* F. Beyan, Hymns of Ter SUegen, 133.
92 A FAITHFUL SAYING
of estrangement and alienation, and making us imagine that we are outcast from His Presence. It obscures the fact of our fellow- ship with Him, and destroys the freedom of our mutual inter- course. This is part of the essential curse of sin, the inevitable outcome which God has attached to all wrong-doing. And when, by faith in Jesus, we receive pardon for our sins, we are at the same time released from part also of their penalty. When we come to ourselves, when we realize how we have offended, when we resolve to return to the Father with a confession on our lips, He is ever ready to welcome us back, and to renew in us the sense of our filial relationship to Him which has been established in Christ Jesus. And day by day, tlirough fresh acts of penitence for our shortcomings, we are continually being saved from that result of our sin which consists in a separation of ourselves from the love of our Heavenly Father.
*[[ Salvation is not forgiveness of sin : it is not the remission of a penalty: it is not a safety. No, it is the blessed and holy purpose of God's love accomplished in the poor fallen creature's restoration to the Divine image. And to this end is the news of God's love in this great work declared to men, that they hearing it may have confidence in Him who hath thus loved them, and so open their hearts to let in His Spirit.^
^ Harriet Martineau speaking of her early religious difficulties says : " To the best of my recollection, I always feared sin and remorse extremely, and punishment not at all ; but, on the contrary, desired punishment or any thing else that would give me the one good that I pined for in vain, — ease of conscience. The doctrine of forgiveness on repentance never availed me much, because forgiveness for the past was nothing without safety in the future ; and my sins were not curable, I felt, by any single remission of their consequences, — if such remission were possible. If I prayed and wept, and might hope that I was pardoned at night, it was small comfort, because I knew I should be in a state of remorse again before the next noon. I do not remember the time when the forgiveness clause in the Lord's Prayer was not a perplexity and a stumbling-block to me. I did not care about being let off from penalty. I wanted to be at ease in conscience; and that could only be by growing good, whereas I hated and despised myself every day." ^
1 Thomas Erskine of Linlatlien.
^ Harriet Martineau' s AutoMograpJiy, i. 40.
I TIMOTHY I. 15 93
IIL
St. Paul's Amen.
" Of whom I am chief."
" Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," says the Apostle, and then he adds the words — which sound strange coming from the lips of such a man — " of whom I am chief." It was his way of confirming the " faithful saying," his " Amen " to all it meant.
1. Why did St. Paul estimate himself thus ?
(1) Was it false humility ? The Emperor Augustus, alarmed at his own prosperity, and fearing that happiness so unmixed as his might create jealousy, attired himself once a year as a beggar, and sat asking alms in a crowded part of the city. It is with similar feelings of voluntary humility, and as if apologizing for their exceptional comfort, that some persons profess themselves "miserable sinners," although surrounded with everything that can make life easy and pleasant to them. There is in the human heart an obstinate superstition that God grudges us happiness, and that if we are happy we should at least wear sackcloth and ashes before Him. And, possibly, it may be fancied that St. Paul's words ought not to be pushed as if he really meant he was the worst of men, and that all he intended was a decent humility. But if we can suppose that St. Paul thought there was some virtue in calling himself the chief of sinners, while he was in fact convinced he was much better than others, we have yet to learn both the nature of humility and the character of St. Paul. Humility must be founded on truth ; an affectation of humility is silly and offensive. To call ourselves the chief of sinners with a feeling of self-complacency in our humility is a mark of a nature neither sincere nor simple. And for a man of so clear a spiritual understanding as St. Paul to make this confession untruly would have gone far to make it true.
^ A man knelt at the altar and prayed.
" 0 God," he said, " I am all evil, without and within. My soul is black with the colour of my sin, and my shoulders are
94 A FAITHFUL SAYING
bowed down with the weight of it. God of all mercies, be merciful to me, the chief of sinners."
As he went out he met a friend.
" Where have you been ? " asked the friend,
" I have been at the altar," said the man, " confessing my sins."