230 FELLOWSHIP IN THE LIGHT
And then what heaven were better than a name, If there must haunt and cling unto us there Abiding memories of sin and shame? Dread doubt ! which finds no answer anywhere Except in Him, who with Him power did bring To make us feel our sin an alien thing.^
1 E. C. Trench, Poems, 143.
Righteous Forgiveness.
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Literature.
Barrett (G. S.), Musings for Quiet Hours, 19,
Campbell (J. M.), Responsibility for the Gift of Eternal Life, 56.
Challacombe (W. A.), The Soul's Wardrobe, 26.
Darlow (T. H.), The Upward Calling, 62.
Davies (D.), Talks xoith Men, Women and Children, vi. 324.
DuBose (W. P.), The Reason of Life, 169,
Farrar (F, W.), Truths to Live By, 47.
Figgis (J. N.), The Gospel and Human Needs, 92.
Qoulburn (E. M.), Occasional Sermons, i. 1,
Hort (F, J, A.), Cambridge Sermons, 98.
Ingram (A. F. W,), The Love of the Trinity, 162.
Jones (T.), The Divine Order, 206.
„ (W. B.), The Peace of God, 311. Joynt (R. C), Liturgy and Life, 16.
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year : Lent to Passiontide, 63, 73. Lewis (F. W.), The Work of Christ, 122. MacNeil (J.), The Spirit-Filled Life, 11. Martineau (J.), Hours of Thought, i. 102. Maurice (F. D.), Sermons in Country Churches, 206. Moinet (C), The Great Alternative, 170.
Neale (J. M.), Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, ii. 308. Newton (J.), The Problem of Personality, 253. Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, iii. 393. Selby (T. G.), The God of the Frail, 90. Skrine (J. H.), Sermons to Pastors and Masters, 1. Sowter (G. A.), Trial and Triumph, 34, Waugh (T.), Mount and Multitude, 149. Woods (H. G.), At the Temple Church, 213, 222.
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Righteous Forgiveness.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and thf truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. — i John i. 8, 9.
1. These words sum up the great characteristic aim which dis- tinguishes Christianity from every other system and institution on earth. The object of education is to get rid of ignorance. The object of medicine is to get rid of disease. The object of Socialism (at least, according to many of its advocates) is to get rid of poverty. But the object of Christianity is to get rid of sin. The Gospel lays its finger on moral evil as the real mischief and misery of the world. Compared with the supreme curse of' human selfishness, nothing else seriously matters. And accord- ingly the Gospel proposes to cure this inward malady of the soul. Herein, it stands apart from other religions. As Amiel said, " The prayer of the Buddhist is, ' Deliver us from existence ' ; the prayer of the Christian is, ' Deliver us from evil' "
I.
Contradicting God.
1. If we say that we have no sin, we not only deceive ourselves, but we make God a liar. St. John warns us against three false views which a man is tempted to take of his condition : He may deny the reality of sin, or his responsibility for sin, or the fact of sin in his own case.
For the history of Christian faith shows how Christian enthusiasts have been found to maintain, in a strange and perverse way, that Divine communion had lifted them above the common distinctions of right and wrong. And in our own day,
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when people are persuading themselves, in the name of religion, that pain and disease are illusions, we need not wonder if they persuade themselves that duty is an illusion too. The Apostle confronts such men with a strong, blunt declaration. They lie : they are false to their own knowledge of right and wrong.
And experience of our own hearts, and of our own friends, explains how religious men can yet excuse themselves for wrong- doing by saying, " We have no sin " — that is to say, we are not responsible, we cannot be blamed. But to argue thus is to de- ceive ourselves, to confuse and corrupt our own consciences, to pervert our moral sense.
Again, it is still possible for men who recognize the reality and the ruin of moral evil to deny that they themselves are personally guilty. The Apostle confutes these men by appealing to God's estimate of their condition, as shown in His redemption : to deny that we need to be redeemed is to make God a liar.
^ When asked whether he " had made his peace with God," Thoreau quietly replied that " he had never quarrelled with him." He was invited by another acquaintance to enter into a religious conversation concerning the next world. " One world at a time," was the prompt retort.^
^ Mr. D. L. Moody says that once he visited a prison in New York to hold a service with the prisoners. Afterwards he spoke to each of the prisoners privately. He said, " I never found such an innocent lot of men in my life as in that place. Each man explained that somebody else was to blame." ^
2. Already in the days of John there were Christians for whom the word " sin " was beginning to lose its meaning.