صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

solved, we know very well, any farther than a little wetting of the skin, as St. Peter signifies, "It is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh (a little outward improvement) that doth save us; but the answer of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (Pet. I. iii. 21.) And some will be severely punished hereafter, notwithstanding the general pardon or amnesty, that Christ has purchased so dearly and given them, for having been here all their lifetime slaves to infidelity, contrary to their baptismal engagement and professed subjection to Christ: "Who (says St. Peter) is gone into Heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels, and authorities and powers being made subject unto him." (Ib. 22.)

One of these two parts is chiefly retrospective, and the other prospective: the first part, or that of pardon relating to past offences, which it remits; the second part, or that of absolution relating-not to future offences confirmed by indulgence-but to their absolution by grace and reformation. The forgiveness that draws us on to righteousness by encouraging our endeavours after it may be said to stand; that which has no such fruit, but is followed rather by supineness and indifference is vain as it respects. ourselves, though not as it respects the divine goodness, which is thus glorified in forbearance. When a man is not only regenerated in baptism by water and the Holy Ghost, but consequently renewed in life by the same impulse or influence, he may think somewhat of his forgiveness he may think that what he has been praying daily is at length heard effectually. But, as a cripple might find it no consolation to be set upon his legs without being able to stand; so might one, to be born again without a new life, to be enrolled among the faithful and "have one's portion with the hypocrites." For what may such a one be beyond those who "have never learned Christ?" "He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings,

evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness." (Tim. I. vi. 4, 5.) He knows nothing of the Christian principle; FEELS nothing of the humility, the charity, the devotion of Christ in his heart; displays no sign of either in his outward life. And as he cannot feel the enjoyment of these particulars, any more than such a worldling as he can feel the want of them, he can have no assurance of his absolution before God. Or if he have such assurance, it is more than some others have sometimes who take more pains to be right. For who shall persuade me, that I enjoy "the peace of God which passeth all understanding," when I do not feel within me that blessed peace, nor know one moment's security against the storm and tempest, when my spirit may be raging like an hurricane within me. No, no; what I feel I believe; what I do daily, I cannot forget. I may be told, My sins are forgiven but I do not feel it. If I be forgiven in the judgment, let me feel it in sobriety. Give me the evidence of inward peace, with the outward sanction of a good behaviour and I will then believe, that I have "passed from death unto life," and shall not come into condemnation." Else you may as well think to persuade a poor captive that his debts are forgiven, while he still drags on his mortality in wretched durance. And if I am forgiven, why is my life a burden to me still sometimes?

[ocr errors]

For the original word which we render by forgive, will signify something more than to pardon, excuse, remit, abrogate, or any other privilege of the kind that is exercised either by high or low upon earth-in the second human petition of the Lord's Prayer; as in the first Bread was shown to signify something more than that first article of common diet; either of them containing a spiritual or primary, as well as a temporal or mediate, effect, and signifying together in the same petition spiritually, thus, O Heavenly Father, of blessed name and influence, let this day be marked with thy usual grace:

FORGIVE US WHAT WE DO AMISS THIS DAY, AND ENABLE US TO DO BETTER: abolish that, and establish this: let this stand, and send the other away; make it to be as if it had never been, nor was ever to be again: look upon it as if thou hadst never seen it; think of it as if thou hadst never perceived, remember as if thou hadst never known it: let it be like the smoke that vanisheth, "like the chaff which the wind scattereth away from the face of the earth," like a bubble floating on the tide, like a scapegoat hurrying to the wilderness. (Lev. xvi. 10.)—And that he can, if he will as the authority of the Creator extends to being as well as deserving, he can make any thing either to be, or not to be, or to be any thing but what it is: by his word or law he can abolish sin itself as easily as he can abolish the sinner,-who is only a mass of sin, and send it out of the world again quicker than ever it came in. "The law of the Lord is an undefiled law converting the soul :" (Ps. xix. 7:) it giveth wisdom unto the simple as well as entertainment,-is light to the eyes as well as joy to the heart, and properly called a Testimony, (Ibid.,) from the evidence that it gives of itself in an operation paramount to the force of nature, or the law of sin and death, on the being as well as on the suffering of its objects.

