Thomas Manton · 27 of 60

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. · Part 2

2. If sins be debts, and an increasing debt, so that man is ever treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath; it presseth us to be more careful to get out of this condition. Saith Solomon, Prov. vi. 3-5: If thou beest in debt, ‘flee as a swift roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.’ Oh, it is a sad thing to lie in our sins! If you be under this debt, ‘give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids; get away like the swift roe from the hand of the hunter,’ &c. And what I say concerning a state of sin, I say concerning daily failings; make your peace with God betimes; if you have contracted a new debt, make all even between God and your souls, that you may not sleep in your sins.

3. This should make us more cautious that we do not commit sin: why? it is a debt that will render you obnoxious to the wrath of God; in itself it merits eternal death: oh, therefore, sin no more, do not run again into the snare! When you give way to sin, you hazard the comfort of your acquittance by Christ: Ps. lxxxv. 8, ‘The Lord will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints; but let them not turn again to folly.’ If the Lord hath given you your peace, and some hope of your being discharged of this heavy debt, take heed of meddling with forbidden fruit, and running into debt again.

II. From the subject or persons which make this prayer, ‘Forgive us,’ observe,

Doct. Even those that call God Father, ought to beg, daily and humbly, pardon of their sins.

Forgive us; who is that us that can say in faith, Our Father, daily? For this is a pattern for daily prayer, as the word σήμερον in the former petition noteth. We need beg, for Christ hath taught us here to sue out our discharge: in which begging there is an exercise of faith eyeing Christ: Rom. iii. 25, ‘God hath set forth him to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.’ And there is an exercise also of repentance, as to mourning for sin: 1 John i. 9, and Prov. xxviii. 13, ‘He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin, shall have mercy:’ and as to loathing of sin, Acts iii. 19, ‘Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins maybe blotted out.’ And certainly it must be humbly begged; for if we seek pardon we must seek it in God’s way. We do not beg God to rescind and, make void his laws, and those wise constitutions he hath appointed whereby the creature shall receive this grace; and the manner wherein he will deal and transact this business with the offending creature: but we seek it as exercising our renewed repentance; that is, mourning for sin, and loathing of sin. But of this more hereafter.

Now, that the best of God’s children should be dealing with God about a pardon of their sins, I shall argue it:—

1. From the necessity.

2. The utility and profit of such a course.

First, The necessity of this will appear two ways:—

[1.] From the condition of God’s children here in the world.

[2.] From the way wherein God will give out a pardon.

[1.] From the condition of God’s children here in this world. The best are not so fully sanctified in this life but there is some sin found in them; not only they who walk with no care, but even they that set the most narrow watch over their ways, they are not so sanctified but they need daily to go to God.

(1.) They have original sin which remaineth with them to the last, they have the sinning sin which the apostle speaks of. Paul complains of the body of death: Rom. vii. 23, 24, ‘Who shall deliver me from it?’ The Hebrews were wont to propound their wishes by way of question; as, ‘Oh that salvation were come out of Zion!’ It is in the Hebrew, ‘Who shall bring salvation out of Zion?’ So, ‘Who will lead me into Edom?’ that is, ‘Oh that I were led into Edom,’ that I might display the banner there, because of God’s truth. So, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ that is, ‘Oh that I were delivered!’ Where the reign of sin is broken, yet there it remains; though it be cast down in regard of regency, yet it is not cast out in regard of inherency. As the ivy that is gotten into the wall, cut away the boughs, branches, stubs, yet still there will be some sproutings out again until the wall be pulled down; so until these earthly tabernacles of ours be tumbled in the dust, though we are mortifying and subduing of sin, yet there will be a budding and sprouting out again.

