The Jewish rabbis taught that a man might forgive an injury a second or even a third time, but never a fourth. When St. Peter asked—"How oft shall my brother trespass against me, and I forgive him? until seven times?" he doubled the rabbinical measure of mercy, doubtless imagining that he had reached the ultimate limit, and that his Divine Master even could require no more. How must he and his brethren have been astonished when Jesus answered: "I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, until seventy times seven!" What! four hundred and ninety times? But Jesus puts a definite number for an indefinite. "Count not your acts of clemency," he seems to say; "be your forgiveness of a brother as free as the air you breathe or the light you enjoy—your love as unlimited as the illimitable heaven above you." Then he puts the matter strongly before them in a parable:

A certain king calls his servants—the collectors of his taxes and revenues—to account. One of them is found frightfully in arrears—owing his lord ten thousand talents—a debt which he can never pay. The king orders the sale of the delinquent, with his family and all his effects. Falling at the royal feet, he implores patience, and promises the impossible. Touched with pity, the king forgives the debt. But the forgiven goes to a fellow-servant who owes him the small sum of a hundred pence, seizes him by the throat, and demands immediate payment. The helpless debtor falls before him, and pleads with him as he himself had lately pleaded with the king. The creditor, however, is inexorable; and into prison the poor man must go till the debt is paid. The sad matter is reported to the king, who recalls the subject of his clemency, rebukes his cruelty, revokes his own act of forgiveness, and delivers the unmerciful over to the tormentors till the last farthing shall be paid. Finally, in application of the parable, the Divine Teacher adds: "So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses."

God's mercy to man, and man's unmercifulness to his fellow, are the two principal things set forth in the parable. Let us look at them both, and see how the former enhances the latter, and enforces the duty of fraternal forgiveness.

To have any right appreciation of the master's mercy, we must know something of the amount of the servant's debt. Ten thousand talents was an enormous sum. The delinquent was a viceroy, and the amount he owed was the revenue of a province. In those days large debts were not uncommon. Julius Cæsar owed, beyond his assets, $1,425,000; Mark Antony, $2,250,000; Curio, $3,375,000; Milo, $4,125,000. An Attic talent was about $1,080; which, multiplied by 10,000, would make the debt $10,800,000. But if the Jewish talent of silver is meant, it would amount to $16,600,000; if the Jewish talent of gold, to $569,000,000. Now let each talent stand for a sin—10,000 sins! Reduce the talents to dollars, and take every dollar for a sin—569,000,000 sins! Reduce the dollars to dimes, and let every dime represent a sin—5,690,000,000 sins! Reduce the dimes to cents, and let every cent be considered a sin—56,900,000,000 sins! Perhaps, however, our dear Lord never intended by the number of talents to intimate the number of our sins, any more than by the seventy times seven he meant to say how often we should forgive an offending brother. In each case the idea is that of indefinite number, unlimited extent. But if the seventy times seven means mercy without measure, what can the ten thousand talents denote but guilt beyond all human calculation or imagination? Think you any estimate of the number and enormity of our sins can be an exaggeration? "Who can tell how oft he offendeth?" "My sins are more than the hairs of my head, therefore my heart faileth me." "My sins are increased over my head so that I am not able to look up." Far better and holier than the best of us, my brethren, was the man who wrote these statements, and left them for an everlasting testimony against those who are pure in their own eyes. If David had such consciousness of sin, what must our consciousness be if we knew ourselves as well? They are the self-blinded, self-hardened, self-deceived, who fancy themselves innocent and glory in their virtue. Even the great apostle called himself "the chief of sinners," and declared that in himself dwelt "no good thing." There is no danger, then, of extravagance in any estimate of our sins of which our arithmetic is capable. So let us proceed a little farther. Take our Lord's summary of the first table of the law: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." Here is required the surrender of the whole man as a living sacrifice to his Divine Creator and Sovereign Proprietor. This is his unquestionable claim upon every moment of our existence throughout its immortal duration. A duty this which we cannot omit for a single second without robbing God; and every minute that we neglect it, comprising sixty seconds, we may be said to repeat the sacrilege sixty times; every hour, 3,600 times; every day, 86,400 times; every year, 31,536,000 times; in twenty years, 630,720,000 times; and in forty years, 1,261,440,000 times. But these are sins of omission only, and that in relation to a single phase of duty; add all the other instances, and we must multiply the sum by multiplied millions. Then we must take our positive sins—our violations of the divine law by thought, word and deed—open sins and secret, public and private, personal and social—sins defying all enumeration, and difficult even of classification; and, adding all together, we must multiply the sum by all our faculties, facilities and gracious incentives for doing God's blessed will, and aggravate all by the innumerable mercies and inestimable blessings which he has diffused over our lives as his sunbeams over the earth. And its any thing short of infinite mercy adequate to the forgiveness of such a debt?

