SERMON V.

ST. MATTH. vi 12.

"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."

We have now, my brethren, arrived at that part of the Lord's Prayer which those who pray with real earnestness probably feel to be the most serious of all. However extensive and magnificent the vista of thought disclosed by the preceding clauses of this prayer, or however immediately connected with the universal necessities of daily life, they nevertheless lack the peculiar interest which attaches to the one we now propose considering. The universal hallowing of God's name, the universal diffusion and full development of his kingdom, so that his will shall be done by all in earth as it is now done by all in heaven, are glorious ideas: but however the mind may soar in contemplating them, it is soon twitched down again by a consciousness of internal evil which changes general interest into a more absorbing individual anxiety. We are not commanded to love others better than ourselves: so long therefore as we are not assured of our own safety, we cannot afford much sympathy to others' welfare. What shall it profit us if

we gain the cause of the whole world by our pleadings, and yet lose that of our own soul?

It is indeed true that the cause of individuals is to a certain extent, God only knows to what extent,-bound up with the cause of the world at large. God's name cannot be hallowed, his kingdom come, and his will be done in all its fulness, without ensuring the future happiness of the whole then existing race of man. But the very splendour of these anticipations of the future suggests fearful misgivings about the present. To pray that God's will may be done, implies that God's will is not being actually done; and the not doing God's will, what is this but the very essence of sin and misery? And this consideration presses on the conscience of every individual petitioner with individual and most crushing weight. I, I, am one of those who at this moment are not fulfilling God's will completely as it ought to be fulfilled; and what then is to become of me? It little imports that a new state of things is promised and expected—a new heaven and earth in which dwelleth righteousness, and every denizen of which shall thoroughly agree with and perfectly accomplish the will of his Creator: what is meanwhile to become of me and of all those countless multitudes who have been filling up the ages that elapsed before with heaps upon heaps of multifarious sin? This is the question that forces itself upon the mind when it tries to interest itself in the glory that shall be revealed; and which, if I may judge of others by myself, often makes us impatient at the amount of prayer devoted to

the cause of future and general blessings, when our own present and individual concernments are so much more pressing; in keeping the vineyard of others we feel as though we were neglecting to keep our own.

Hence nothing can be more suitable to the place it occupies than the petition, "Forgive us our debts." Here we have at once the expression, and in the expression the solution of all those anxieties we cannot help at all times feeling more or less, and which the first portion of the Lord's Prayer is particularly calculated to excite. And how beautifully does the sequence of these petitions, in which there is indeed no vain repetition, sketch out the whole truth of our state with regard to sin and holiness! In the former clauses we struck at the root of the poison-tree of sin: in the clause now before us we seek an antidote against the fruits that tree will continue to bring forth until it be completely eradicated. In the former clauses we aim at the total destruction of the corrupt nature in the present clause, we have a remedy against the evils that nature will never cease to cause till it be totally destroyed. Neither of these portions of the Lord's Prayer can therefore be thoroughly understood without the other: and as, in examining the previous petitions, I did not so much dwell on the corruption they assume as on the means by which it shall be finally removed, it may not be unprofitable now, in speaking of the forgiveness of our debts or trespasses, to examine that general corruption of which our trespasses are individual outbreaks; after which we shall better be

able to understand both the nature of those trespasses and the grounds on which we may expect that they will be forgiven.

I. That a certain general corruption exists in human nature is a proposition which scripture explicitly affirms, and which reason unaided by scripture must assume if it would understand the actual phenomena of life. The existence of an internal witness which checks us for acting wrong, will hardly be denied. Now it might be a subject of curious speculation whether in case we never acted wrong at all we should be at all aware of the existence of this monitor: whether conscience does not require being violated in order to be felt: just as when the internal parts of the body are in perfect health we are not conscious of their existence. At all events, conscience would not be so much felt as it now is, nor should we be so often reminded of its existence, but for our so often acting against its dictates. The very prominence of its activity becomes therefore a measure of the extent to which that activity is required. And so much more frequently does conscience condemn than approve, that the voice of conscience has in common parlance become synonymous with the sense of guilt and the stings of remorse. Now a fact like this deserves no small consideration; for the general language expresses the general feeling of mankind; and we are therefore forced by the most unsuspicious of all testimony-the testimony of common phraseology, which neither philosophy can warp nor interest bribe-to conclude that the sense of guilt preponderates over the sense

of innocence in the human breast. And if anything be wanted to corroborate this conclusion, the history of our race will abundantly supply it. To what but to the predominating sense of guilt are we to ascribe the fact that in all merely heathen countries the Deity is worshipped— if he be worshipped at all-with rites indicative of terror? And if it be urged in reply that this terror rests on unworthy representations of the Supreme, I would ask, whence came these unworthy representations? and to what are we to attribute their being universally accepted? It is nonsense to talk about priestcraft originating and disseminating them, as if that were a sufficient answer to this question: those who talk thus forget to explain how they ever came into the minds of the priests themselves; and how it was that mankind almost universally chose to listen to their priests instead of listening to their reason, if their reason spoke a different language from their priests. No! my brethren, priestcraft will not account for that terror of the Deity which men naturally feel and universally exhibit; and what stronger proof that we are at enmity with Him could we have than is given by this terror? Or is it a token of innocence that we are all naturally disposed to regard the Author of every good, the Being whose very essence, we are told, is love, not with love, but fear? And is not this the case? Is not the originally dominant sensation of every mind, when the reality of God's existence first dawns upon it, a sense not of attraction but of aversion? What makes us shrink from death, what crowns him king of

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