(2.) There are many actual sins: James iii. 2, ‘In many things we offend all;’ and Eccles. vii. 20, ‘There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not:’ that is, that sins not either in omitting of good or committing of evil: our offences are either total or partial. Partial offences; though a child of God loves God, fears God, trusts in God, yet not in that purity and perfection that he hath required of him; though he serves God and obeys him, yet not with that liberty, delight, reverence, which he hath required. There is an omission in part in every act: there is not that perfection which God deserveth, who is to be served with all our might, with all our strength. Our principles are divided; there is flesh and spirit; there is a mixture in all our actions. Sometimes there is a total omission, the spiritual life is at a stand, many times all acts of respect are intermitted. Then for commissions, sometimes, out of ignorance, they do not see what is to be done. Though they have a general resolution to do the whole will of God, yet many times they mistake. Our light is but in part: And ‘who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret sins:’ Ps. xix. 12. We sin out of ignorance, as a man in the dark may jostle against his friend. Sometimes by imprudence and inconsideration, as a man that is not heedful, though he knows it, he may mistake his way. Many are overtaken in a fault: Gal. vi. 1; that is, unawares, and besides their intention. Sometimes, out of incogitancy and sudden incursion, they may not only be overtaken but overborne, ‘drawn away by their own lusts,’ James i. 14: overcome by the prevalency of passion and corrupt affection; so sin gets the upper hand. Thus it is with the children of God. Look, as it was said of the Romans, that in battle they were overcome, but never in war; though a child of God hath the best of it at last, yet in many particular conflicts he is overborne by the violence of temptation and his own corrupt lusts. Thus there is a necessity of begging daily pardon, if we consider the condition of the saints while they are here in the world, who carry a sinning nature about them, a corrupt issue that will never be dried up while they are in the world; and also they are guilty of many actual sins, both of omission and commission.

Secondly, The necessity of it will appear from the way wherein God gives a pardon, which is upon the creature’s humble submission, and seeking of terms of grace; so that whatsoever right we have to remission in Christ, though we have a general right to remission and pardon of sin, yet we must seek to apply that right, and beg the use of it for our daily pardon and acceptance with God. This will appear by considering—(1.) The nature of this request; (2.) The right that a justified person hath to the pardon of his daily sins.

1. What we beg for when we say, Forgive us our sins. Five things we ask of God:—

[1.] The grant of a pardon.

[2.] The continuance of this privilege.

[3.] The sense and comfort of it.

[4.] The increase of that sense.

[5.] The effects of pardon, or a freedom from those penal evils that are fruits of sin.

(1.) The grant of a pardon, that God would accept the satisfaction of Christ for our sins, and look upon us as righteous in him. Jesus Christ himself was to sue out the fruits of his purchase: Ps. ii. 8, ‘Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.’ Though he had a right to be received into heaven, to sit down at the right hand of God, and administer the kingdom for the comfort of his elect ones, yet ‘ask of me.’ And so we are to sue out our right: Ps. xxxii. 5, ‘I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.’ What then? ‘For this cause shall every one that is godly pray unto thee.’ Though God be so ready to forgive as soon as we conceive a purpose he gives out a pardon—yet we are to call upon God. God will have us to sue out the grant of a pardon. Why? Because he would deal with us as a sovereign, therefore doth he require the submission of our faith. It was of grace that he would appoint a satisfaction for us, which he did not for the fallen angels; and it was much more grace that he would give that satisfaction, give that price, out of his own treasury. Christ was not a mediator of our choosing, but God’s; and therefore, though justice be fully satisfied, yet the debt is humbly to be acknowledged by the creature, and we are to sue out terms of grace. And again, the application to us is merely grace, when so many thousands perish in their sins; therefore we are to beg, to sue out this grace, that we may have the benefit of Christ’s death. God doth it, that in begging we may acknowledge our own misery, and how unable we are to make satisfaction: Ps. cxliii. 2, ‘In thy sight no flesh can be justified;’ and Ps. cxxx. 3, 4, ‘If thou shouldest mark iniquities, Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.’ Before God will give us an interest in this forgiveness, we are to come and confess ourselves utterly to be insolvent, and also to own Jesus Christ as the means, that we may solemnly and explicitly own our Redeemer, who was appointed by God, and procured this benefit for us: 1 John ii. 1, ‘And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.’ God hath required we should sue it out, and own our advocate, as well as confess ourselves unable to satisfy, that we might know who is our advocate. In the type of the brazen serpent, Num. xxi. 8, ‘And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.’ Mark, though God set up a sign of salvation (as it is called elsewhere), yet when you shall look upon him you shall live. So God would have us sue out the grant by looking to Christ, that so our interest may be established: John iii. 14, 15, ‘And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.’ That whosoever ‘believeth in him,’ that was the intent of looking upon it, that we might fix our faith on Christ, and come tinder the shelter of his wing. We beg, upon a sense of our own unworthiness, the acceptance of Christ’s satisfaction for us.

