SERMON XVIII.

"And he ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another; even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Eph. iv. 32.

In our last, we showd that the compassion, tenderness, and love of our Father in heaven, are the origin of all the sublime affections in the human bosom, and from this acknowledged fact, have shown that he is infinitely more regardful of the welfare of his offspring than the tender mother, with whom he compares himself, is of the welfare of her sucking child. We now resume the subject.

In our text, we are called upon to forgive one another, as God has forgiven us. In examining this point, we are to be guided by what he has revealed. The question here arises, how many does God command us to forgive? He commands us to forgive all, even our enemies. This then must be forgiving them as he does. He therefore forgives all. He commands us to bless them that curse us, and to pray for them that despitefully use us, and persecute us, that we may be the children of our Father in heaven. Does God command us to do more than he is willing to do himself? No, he lives up to his own command. If God requires us to forgive, even as he does, and then commands us to love and forgive all, then he loves, and forgives all, otherwise he would violate his own command; and then there would be no resemblance between his forgiveness and ours. Even as God, for Christ's sake hath forgiven you, so ought ye also to forgive one another.

Would you forgive all, and bring them home to glory? Yes. Will God? No, says the objector, he will not forgive his enemies,

but his friends only. Then you must not forgive all. Do you ask why not? Because you are to forgive, even as God. He is the standard you are to imitate. If you forgive more than God, you are better than he. He cannot command you to do diffierent from himself. If God require you to love and forgive all, while he himself will forgive only a part, then God acts contrary to his own command. We are exhorted in the text to be kind, tender-hearted and forgiving even as he is. Do your kindness, tenderness, and forgiveness extend to all, and desire the happiness of the universe? Yes. Then also does that of God, or else you are, in every sense of the word, better than he. You differ from, instead of imitating God. If so, you are doing wrong, because you are violating the text. He commands you to be kind, tender, and forgiving only as he is;-and you contend that his kindness, tenderness and forgiveness, extend to a part only, and that all the rest he will torture world without end.

But, says the objector, God is now kind, tender, forgiving, and merciful to all; but he will not be so, when they enter eternity, for "the doors of mercy will then be shut." How do you know that?—who told you so? Will God change in some future day? If he change, he will not be the same being, he is now. I thought, he was the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, without variableness or even the shadow of turning. I thought he was the same Jehovah in all worlds. Do you intend to make him kind, tender, and forgiving here, but unkind, unforgiving, and hard-hearted to a part of his offspring hereafter? If you intend to change both the nature and character of the Almighty in the future world, then you and myself are done

arguing. That doctrine is, certainly, in a pitiful condition, which drives its advocate to the necessity of changing the Almighty wholly into another being to support it. "God so loved the world, even when dead in trespasses and sins," as to deliver up his Son to "taste death for every man." And being unchangeable, he could never hate them.

In our text, God commands us to forgive as he has forgiven. How many does God forgive? Ans. as many as he commadns you to forgive. How many is that? All, even your cnemies-to bless and curse not.

We will now introduce the question-If God has not forgiven a man to-day, will he ever forgive him? I answer no, for he is unchangeable. We are too apt to think that our Creator is altogether such an one as ourselves-That he loves, one day, and hates the next-that he is in reality angry one hour, and pleased the next or that he holds a grudge one moment and forgives the next, if we will only ask him to do so. But all such ideas are calculated for children-for babes in Christ. The Scriptures come down to the weakest capacity; but this is no reason, we should always continue children, but rise in knowledge to the strength of manhood. We ought not to be "ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." Paul said to his brethren when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you" &c. "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

The Scriptures are calculated for every capacity for a child as well as a philosopher. We must rise from one degree of glory to another. We are not to fasten our minds down

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on the inventions of men, and live and die children. No-we must "forget the things that are behind, and reach forward to those that are before." As full grown men, we are not to suppose that the prayer of any mortal can move the Almighty to pardon him. But says the objector, if we sincerely ask God to do thus and so, he will certainly grant our request. Very well, admit this for a momen God, you say, will answer every sincere prayer. Now suppose two armies are to meet in battle, one from France and the other from Holland. The hour when the engagement is to commence is precisely one month from to-morrow noon. Every individual, of the two belligerent powers, is informed of the fact. Every day, there are millions of sincere prayers offered to God to give them the day. Holland, with one voice, prays for victory and for the preservation of her subjects; and France, with united supplication, prays right the contrary. How, we ask, are all those sincere opposing petitions to be answered? Impossible. Again-One denomination prays for the prosperity of its cause, and for the destruction of error. And as each believes all others to be in error, of course, pray for their downfall. If the Lord answered their petitions, all denominations, of course, would fall! One man prays for rain, and another, that it may not rain. If God answered all these petitions, he would be as changeable, not as one man, but as the whole human family together.

As it respects God's pardoning the human race, I contend that this pardon existed from the beginning. Do not the Scriptures declare that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world? Yes, for "he calleth those things which be not as though they

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were." Well, could we be chosen in Christ without being pardoned? No, for the apostle says, "he that is in Christ is a new creature;" and, certainly, a man cannot be a new creature in Christ without being pardoned in the mind of Deity. If then in the omniscient mind of God, to whom there is no future, they were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, then in his mind, they must also have been pardoned before the world began. God never does a By pardon we are not to understand the clearing of a guilty man from deserved punishment, but an entire deliverance from a disposition to sin. The period, when we are to be released from sin, is through death, where the earthly nature, with all its wants and temptations to sin, falls, and the heavenly nature rises in incorruption and glory through a resurrection from the dead. Is not this the day of redemption when we are set free? Yes, so saith the Scripture. Well do not redemption, remission, and forgiveness mean the same thing? They do. Then our pardon, remission or redemption will be realized through death and the resurrection. We will produce the Scriptures. "In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace." Here forgiveness and redemption are used synonymous, and are declared to be through the blood of Christ-that is, through his death, as a sacrifice for sin. Sin cannot exist beyond the sacrifice designed to take it away. He is represented as taking away the sin of the world under the figure of a Lamb. Sin will come to a finish, under the first covenant, exactly where Christ said "it is finished," at which moment the vail, concealing the "holy of holies," will be rent in