If, therefore, it be said, "The law made nothing perfect," (Heb. vii. 19,) we must understand a period before the law itself was perfect,-namely, before the coming of the Word by which it came, as foretold by the prophet by whom it was delivered. For if the law had then been perfect, there would have been no reference to further authority, one should suppose; as there is, not only by Moses in the passage before cited, but also in other passages of the Old Testament; as, for example, by Isaiah, "Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth, shall

[ocr errors]

. In p.
342.

not make haste." (Isai. xxviii. 16.) And a little after the prophet seems to assign the very reason to which I have alluded, the imperfection, or rather, infancy, of the old law; which St. Paul found to be "unto death," though holy in itself, and just and good; (Romans vii. 10, 12;)— telling its subjects, "Your covenant with death shall be disannulled," and exposing by a familiar example its decided insufficiency, with the consequence, "From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report. FOR THE BED IS SHORTER THAN THAT A MAN CAN STRETCH HIMSELF ON IT; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it. For the Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim; he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act." (Isai. xxviii. 18-21.) So St. Paul again in the New Testament, "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, did; and for sin condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (Rom. viii. 3, 4.) The apostle says, "Fulfilled in us," as he says elsewhere, "Receiving in themselves (imbibing, contracting, or assimilating, as it were) that recompense of their error which was meet." (Ib. i. 27.)

[ocr errors]

And truly it is "a strange work," and "a strange act also, is the fulfilling of the law of righteousness by one man throughout; that is, in himself first, and then in others by him, or his spirit; as on the contrary, the infraction of the law by one man was perpetuated in his posthumous seed or posterity. It may also be worth observing, how men's faults are recorded in facts, and made their own torment by the law of nature, as their merit is recorded and rewarded in another style of facts by the code of grace; and as their faults are all founded in unbelief, be

VOL. II.

A A

ginning from the day when Adam doubted and died, (Gen. iii. 6,) so are their merits in "faith of Jesus Christ," dating from the day when he said, "Thy will be done," (Matt. xxvi. 42,) and also died accordingly: our natures being renewed by the infusion of his righteousness, as they were corrupted by that of Adam's guilt. But still, as the apostle signifies in a passage before cited, with all this conformity in the mode of punishment and forgiveness, their measure is not the same. "Not as the offence so also is the free gift; (says the apostle,) for if, through the offence of one many be dead, MUCH MORE the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many." (Rom. v. 15.)

Thus it may appear, how the perfect forgiveness of sins proceeds entirely from God and his grace in two parts originally, and thereafter similarly in two parts also from ourselves; namely, from him in pardon and absolution; from ourselves in faith and repentance given by him, leading to a change of principle, to a new life, and in short to absolution. "For by grace are ye saved through faith: (says St. Paul :) and that, not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." (Eph. ii. 8.) We have an allusion to the first mentioned double part of God in pardon and absolution by the pious Psalmist when he prays, "Break thou the power of the ungodly and malicious: take away his ungodliness; and thou shalt find none:" (Ps. x. 17:) but a more direct allusion by St. John*, where he says, thus, "If

It may be no disparagement to so high an authority even as St. John's, to remark (by way of enlargement and illustration, rather than assurance) an allusion to this sentence in the General Confession to be said at our morning and evening service, “SPARE THOU them, O God, which confess their faults: RESTORE THOU them that are penitent; according to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus, our Lord:" that is, Pardon, O Almighty and most merciful Father for Jesus Christ's sake thy children who submit and cast themselves upon thy mercy: absolve from the stain and guilt of sin those whom thou hast brought by thy grace to re

pentance.

- And, if it were worth while, many other acknowledgments of the fore

« السابقةمتابعة »