Concerning the letter before us on the forgiveness of sins—each other's sins or debts, and our sins before God—it is not a question of theology, but of simple moral right and wrong; and I defy Mr. Ruskin's bitterest censors to deny, that, in this wicked world, men are more in earnest in deceiving, injuring, and swindling their friends than they are in seeking the love of their enemies. Has not our Lord told us long ago that "the children of this world are wiser" (that is, more earnest, consistent, and thorough-going) "in their generation than the children of light"?
It is of extreme difficulty to understand the clause, says Mr. Ruskin. Replies some slow-witted preacher: "Where is the difficulty? I both understand it and explain it with perfect ease!" What! understand the precious conditions on which forgiveness will be extended to us! The question of God's forgiveness is not a simple question. It is complicated by its relation to men's mutual forgiveness of each other, and that again by the practical difficulty of knowing when we can, and when, from the very nature of the case, we cannot, forgive. Here are surely elements of difficulty quite sufficient to justify the remark that "the clause is one of such difficulty that, to understand it, means almost to know the love of God which passeth knowledge."
But we may, at any rate, guard our people against misunderstanding it; and they are guilty, and full of guilt, who live in sin,—sins of avarice, of ill temper, of calumny, of hatred, of sensuality, and of unforgivingness, and yet daily ask to be forgiven, because, forsooth, they are innocent of any bad intention!
No man or woman who sins with the knowledge that it is sin can have God's forgiveness. It is no use to plead the frailty of the flesh. It is wilful, knowing, deliberate sin; and it will not be forgiven without a very living, earnest, and working faith indeed.
I question much whether we preachers of the Gospel say enough upon this point,—not at all that we underrate its importance, nor that we overrate the importance of that which we are apt to call Gospel preaching κατ' ἐξοχήν, namely, the doctrine of the atonement by the Blood of Christ, which is the brightness and glory of the Gospel message, but is no more all of it than that the sum of the Lord's Prayer is contained in one of its clauses.
"As we forgive them that trespass against us." Shall I be pardoned for venturing here upon a remark which seems needful to make in the presence of so much that appears to be erroneous on the subject of human forgiveness? And it is more especially necessary to be understood in the case of the clergy, because such large demands are made upon their forgiveness as it is impossible to satisfy. I do not at all say that there are trespasses which men cannot forgive,—sins, I mean, of the ordinary type, and not crimes. But I do say that there are times and circumstances under which forgiveness is a moral impossibility. And yet the world expects a clergyman to be ever walking up and down in society with forgiveness on his lips and forgiveness in both his hands. Our Lord said, "If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him" (Luke xvii. 3); and forgiveness is to follow each successive profession of repentance. And in Matt. xviii. 22, though repentance is not named, it is manifestly implied. In 2 Cor. ii. 7, again, sorrow for the sin is a condition of forgiveness. This, then, is the rule and condition of forgiveness, that our brother repent; and manifestly it must be so; for the act of forgiveness requires a correlative disposition to seek and receive forgiveness, just as a gift implies not only a giver but a receiver, or it cannot be a gift, do what we will. I think this is extremely apt to be overlooked even by the larger, that is, the more emotional and impulsive part of the world, though not, of course, by the more thoughtful; and clergymen especially are asked to speak fair, and sue for peace, and all but ask for forgiveness of those who are habitually and obstinately bent upon doing them all the wrong and injury in their power, and using them with the most intolerable harshness.
What, then, does true religion require of us if such circumstances make forgiveness impossible? To be ever ready, ever prepared to forgive; to seek every opening, every avenue to peace without sacrifice of self-respect and manly independence; to watch for opportunities to do kindnesses to the most inveterate enemy,—even where a change of heart appears hopeless. This is possible to a Christian, and this is what Christ demands. But He does not demand impossibilities. He does not ask us to do more than our Heavenly Father Himself, who forgives the returning sinner even "a great way off," if his face be but homeward; but says nothing of forgiveness to him whose back is towards his home, and whose heart dwells far away.
I am sure Mr. Ruskin does not mean that no clergyman is sensible of the guilt of sins of omission. But he is speaking as a layman, who has heard in his time a great many preachers, and it is very probable indeed that he has not heard many dwell long and forcibly on the fact, which is indeed a fact, that the guilt of sins of omission is the burden of Christ's teaching, and that more parables and more preaching are directed against the sin of doing nothing at all than against the positive and active wickedness of bad men. If we will be candid, we must agree with him that in our general teaching we do lay much less emphasis on such sins than our Lord does in His teaching.
But in the paragraph which follows, I confess that, following up a charge which is sadly too true, that there is a grotesque inconsistency "in the willingness of human nature to be taxed with any quantity of sins in the gross, and its resentment at the insinuation of having committed the smallest parcel of them in detail," there comes a sentence in which the Christian philosopher loses himself in the caustic satirist, and that this vein continues to the end of the letter. In satire, such is its very essence, truth is ever travestied. It is truth still, but the truth in unfamiliar, and, for the most part, unacceptable guise. There is just an undercurrent of truth, and no more, in the statement, not very seriously made, one would suppose, that the English Liturgy was "drawn up with the amiable intention of making religion as pleasant as possible, to a people desirous of saving their souls with no great degree of personal inconvenience."
If the whole naked truth were spoken with the deepest gravity that the awful pressure of our sins demands, the English Liturgy would be a continuous wail of grief and repentance. For if anything is great, and loud, and urgent, it is the cry of our sins. But co-extensive with our sins is the love of our Father; and, therefore, our mourning is changed into rejoicing and thankfulness, and this picture of the sinner "dexterously concealing the manner of his sin from man, and triumphantly confessing the quantity of it to God," is merely a satire.