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I JOHN I. 8, 9 237
recognize that this sin is a thing in which the guilty person is righteously held guilty.
^ I wish to call to remembrance my past vileness, and the corruptions of my soul ; not because I love them, but that I may love Thee, 0 my God ! I do this for the love of Thy love, calling to mind my most evil ways, that when I feel the bitterness of my own sin, then I may also feel how sweet Thou art.^
(2) What St. John insists on is that we be candid : that we be willing to be reproved and convicted, to have the cancer of evil excised by that Word of God, which is sharper than any two-edged sword. If we will not submit to this, is it not evident that the cancer will spread ? If, however, there is candour, there will be confession to God. There will be confession also to man. St. John would not be unmindful of his Master's teaching on confession, and his words here, " If we confess," are wide enough to include confession to man as well as to God. Let there, then, be confession to the fellow-man we have wronged, if our sin has specially wronged any. No other confession to man is enjoined in Scripture. But this is enjoined, and is too seldom practised. When we have sinned against our fellow-man, let us measure the reality of our confession to God by our confession to man. If pride keeps us from this latter, of what worth is the former ? " If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." Such confession to man has its place as a means of deliverance from sin.
^ Suppose any one ill in body, in pain and distress, lying awake at night, refusing his nourishment or finding that it does him no good, his spirits low, his heart full of anguish, feeling as if all his good days were gone, and not knowing what to do, what medicine to take, how to live in order to obtain health and strength again. What are men used to do when such trouble as this comes upon them ? Finding they cannot cure themselves, they go to some one whom they think more likely to cure them. They go to the physician : and having come to him, do they leave him to find out what is the matter by merely looking at them, or do they tell him their case themselves, and answer all his questions ? Of course they tell him : it is their only chance to be cured ; for how else is he to know what is the matter with them ? And if he does not know, how can he prescribe for them ? As, then, the way of bodily cure is to tell one's case fully to the physician, so the way
* Augustine, Confessions,
238 RIGHTEOUS FORGIVENESS
of spiritual cure is to confess our sins to the physician of our souls : that is, to Almighty God, for He alone can heal the soul.^
2. Confession implies the reconstruction of the principles of our life. A good deal of so-called repentance is only sorrow at being punished. That is not repentance at all. And in such a state of mind no man can partake of Christ's atonement. "We cannot share in our Lord's atonement until we copy His penitential character. Christ felt sin for all humanity. Christ confessed sin for all humanity. We, like Him, have to realize that the worst thing in sin is not its punishment, physical, mental, moral, but the alienation from God which it brings. It was that which broke the heart of the Sinless upon the cross. Christ has made atonement by His sinless life of obedience, leading, just because it was sinless, to the cross. But that atonement is of no use to us, we cannot subjectively participate in it, till we repent of sin and hate it, as the accursed thing which nailed the Sinless to the Holy Eood.
^ Among the hard-working Labrador fishermen was a rich man who had oppressed them, but whom they believed to be strong enough to defy them. Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, the medical missionary, who is also a magistrate, went to the offender and told him that he must confess his sin and pay back to the fisher- men a thousand dollars. He cursed the missionary. At the next church service the doctor announced that a sinful man would confess his sin that night. They couldn't believe that the rich sinner would yield. At the evening service, Dr. Grenfell asked them to keep their seats while he went after the sinner. He found the man at a brother's house on his knees in prayer, with all the family.
" Prayer," said Grenfell, •' is a good thing in its place, but it doesn't ' go ' here. Come with me."
He meekly went, and was led up the aisle, where all could see him, and, after the doctor had described the great sin of which he was guilty, he asked, " Did you do this thing ? " "I did." " You are an evil man of whom the people should beware?" "I am." " You deserve the punishment of man and God." " I do."