For all this, however unwilling, we must give account to God; and how terrible the array, when conscience shall summon forth from the secret chambers of memory every sin of which we have been guilty, and every evil act and every neglect of duty shall stand out distinct and clear in the light of eternal judgment! How shall we meet the reckoning? In all the eternity to come, what satisfaction can we offer for our faults? Can we alter the facts, undo the deeds, repair the wrongs, recall the time, or efface the record? Nay, the account remains uncancelled, and the debt can never be paid. Soul and body, with all the capabilities of both, the creature belongs to the Creator; and by an original and perpetual obligation, perfect love and blameless obedience are his constant duty. Beyond this he can never go. Even though he commit no sin, neglect no duty, he can offer to the Creator no service whatever that is not justly required of him as a creature. By his utmost efforts forever, he simply renders to God what is his indisputable due. How, then, can the transgressor hope to pay the new and additional debt which he has incurred by innumerable crimes? Before he can do a single meritorious act, even his original obligation to God as his creature must be cancelled; but to cancel that is more than the Creator himself can do, the obligation being inseparable from the relation. As to human merit, therefore, the case is hopeless. What, then, is to be done? Sell the debtor, with his wife and children? Such procedure on the part of the creditor was allowed by ancient law. But in what slave-mart of the universe shall God sell the sinner? Who will want him but Satan? and Satan has him already, self-sold, and bound by indefeasible indenture. Nay, by this part of the parable our Lord presents justice as ministering to mercy. The menace of punishment opens the way for pardon, and the hopeless condition of the debtor enhances the clemency of the king. See the poor wretch, prostrate at the royal feet, imploring a little indulgence, and promising what is utterly beyond his power. So, on a bed of sickness, stung by conscience and confronted by doom, often has the most incorrigible transgressor vowed reparation for a vicious life, only to augment his guilt by disregarding the vow on the return of health and strength. But if the sinner cannot pay, God can forgive. If neither saints nor angels can wrest the culprit from the grasp of justice, yet Heaven has found a ransom to save his soul from the pit. Jesus interposes with "a price all price beyond;" the debt is overpaid in the blood of the cross; through the compassion of the King the debtor is released from his bonds; and the angels tune their harps to sing "the blessedness of the man whose unrighteousness is forgiven and whose sin is covered!"

So far the parable illustrates God's mercy to man; what remains is a sad picture of man's too frequent unmercifulness to his brother, and the just punishment of his cruelty visited upon the delinquent. Here are five points worthy of our attention; which, duly considered, may serve to impress upon our minds the duty of fraternal forgiveness.

First, we have the two creditors, with their respective claims. The king represents God in his relation to man; the first servant represents man in his relation to mankind. God has his supreme claims, as creator and sovereign lord, upon the love, worship and obedience of the whole human race; while man has his subordinate claims, as an equal and a brother, upon the justice, the kindness, the sympathy and the charity of all other men—sometimes, as patron and official superior, upon the reverence, submission and loyal service of a particular part of them.

Then, we have the two debtors, with the different amounts of debt. Both are servants, holding a like relation to the king. Both are in arrears, the one to the king, the other to his fellow-servant. Ought not a common bond and a common condition to produce in them mutual kindness and sympathy? But how great the disparity of their debts! ten thousand talents, and a hundred pence—the latter less than a millionth part of the former—if the gold talent is intended, less than a hundred millionth. Surely if the king could forgive the greater, it were a small matter with his servant to forgive the less. In comparison of our sins against God, what are our brother's sins against us? "As the small dust of the balance, lighter than vanity itself."

Next, we have the two arrests, with the opposite methods of their making. Calmly and kindly, in his accustomed way, worthy of his royal dignity, and just as he treated others, the king calls his servant to account. This proceeding was to be expected, and involves neither harshness nor severity. But when the man is found so culpably in arrears with nothing to pay—a case which could not happen without great dishonesty and wickedness—the king orders, as he has legal right to do, the sale of the culprit, with his family and effects, to satisfy some small part of the royal claim against him. Now mark the very different conduct of the criminal. No sooner is he released than he goes out—not staying a moment to express his gratitude or admire the mercy shown him—finds the man who owes him fifteen dollars: and, with a violence unprovoked and inexcusable, lays hands on him, takes him by the throat, and exclaims, "Pay me that thou owest!" Could there be a more unlovely contrast to the conduct of the king? Such is the difference between God's dealing with guilty men and man's dealing with his delinquent brother; the former all mildness and forbearance, the latter all harshness and severity.

Again, we have the two pleas, with their contrary receptions by the creditors. The two pleas are identical; the two receptions, quite opposite. The first servant falls down before the king, saying, "Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all;" so falls down the second servant before the first, with the very same words upon his lips. Not forgiveness, but merciful indulgence, is what each debtor craves of his creditor; and full payment is what each promises. The payment of a hundred denarii seems quite practicable, and not at all improbable; but the payment of ten thousand talents is beyond all power except that of royalty itself. Yet the wretched impossibility moves the royal heart to compassion; while the feasible and probable meets with stern and cruel refusal from the servile defaulter—all mercy on the one side, all implacability on the other. If, when overwhelmed with conscious guilt, you smote upon your breast and implored the divine mercy, your penitential tears moved the compassion of Heaven, how can you now harden your heart against the like plea of an offending brother? Even if he offer no plea, can you be utterly indifferent to his grief? Is this the spirit of Him who prayed for those who were nailing him to the cross? Perhaps your brother's heart is almost breaking, while he is too proud to apologize. A kind word, a look of love, might melt him into tears at your feet. Oh! give him that word, that look! It will restore to your arms a brother—to your heart a peace like that of heaven.