(2.) We pray for the continuance of pardon; though we are already justified, yet ‘Forgive us our sins.’ As in daily bread, though we have it by us, and God hath stored us with blessings in our houses, yet we beg the continuance and use of it; so whatever right we have to pardoning mercy, yet we beg the continuance of it, for two reasons:—Partly because justification is not complete until the day of judgment, but mercy is still in fieri, that is, God is still a-doing: Acts iii. 19, ‘That your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.’ Then are our sins blotted out, then is this privilege complete. We read of forgiveness in this world, and forgiveness in the world to come, Mat. xii. 32. Forgiven in this world, when accepted to grace and favour with God; and forgiven in the world to come, when this privilege is complete, and fully made up to the elect. Some effects of sin remain till then; as death, which came into the world by sin, remains upon the body till then—then our sin is blotted out, when all the fruits of it are vanished and done away. So that whilst any penal evils that are introduced by sin remain, we ought to pray for pardon, that God would not repent of his mercy. Look, as when we are in a state of sanctification, we pray for the continuance of sanctification, as well as the increase of it, because of the relics of sin, though our perseverance in grace and sanctification be as much secured by God’s promise as our perseverance in God’s favour, and the gift of justification; so we pray for the continuance of pardon, because the evils of sin yet remain in part. And partly, because God, for our exercise, will make us feel the smart of old sins, which are already pardoned; as an old bruise, though it be healed, yet ever and anon we may feel it upon change of weather. Accusations of conscience may return for sins already pardoned; as Job xiii. 26, ‘Thou makest me possess the iniquities of my youth.’ Though a man be reconciled to God, and in favour with him, yet the sins of his youth will trouble him after he hath obtained the pardon of them. God may make these return with a horrible and frightful appearance upon the conscience; their visage may be terrible to look upon. Though these sins are blotted out, Satan may make the remembrance of them very frightful; and God, in his holy, wise dispensation, may permit it for our humiliation. Though this be no intrenching of the pardon already past, yet it may exceedingly terrify the soul, and overcloud our comfort, and therefore we must beg the continuance of this benefit. Go to God as David did: Ps. xxv. 6, 7, ‘Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving-kindness, for they have been ever of old. Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions.’ He begs God’s ancient mercies would continue with him. He acknowledged he had received mercy of old; he could run up to eternity, that had been for ever of old; yet, Lord, remember not against me the sins of my youth. When the sense of old sins are renewed, we must renew petitions for the pardon of them. It is usual with God, when we are negligent, to permit the devil to make use of affliction to revive old sins, that they may stare afresh in the view of the eye of conscience; therefore we had need to beg the continuance of this privilege, for it is not complete. Though the pardon itself be not abrogated, yet the comfort of it may be much intrenched upon, and old sins may come and terrify the soul with a very hideous aspect.

(3.) We beg here the sense and manifestation of pardon, though it be not the only thing we pray for. ‘Forgive us our sins,’ that is, let us know it. God may blot sins out of his book, when he doth not blot them out of our consciences. There is the book of conscience, and the book of God’s remembrance. The book of God’s remembrance may be cancelled (to speak after the manner of men); as soon as we believe and repent, then the handwriting which was against us is torn; but he blots it out of our consciences when the worm of conscience is killed by the application of the blood of Christ through the Spirit, when we are ‘sprinkled from an evil conscience,’ as the expression is, Heb. x. 22. And David is earnest with God for this benefit, the sense of his pardon: Ps. li. 8, 12, ‘Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice; and restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.’ Nathan had told him his sins were pardoned, yet he wanted the joy of God’s salvation, that ancient free spirit, that comforting, enlarging spirit he was wont to have. God may forgive in heaven, when he does not forgive in our sense and feeling; therefore we beg the manifestation of it by the comforts of the gospel.

(4.) We beg the increase of that sense, for this sense is given out in a different latitude. Spiritual sense is not in all alike quick and lively; many have only a probable certainty, but have many doubts—some have comfort, but never arrive to peace. Comfort, you know, is that thing which holds up itself against encounters when we are confronted; so there may be many doubts when the preponderating part of the soul inclineth to comfort. Some have peace for the present, rest from trouble of conscience; others have joy, which is a degree above peace and comfort.

