see;

But nothing can be good in him
That evil is in me.

"The wrong that pains my Lord below

I dare not throne above;

I know not of his hate, I know

His goodness and his love."

It follows, therefore, that there are certain differences between divine and human forgiveness. When a man truly forgives his brother, what does he do?

He

(1) He withholds the infliction of any penalty. He forbears vengeance. He does not meet evil with evil, sword with sword, fire with fire. says, "I will not strike the blow to which I am prompted; go in peace." But the divine forgiveness does not set aside guilt or remove penalty. It will always be true that we have sinned. No power can make that otherwise. No power can wipe out the guilt that attaches or the suffering

that follows. Absolute justice will be done. We ought not to wish it otherwise. We ought not to wish justice defeated or law reversed.

(2) What else does the man do who forgives his brother? He roots out of his heart all wrong feelings, all those sentiments out of which actual vengeance springs. He not only says, "I will strike no blow," but he also says, "I will cherish no malignant or bitter spirit." He scatters the clouds before the bolt descends. But there is no anger in God such as rages in the breasts of men. We speak only by accommodation when we say that God is angry. His opinion of sin, his displeasure with wrong-doing, is expressed in his laws, and in the consequences that follow their violation, but he does not fly into a fury when some one goes astray. He does not fume and rage as men do.

(3) When a man forgives his brother he restores, so far as possible, the broken relationship. He binds together the severed ties. He opens his arms and says to the offender, "Return; it shall be as if no chasm had ever yawned between us. I shall feel and act toward you as of old." But so far as God is concerned there is no broken relationship to be restored. He does not need to be reconciled to us; but we who have gone astray, to him. The work of Christ was not to reconcile God to man, but man to God. It is significant

that the word "atonement" is used in the King James version of the New Testament but once, and in the Revision not at all. The word "reconciliation" is substituted.

This word gives the key-note to the entire mission of Jesus Christ. His was a work of "reconciliation." He came to break down the barriers between man and God, and between man and his brother. The atonement was not upon Calvary, but in the human heart. That was to be reconciled to a life of righteousness. This idea is kept constantly before us in the New Testament. "For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life"that is, by leading such a life as his. Such a life is salvation. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself,"-not himself unto the world. "He is our peace who hath made both one,"speaking of Jews and Gentiles-"and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us." "That he might reconcile both unto God in one body, by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby"-the enmity existing between Jews and Gentiles, and between both and God.

This was the central thought,-this was the idea underlying the entire work. The mission of Jesus looked manward rather than Godward. There was no flaming Deity to propitiate; no wrath to