SERMON XIV.

CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS.

TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

MATTHEW Xviii. 21, 22.

"Then came Peter to him and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but until seventy times seven."

THIS whole chapter treats of offences. One great truth runs through it, and is the foundation of every argument; that God himself affixes infinite value on a human soul, even though the man be among the meanest and most despised of our race. God is most ready to forgive, and most desirous of our salvation, and rejoices over the penitent, as the good shepherd rejoices at the recovery of his wandering sheep. But in proportion to this high estimate made in heaven of a soul created for immortality, so great is God's abhorrence of his sin, who causes the heedless to offend; that is, of him, who in any manner

leads his brother to disobedience and rebellion. The word offend means to plant an obstacle in the way of another's progress. Imagine a great stone rolled, during the obscurity of the night, into the midst of the highway; imagine a bewildered wanderer on a wide common, receiving a false direction where to find shelter and food: apply these figures to spiritual things, and you will then understand what it is to "offend one of these little ones"-of what nature are the crimes against which a bitter woe is denounced; which "it were better for a man that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea," than that he should commit. All such offenders are to be cut off from the church': the whole body of the faithful are to reject the most learned, the most useful, or the most eloquent member-the teacher, the prophet, the apostle himself the foot, the hand, the eye-if he mislead the simple, and bring in damnable heresies and schisms. "Though we, or an angel from heaven,” says St. Paul, "preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed 2." Yet even the offending member is to be tenderly dealt with; private admonition is to be first tried; then the authority and persuasion of two or three other witnesses; and, last of all, the public censure of the Church. If all are of no avail to reform him, then is he to be cut off. He is to be held "as an heathen

man and a publican:" as one of those who never heard of God's Revelation, and have never been admitted into his visible church; and as one of those profligate and open sinners, who, though they are nominally Jews, have excluded themselves, by their scandalous offences, from the commonwealth of Israel.

It is not the least striking feature of this discourse, that every sin which we can commit against our brethren is treated as partaking of the awful character of Offence. It is thus infected with a deep dye of guilt. We may hesitate to admit the justice of the charge; we may urge, that it is not our design to mislead our fellow-Christian; that we have neither wish nor intention of hurrying him down the broad road to hell. Perhaps not. But still every man is justly chargeable with the consequences of his actions and words, when careful consideration might show it to him; especially if he is-as all of us now are-if he is plainly told what those consequences must be. Ignorance is no excuse, when we have the power and the means to learn. And what trespass is it possible for one of us to commit against another, which is not to him a temptation to sin, that is, an offence? If you are quarrelsome, or passionate, or malicious, is not this applying a firebrand to his soul? is it not the usual consequence that he in return indulges in bitterness, and clamour, and evil-speaking? If you allure him to drunkenness or uncleanness, you stir up his cor

rupt and fleshly appetites. If you teach false doctrine; if you persuade him by example, which is more forcible than words, to be rebellious against his king, deceitful to his master, tyrannical to his dependants, unmerciful to his beast, are you not entangling him deeply in sin? If you fail in any of your duties towards him, do you not tempt him to retort, and not to do his duty towards you? To persecute him, to steal from him, to inflict bodily injury on him, to tell lies of him-in short, all imaginable breaches of duty to our neighbour-are also, emphatically, offences: for they hinder his peaceful progress in the way of life, and stir up his self-love to rise in hatred and violence against the offender.

Every sin, therefore, against our neighbour does the devil's work, and is manifestly a cause of sin in him. And hence we trace a close connexion through the whole chapter. The offender, the trespasser, the sinner, the debtor are the same person. The obstinate and grievous offender is indeed to be cut off: but yet the offender has a soul as well as the offended; a soul of equal value in the sight of our impartial Creator. He is not, therefore, to be cut off either hastily or hopelessly. On his earnest profession of repentance, and change of conduct he is to be pardoned and again received into the bosom of the Church. Hence arises Peter's question in the text, How often is this process of offending and repenting to be allowed? how often is forgiveness to be re

peated by man? To which our Saviour gives the moving, the godlike answer, Even as often as you hope it will be repeated by the Almighty to yourself; "I say not unto thee, until seven times; but, until seventy times seven."

It would but weaken the exquisite, yet simple parable, by which this great Christian doctrine is exemplified, if I attempted to explain or enlarge upon it. He who cannot understand and feel the words of Christ, cannot be penetrated by mine. I shall therefore, in the remainder of the discourse, confine myself to one kind of offence, to which the language of the text directly leads us-the smaller, trifling offences, to which our daily intercourse with one another daily renders us liable. In the parallel passage of St. Luke', we read, "If thy brother trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent ; thou shalt forgive him." Now great and serious injuries are very rarely inflicted; still more rarely do they proceed from those, with whom we are most closely connected by ties of neighbourhood, friendship, or blood. While the very closeness of those ties greatly increases the probability, that smaller causes of disagreement, bickering, ill humour, anger and resentment will frequently present themselves. Seven times a day may our brother sin against us; seventy times seven-a number so great that we

1 Ch. xvii. 3, 4.