(5.) We beg the effects of pardon, or freedom from those penal evils which are continued upon God’s children, and are the fruits ^of sin. Clearly this is intended, for we beg of God to pardon us as we pardon others; that is, fully, entirely to forgive, forget. We beg of God to for give us our sins; that is, to mitigate those troubles, evils, and afflictions, which are the fruits of sin. It is true, when a man is justified, the state of his person is altered; yet sin is the same in itself, it deserves all manner of evils; therefore we beg not only a release from wrath to come, but from those other temporal evils that dog us at the heels. Sin is the same still, though the person is not the same. It is still the violation of a holy law, an affront done to a holy God, an inconvenience upon the precious soul; it brings a blot upon us, an inclination to sin again; nay, it brings eternal death. Though it do not bring eternal death upon pardoned persons, yet it may occasion temporal trouble. God hath still reserved this liberty in the covenant: that he will ‘visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes; nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from, him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail,’ Ps. lxxxix. 32, 33. And Prov. xi. 31, ‘The righteous shall be recompensed in the earth;’ that is, he shall smart for his evil-doings. A child of God, when he sinneth against him, though he be not executed, yet he may be branded, he may have a mark of shame put upon him, his pilgrimage may be made uncomfortable, and these may be fully consistent with God’s grace and love. Therefore we beg a release from these penal evils, that as the guilt, so the punishment also may be abolished.

2. The right that a justified person hath to the pardon of his daily sins.

Pardon of sin is to be considered: (1.) in. the impetration of it; (2.) the offer; (3.) the judicial application, or legal absolution of the sinner.

[1.] In the impetration and purchase of it. So when, Heb. x. 14, ‘By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified,’ there needed no more to expiate them to satisfy justice.

[2.] In the offer of it. So God hath proclaimed pardon upon the condition of repentance: Ezek. xxxiii. 11, ‘Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?’

[3.] In the judicial application, or legal absolution of a sinner. God in his word hath pronounced the legal absolution of every one that believeth in Christ. As soon as we repent and believe, a threefold benefit we have:—

(1.) The state of the person is altered; he is a child of God: John i. 12, ‘To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.’ He hath full leave to call God Father, a kind of fatherly dealing from him. Translated from a state of wrath to the state of grace, from a child of the devil he is made a child of God, never to be cast out of his family.

(2.) The actual remission of all past sins: Rom. iii. 25, ‘To declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.’ It would be a license to sin if his sins were remitted before committed.

(3.) A right to the remission of daily sins, or free leave to make use of the fountain of mercy, that is always running, and is opened in the house of God for the comfort of believers: Zech. xiii. 1, ‘In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.’

Secondly, The utility and profit of such a course. See Sermon on Psalm XXXII. 1, Sermon xx.

Use. The use is to press us to be often dealing with God about the pardon of our sins, by a general and daily humiliation; none are exempted from bewailing the evil of sin. The death of Christ doth not put less evil into sin; it is still damning in its own nature; it is still the violation of a holy law, an affront to a holy God, an inconvenience to thy precious soul. When Christ paid the price for our sins, it was upon this condition: that we should renew our faith and repentance; that we should sue out our discharge in his name; that when we sin we may come and humble ourselves before the Lord. Under the law, if a man were unclean, he was to wash his clothes before evening; he was not to sleep in his uncleanness. So if you have defiled yourselves, you should go wash in the laver that God hath appointed. The Lord taught his people under the law the repeating a daily sacrifice, morning and evening. If one be fallen out with another, God hath advised us, before the sun be set, to go and be reconciled to our brother; and wilt thou lie under the wrath of God for one night? If we would oftener use this course, the work of repentance would not be so hard. Wounds are best cured at first, before they are suffered to fester and rankle into a sore; so are sins before they grow longer upon us. And if we did oftener thus reckon with ourselves, we should have less to do when we come to die. Therefore do as wise merchants; at the foot of every page draw up the account, so help it forward; so it will not be hard to sum up a long account, and reckon up our whole lives, and beg a release of all our debts; therefore daily come and humble yourselves before the Lord. The oftener you do this, the sooner you will have the comfort of pardon; but when you keep off from God, and delay, you suffer the loss of peace, and the loss of God’s favour; and hardness of heart, and atheism, and carnal security increase upon you.

As we forgive our debtors.

I come to the last branch. Hence observe:—

Doct. 3. Those that would rightly pray to be forgiven of God, they must forgive others.

First, I shall give you the explication; Secondly, The reasons.

