^ The most intricate moral processes take but a moment to result. The volcano that the chemistry of years has been pre- paring breaks into eruption in an hour. The blossom that the patient plant has been designing for a century bursts into flower in a single night. And so the reconciliation of a soul to God, which it has been the labour of the ages to make possible, and which dates for its conception back to the dateless time when the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world, comes to its completion in a period too short to measure, in the sudden meeting of a soul filled with penitence and a God filled with mercy.
Whenever humbly I begin
To search my heart and own to Thee
My great perversity and sin, Thou hinderest me.
2 SAMUEL XII. 13, 14 339
How can I tell what evil drifts
Beneath the bench, behind the door,
When, everywhere I turn, Thy gifts Fill all the floor?
Miserere is not said
Ere Benedictus is begun; 0 visit not upon my head
What Thou hast donel^
(2) Not only was the answer immediate, it was complete. — The original language of the text might be rendered, " The Lord hath caused thy sin to pass away." The thought being sub- stantially that of some impediment or veil between man and Him, which with a touch of His hand, He dissolves, as it were, into vapour, and so leaves all the sky clear for His warmth and sunshine to pour down upon the heart. Howsoever we have piled up mountain upon mountain. Alp upon Alp, of our evils and transgressions, all pass away and become non-existent. Another word of the Old Testament expresses the same idea when it speaks about sin being "covered." Still another word expresses the same idea when it speaks about God as " casting " men's sins "into the depths of the sea" — all meaning this one thing, that they no longer stand as barriers between the free flow of His love and our poor hearts. He takes away the sense of guilt, touches the wounded conscience, and there is healing in His hand.
^ There is a law in our nature which makes it necessarily certain that if you touch a particular muscle the arm will quiver ; if you appeal to a particular feeling the anger will rise and flush the face. Now, just so is it a law of God's nature — invariable with a godlike uniformity, more certain than the succession of the seasons or the comings and the goings of the stars — that if a human being touches Him with a true confession He must answer with an unreserved forgiveness.
Back turned I from that wave most blest, Fresh, as fresh plant with fresh leaves dressed, Prepared, all clean from cares, To mount unto the stars.^
' Anna Bunston.
2 Dante, Purg., xxxiii. 142, tr. by Dr. Shadwell.
340 REPENTANCE AND RETRIBUTION
III.
Penalty.
"Howbeit, the child shall surely die."
1. So forgiveness does not mean impunity. A man may be pardoned, and nevertheless he may be punished. His sin may be put away from him, and yet its painful issues and results may flow in upon him as if his sin were unpardoned. God forgave David; yet God bereaved David. God announced his forgiveness, and yet in the same breath foretold his punishment : " Thy sin is put away ; nevertheless, the child that is bom unto thee shall surely die," And this is no exceptional, no extraordinary, case. It is simply a notable illustration of a general law. In all ages the sins of penitent men are forgiven them ; and in all ages penitent men have to endure the punitive results of the very sins that have been forgiven. Whatsoever they sow, that they reap, however bitterly they may repent having mingled tares with the wheat.
^ Abraham sinned, in his eagerness to secure " the child of the promise," by taking Hagar to wife. His sin was forgiven him ; but none the less he was troubled with strife and discord in his tent : i.e. the natural result of his deed came upon him. In his eagerness to secure the promised birthright, Jacob deceived his father, defrauded his brother. God forgave him his sin, nay, met him at Bethel to assure him of forgiveness, to ratify the promise, to foretell the wide inheritance of good on which he should enter. Yet he had to eat the bitter fruit of his sin through long years of labour and sorrow and fear. God chastened him again and again till, at Peniel, the subtle spirit of deceit was cast out of him. Yet, even after that — after the sin was pardoned, after the pardon was published, after the evil heart was replaced by a clean heart and a right spirit — even then, and to the very last, Jacob was deceived by his children, defrauded by his kinsmen and neigh- bours, was, in short, paid back in his own coin. St. Peter sinned, in that he denied his Master with oaths and curses. His sin was forgiven. It was the tender forgiving look of Christ that broke his heart when he went out and wept bitterly. Yet St. Peter had to go softly many days ; to brook the pain of the thrice-repeated reproach, " Lovest thou me ? " to find his sin recoiling upon him