—Matthew Arnold.
Use sin as it will use you; spare it not, for it will not spare you; it is your murderer and the murderer of the world: use it, therefore, as a murderer should be used. Kill it before it kills you; and though it kill your bodies, it shall not be able to kill your souls: and though it bring you to the grave, as it did your Head, it shall not be able to keep you there.—Baxter.
John Gregory met the demand thus made upon him with all the moral and spiritual resources of which he was master, for all were needed. The full strength of the man’s personality was brought into action, the lofty severity, the unflinching hate of sin, and yet the clear vision which could see beyond the torture and taint of it, and sound the depth of a nature which thus agonized for redemption and for righteousness.
“The only sin,” he said, in the words of another, “which is unforgiven is the sin which is unrepented of. That early yielding to a paroxysm of jealousy and rage had a fearful, and yet it may even be a merciful, result. There are those who have given way to worse, and, no result following, have lived on in hardness of heart and contempt of God’s law. Christ’s inflexible law, far more rigorous than the old law of Moses, says he that hateth his brother is a murderer. Murder, then, is the commonest of social sins, rather than the rarest. Christ also says that it was for sinners that he came to die, not for the righteous. His love overflows all our sin, and finds no halt at the degrees of guilt which men emphasize in their shallow judgment. Men judge by consequences, by outward events; God looks upon the heart.
“Looking upon the heart, as far as we may, with God, I say then, you have been guilty of murder, but so have other men. Many a man has cherished a spirit of bitter revenge and hatred against one who had injured him, who has not suffered what you have, not having caused or profited by the death of that person, directly or indirectly; but before God you are perhaps equally guilty.
“I do not count your sin slight. I would not seek to make it small in your own eyes, but I believe that you are released from the guilt and burden borne so long, and should no longer stagger under it. Has not Almighty God given to his servants power and commandment to declare to those who are penitent the absolution and remission of their sins?
“What did our Lord say to the leper who sought his cleansing? ‘I will, be thou clean.’ Even this he says to you. Throw off that old yoke of bondage. It is your right. Go free in the liberty of the sons of God, but go to sin no more.”
These words, spoken with the authority of a priest, and with the solemnity of absolute conviction, brought something of light and release to the troubled heart of Ingraham.
The hour was late, indeed, morning was at hand, when, lifting his face upon which a certain calmness had settled, he said to Gregory, earnestly:—
“I believe I grasp the truth of what you say, and that there is for me a certain peace, a partial release, although forgetfulness never. But this is not enough; the cry of my whole soul is to make restitution in some sort, somewhere, although how and to whom I cannot see. I still have the stain that I profit by my sin. What can you tell me? Do you see a way for me?”