For explication, I shall speak to three things:—

1. Who are debtors.

2. What respect our forgiving of others hath to God’s forgiving of us.

3. In what manner we must forgive others.

First, Who are our debtors. It is not meant in a vulgar sense, of those only which stand engaged for a sum of money due to us; but of all such as have offended us in word or deed. There is a duty we owe to one another, which, when we omit, or act contrary unto it, we are not only debtors to God, but to one another; and the doers of the injury are bound to repair the wrong, and to make restitution. In this large sense is the word debtors here taken, with respect to the person that hath done the injury. He becomes a debtor, is to make satisfaction, and suffer the punishment which the wrong deserves.

Secondly, What respect hath our forgiving of others to God’s for giving us?

I shall speak to it negatively and positively.

1. Negatively.

[1.] It is not a meritorious cause, or a merit and price given to God, why he should pardon us, for that is only the blood of Christ. Every act of ours is due, it is imperfect, and no way proportionate to the mercies we expect; and therefore it cannot be meritorious before God. It is due, it is a duty we are bound to do, and paying off new debts doth not quit old scores. God hath laid such a law upon us, that we are to forgive others. That cannot expiate former offences. And it is imperfect too. The remembrance of injuries sticks too close to us. When we do most heartily and entirely forgive others, even then we have too great a sense of the injury and wrong that is offered to us. Now that which needs pardon cannot deserve pardon. And it is disproportionate to the mercy which we expect. What a vast disparity and difference is there between God’s pardoning of us and our pardoning of others, whether we respect the persons that are interested in this action, or the subject-matter, or manner and way of doing, or the fruit and issue of the action.

First, In the persons pardoning. What proportion can there be between God and man, the Creator and the creature? God he is most free, and bound to none, of infinite dignity and perfection, which can neither be increased nor lessened by any act of ours, for him or against him; but we live in perfect dependence upon God’s pleasure, are subject to his command, and bound to do his will; and therefore what is our forgiving our fellow-creatures, made out of the same dust, animated by the same soul, and every way equal with us by nature, when they wrong us in our petty interests? What proportion is there between this forgiving and God’s forgiving? he that is of so infinite a majesty, his forgiving the violations of his holy law?

And secondly, To the subject-matter, that which is forgiven, there is no proportion. When we compare the multitude or magnitude, the greatness, and the number of offences forgiven of the one side and the other, we see there is a mighty disproportion. We forgive pence, and God talents; we an hundred pence, he ten thousand talents: Mat. xviii.

So, thirdly, The manner of forgiving: on God’s part, by discharging us freely, and exacting a full satisfaction from Christ; therefore our forgiving can hold no comparison with it, which is an act of duty, and conformity t6 God’s law.

And fourthly, As to the fruit and issue of the action. Our good and evil doth not reach to God. Though our forgiving of others be an action of profit to ourselves, yet no fruit redounds to God. And therefore there being no proportion between finite and infinite, there can be no such proportion between our forgiving and God’s forgiving, as that this act may be meritorious before God. Thus it is not brought here as merit, as that which doth oblige and bind God meritoriously to forgive us.

[2.] It is not a pattern or rule. We do not mean our forgiving should be a pattern of forgiving to God. So as is taken, indeed, ver. 10, ‘Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven;’ there it implies a conformity to the pattern. But when we say, ‘Forgive us, as we forgive,’ it doth not mean here a pattern or rule. We imitate God, but God doth not imitate us, in forgiving offences; and it would be ill with us if God should forgive us no better than we forgive one another. God is matchless in all his perfections; there is no work like his: Ps. lxxxvi. 8. As God is matchless in other things, so in pardoning mercy. ‘As the heavens are above the earth, so are his ways above our ways, and his thoughts above our thoughts:’ Isa. lv. 9. And upon this very occasion the Lord will multiply to pardon: ‘As far as the heavens,’ &c. This is the greatest distance we can conceive. The heavens, they are at such a vast distance from the earth, that the stars, though they be great and glorious luminaries, yet they seem to be but like so many spangles and sparks. This is the distance and disproportion which is made between God’s mercy and ours: Hosea xi. 9, ‘I will not return to destroy Ephraim; for I am God, and not man.’ If God should forgive but only as man doth, it would be ill for Ephraim if he had to do with revengeful man. God acteth according to the infiniteness of his own nature, far above the law and manner of all created beings. Therefore it is not put here as a pattern and rule.