Thus, my brethren, have I endeavoured to set before you, the true merits of the question, “Ought man to confess to man?” to remind you what is required, what is allowed and recommended, what is forbidden by Scripture, and the Witness and Keeper of Scripture, the Church. Endeavour, all of you, to learn from the subject, charity and wisdom. If you feel that you need not this use of confession, thank God for your easy circumstances; but, blame not, and, above all, dare not to ridicule, those who have need. If you want it, by all means seek it; we may not refuse it. To all of you, I would say, at all times regard your clergyman as indeed an appointed spiritual friend and adviser, and so make use of him; but, especially in sickness, when you call him to your bedside, so far, at least, admit him to your confidence, and enlighten him with respect to your spiritual state, that his instruction may be pointed, and his prayers appropriate; and so his visits blessed. Oh! look not upon us as mere Sunday lecturers, or mechanical readers of prayers, in whom you have no week-day interest, and from whom no benefit is to be derived, but what may be had in church. Degrade not our office, nor ignore our authority, nor slight our willingness to use both for your temporal and eternal good. Nor, on the other hand, exalt us to the false position of spiritual despots—lords of men’s consciences; idols occupying the place of God. Ministers we are; servants of Christ; and your servants for His sake. Make use of our ministry as a ministry, and doubt not but God will then make it profitable to you, and accomplish by it, all the ends for which He appointed it.
SERMON VII.
FORGIVENESS.
Psalm cxxx., 4.
“There is forgiveness with Thee.”
We all know what forgiveness of sin means, namely, remission of the punishment due to it by Divine sentence, and restoration of the offender to the position and privileges of the righteous. We all know, too, our individual need, our ever fresh recurring need of this forgiveness; and we also know, all of us, that forgiveness is granted only for the sake and merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, and on fixed conditions.
Alas! my brethren, how little do we feel what we know. With what vain speculations, what idle dreams, what perverse errors do we too often darken knowledge!
Forgiveness, ransom from eternal death, deliverance from the terrible inflictions of Almighty wrath, gracious reception into God’s own family, and full participation of His inexhaustible love and benediction, how can sinners consent not to value this when given or offered, not to desire and seek it when needed? Yet so it is. There is many an one of our poorest possessions which we cherish more fondly; there is many an unobtained bauble which we would make more real effort to obtain.
Ask yourselves, seriously, and answer to yourselves, honestly, my fellow-sinners, whether it is not so. All of you believe that you have been forgiven some thing, nay, many things. You do not suppose that you are carrying about, each one of you, the unmitigated condemnation of original sin; the full burthen of every transgression and omission of your whole lives, from the first exercise of your self-will in childhood, to that in which you offended but an hour since. You know, indeed, that much remains written against you; but you believe that much more has been blotted out; that God has been propitiated and reconciled to fallen man by the sacrifice and intercession of His Son; that wrath has been displaced by love; that the way of return is open; that the ears of mercy are unclosed; that the arms of grace are stretched out to unfold all those, who by birth inherited banishment, and were kept in exile by the fiery sword which turned every way and allowed none to pass to the paradise of bliss and the tree of life. What Adam lost, that and much more has Christ won. In Him you already have regained much; through Him you may have all and abound.
This you know. How much of it do you feel? Where is your joy of deliverance? where your heart-leapings of praise? where your homage of gratitude for what has been forgiven? And where are your yearnings, your wrestling prayers, your strenuous efforts after the forgiveness yet needed? the cries and struggles of drowning men, grasping in your fresh peril the again stretched out rope of deliverance; imploring to be taken up once more into the ark of salvation; to be landed yet again on the shore of hope? Alas! where? Is not forgiveness obtained, unheeded; forgiveness not obtained, unsought? Not altogether, God be praised! There are some who never forget their deliverance; who have learnt from it gratitude for the past, and hope and direction for the future. There are some who are wont to gaze upon the book of the Divine account of them (that is, so much of it as is revealed), and as they gaze, to keep moist with the tears of humble penitence and love, the red stain of Christ’s blood, which hides, nay, has obliterated so many of the black items against them; and who, seeing how much is cancelled, cannot bear that aught should remain uncancelled, and therefore rest not, nor cease from pleading and entreating, while one single black figure is uncovered by the crimson mark of remission.
Some of you, my brethren, surely there are, who, looking back, perhaps upon a youth of wild and wicked folly, or a manhood of worldliness, or much of an old age of dull, spiritual indifference, from the thraldom of which, by God’s grace, you have been delivered, whose fearful guilt, you have reason to believe, has been remitted; some of you, I say, surely there are, who so appreciate the obtained mercy as to think nothing comparable to it, no gratitude enough for it; and who, therefore, when need of more forgiveness arises (as, of course, it constantly does), betake yourselves early, with the first fruits of your desires, and the quick steps of urgent, craving want, to the fountain that ever floweth, by whose waters alone you can be cleansed and refreshed. Yes, there are such; a few of them; and they do value, they do seek forgiveness.
But, do the many? Judge for yourselves, brethren. Trace back, all of you, as far as you can, the course of your respective lives; review your old habits, your former careers of transgression or omission; or pick out some single sin, if you will of recent date; some one of those many offences against which God’s wrath is pronounced, and on account of which it must descend, unless forgiveness is secured. Is it a lie, a filthy jest, a profane speech, a word of slander? Is it a thought of malice, an encouraged lust, a meditated misdeed? Is it an act of fraud? Did you use false balances, or adulterate your wares, or drive an unfair bargain, exacting more, or giving less than was right? Did you pilfer from your employer, or rob him of your bought service, or betray his interest? Is it direct ungodliness? Did you act in defiance of God’s known commandment? Did you profane His holy day? Did you disregard His fear? Did you withhold aught that He claims of service, of prayer, of praise, of money, time, talents, influence, of example?