Forgiveness of Injuries 6
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VI. I now urge the performance of this duty by some appropriate and effective MOTIVES.
I urge it by regard to your offending brother. You must not, you dare not, be indifferent to his welfare. "Am I my brother's keeper?" was the cold-blooded question of a murderer, and there is murder in it. The word of God everywhere enjoins a tender regard to the spiritual welfare of others. To love our brother as ourselves is half the law of God, and obedience to it is essential to a right performance of the other half. If you allow sin to lie upon him by not expostulating with him; or if you tempt him to be more guilty by not forgiving him—you are imperiling his eternal interest. By not telling him of his offences, you allow his conscience to slumber upon unconfessed guilt; and by cherishing towards him an implacable disposition, you exasperate him into malice, or break the bruised reed, and quench the smoking flax. That brother whom you cannot forgive has perhaps been forgiven by Christ, to whom he has confessed the sin with penitence, even as he is willing to confess it to you. I beg you, by all the love you bear to your brother, and I add, by all the love you bear your common Father, forgive him.
Can you pretend to brotherly love if you cannot exercise brotherly forgiveness? But if it be not a brother that has injured you, only a fellow-creature, one who is no Christian, is your unforgiving spirit likely to make him one? Is it thus you would draw him to Jesus? Thus you would win his soul for the Lord, thus you would prepossess him in favor of religion, thus you would melt his obdurate heart? Who can tell, your forgiveness may lead him to seek God's. By not forgiving him you petrify his already hard heart and drive him further from God. For shame, Christian, for shame, to have so little regard for the salvation of souls—to manifest so little of the mind of him who died for them, to have no more sympathy with him who died for his enemies, and died for you among the rest.
I plead with you on the ground of your own comfort and sanctification. You sometimes say, and tell God, you want to be holy. Is this all hypocrisy? Is it lying to God? What is holiness? Conformity to God's image—and is it not one part of this to be merciful and to forgive sins? Would you limit holiness to chastity, justice, truth, and sobriety—and leave out mercy, the brightest jewel in the crown of heaven, the loveliest feature in the countenance of God, the very beauty of holiness, and the delight of Jehovah's heart? To be holy, and not to forgive! Impossible, man, impossible! You are under an awful delusion. The deceitfulness of the heart has imposed upon you. The pure white light of holiness is made up of many prismatic colors, and mercy in the way of forgiving sin is one of them.
You want evidence you are a child of God, you wish to know your sins are forgiven. How do you expect it? By a voice from heaven, or by searching the hidden rolls of the eternal decrees? You will not, cannot have them. Neither these, nor any secret, unintelligible, enthusiastic impression upon your own imagination, constitute the witness of the Spirit to your sonship—but the conformity of your disposition to that of God. The most rapturous emotion, the most ecstatic delight, ever yet excited in the bosom by silent meditation, or by sacred eloquence, or by religious poetry—has not half the strength of evidence of your sins being forgiven, that one act of forgiveness has, which has been performed for Christ's sake towards an erring brother. When by one glance at the cross, and one vivid recollection of the twice ten thousand sins of mine which have themselves been cancelled by the mercy of God, I can calm the impetuous passions of my heart, abjure the act, and extinguish the very wish, of revenge, and say to one who has injured me, "I freely from my heart forgive you for Christ's sake, as well as your own," there, in that act of obedience to the command of Jesus, and conformity to the image of Christ, I realize my discipleship, and exclaim—"Thanks, O Saviour, for that grace which by enabling me to perform this act of mercy, has enabled me to realize my union with you, as a branch in the living Vine."
And then how calm the bosom, how serene the mind, how peaceful the heart—where the flaming coals of malice have been put out by the water of love! How happy that man, how sweet his enjoyment, who has gained the victory over himself, and can truly say, "Yes, I have forgiven him—every spark of malice is extinguished! I can receive him to my favor, and be towards him as aforetime." O, what enemies are some men to themselves, what self-tormentors, and how they keep their own soul upon the rack—who cherish a lively recollection of an injury received, a burning wrath towards the offender, and a wish for an opportunity to revenge the insult! It is like keeping a live coal in the bosom; or a vulture preying upon the heart! While he who forgives has a mind calm as the heart of Jesus, and smooth as the brow of God when he blots out a sinner's transgressions, and receives him back to his favor. With what confidence may he now draw near to God, his Father in heaven, for his heart condemns him not—and with what an unfaltering tongue may he present the petition, "Forgive me my sins—even as I forgive those who sin against me."
I urge this duty by a regard to the character and progress of true Christianity. You profess to understand and to love religion, and to desire its progress in the world, do you? Do you really know and practically consider that all God's redeemed people are intended to be witnesses, not only for the doctrine of forgiveness—but the duty of forgiveness? Imagine what a sin it is to bear false witness on this point for God, and lead men to consider that his religion no more promotes forgiveness than the religion of paganism. Consider what an impression in favor of Christianity would be produced by the church upon the world if all professing Christians were seen and known to be people in whose bosom the spirit of love dwelt, and who had blotted out from their vocabulary, by the tears of their own penitence, the word "Revenge."
Why they would be strong by their weakness, and mighty by their meekness—for who would injure a man who was too loving to resent it? How many would ask, "Where did these men learn this lesson?" and on being told "At the cross," what an idea would it raise in the world of a system of doctrine that could produce such an effect! Now the religion of the New Testament has come into the world to bless men, to startle them with its novelty, and to attract them by its loveliness. And this is the new and beautiful thing by which it is to accomplish its end, by leading men first to obtain mercy, and then to show it.
But alas, alas, how slowly does it gain ground even in the land where it is professed! And why? Because its path is filled up with the stumbling blocks cast there by its professors. Professors misrepresent Christianity by their conduct, and lead men to suppose it is no better than other and false religions. The great bulk of mankind take the gospel just as it is set out before them in the lives of its followers—and as there is so much of the spirit of the world, the spirit of anger, wrath, and malice—they keep aloof from it. They are afraid it will do them no good, yes, that it will do them harm, by adding hypocrisy to their other sins. Yes, they are really afraid of religion. But this would not, could not, be the case, if all Christians were like Jesus—ever going about forgiving sins and doing good. Therefore we must be more holy, and in order to this, among other things we must be more meek and gentle, we must be more loving in order to be more lovely, and make our religion more loved. We must by forgiveness live down the suspicions of jealousy, the reproaches of calumny, and the indifference of stupidity. Sermons and books will not do it. Eloquence may descant upon forgiveness, and the rhetoric of the orator may be admired; but if we wish religion to prosper, all who profess it must be seen and known to pardon those who injure them.
Our religion is happily in this day putting forth its energies in the evangelizing spirit of the age—but all these things pass for very little in the estimation of the men of this world—in their estimation they are but effusions of enthusiasm, or paroxysms of sectarianism, and do but little to conciliate their esteem, or enlist their sympathies. They want an exhibition of the true spirit of Christianity which they can better understand, more admire, and which comes more directly under their observation—and here it is in this divine and heavenly love. When they see Christians coming out in all the spirit of love, meekly bearing the provocations by which they are assailed, and freely forgiving the trespasses by which they are injured, "Ah," they will say, "this is what we have waited for! This looks like a religion which is an emanation from a God of love."
By exalting the character, and aiding the progress of our holy religion, we bring honor and glory to Him who is its Head and Author. This is letting our light shine before men, whereby they seeing our good works, will glorify our Father who is in heaven. God is honored when his image is copied, and the rays of his glory reflected by his people. And should not the children of this great and good Parent, this Father of spirits, do all they can to make him known and honored? How wonderful and how ennobling is the conception, and what an ambition should it raise in the mind of the Christian, to consider and say, "Men may see something of God in me!" Yes, we can teach them what God is as to his moral character, and let them see in our merciful disposition a ray of the infinite sun of his own glory. These sweet relentings of our nature, these soft and genial currents of our soul, these effusions of love, these, we can remind them, are but the overflowings of his goodness, his own love, into our hearts, and are like the second rainbow, the reflection of the first, his infinite mercy.
And if another motive is necessary, dwell upon the last I now offer, which is—that forgiveness is a virtue which we shall soon have no longer need to exercise. When we have arrived in heaven we shall have reached a world, where we shall no longer need to seek forgiveness from God, nor to ask it from, or to bestow it upon our brother. There we shall never trespass against God, nor our brother trespass against us. In that region of love, where brotherly kindness, like everything else, will be perfect; there will be no occasion through eternity for one exercise of this part of Christian love. All the inhabitants of that world will be divinely amiable, and never need forgiveness. Everyone will be perfect for others to love, and see in them the perfection which they love in him. No one will ever offend; and none be ever offended. The understanding will be too clear to offend by ignorance, and the heart too holy to offend by design. The difficult virtue of forbearance will not be called for there; having been performed here on earth, it will be dispensed with in heaven, and nothing remain but the easy and delightful acts of taking delight in the unsullied goodness of all around us. And it is the performance here of that hard and trying duty of forgiveness, which is to prepare us for that future world of love and joy. It is the conquest of our proud selves in this scene of our discipline and probation, that is to fit us for that blessed state where no foe is ever to be seen, and no battle ever to be fought. O Christian, it is but a little while before you shall be freed from the conflict, and utter the shout and wear the crown of victory! Every offence you forgive, may be the last you shall ever have to forgive. And then even amidst the bliss of that glorious state to which the last enemy shall introduce you, yes, even there it shall be a part of your ineffable felicity—to look back and remember that in some humble measure, you were enabled through sovereign grace, "to forgive—even as you were forgiven."
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