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no fellowship with the pure and good, or any heaven in the presence of God.
III.
Commanding Forgiveness.
1. Forgiveness is a free gift. — That is, it affords the same revelation of love as we find in a child's or a friend's or a lover's pardon, and indeed in all self-sacrifice. It does not spring from any merit, anything done. Like all the beauties and graces of life, it is not based on necessity or justice but is an unbought gift of that heart of the Eternal which is " most wonderfully kind." For the world of spirits lives on the rich generosity of God. And of all its instances none is comparable to that of pardon ; none so dear and wonderful as that grace of forgiveness for which His Son once died upon the Cross, that men, the worst and the weakest, might live unto Him for ever.
^ Guizot once wrote in an album, " I have learned in my long life two rules of prudence : the first is to forgive much, and the second is never to forget." Under this Thiers wrote, " A little forgetting would not detract from the sincerity of the forgiveness." Then Bismarck added the words, "As for me, I have learned to forget much, and to ask to be forgiven much." ^
^ It is said that only once in his career did Napoleon give way to pity. It was in October 1806. Three weeks before, in the battle of Jena, he had laid Prussia submissive at his feet. He was now busy with the spoliation of Berlin. But the Prince of Hatzfeld had proved a traitor to him. He was arrested. The death warrant had been signed. For two days he had languished in prison, awaiting the execution of the decree. His wife believed him innocent. For five hours she had stood without in the street, waiting for an audience with the Emperor. At last he came. With tears and entreaties she pleaded that her husband might be spared, for " she knew that he was innocent." Napoleon gazed with those terrible grey-blue eyes upon her tear-stained face — and said nothing. The suspense was awful. At last he turned to Talleyrand and held out his hand. Talleyrand placed in his hand a letter. He handed it to the kneeling princess. " Whose writing is that, Madame ? " The princess eagerly scanned the lines, and as her eyes recognized the signature, she let the paper fall with a
' J. R. Miller, Devotional Hours with the Bible. JAS.-JUDE — 16
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pitiful cry. "Is that your husband's writing, Madame?" But sobs were the only answer. Then for once Napoleon softened into pity as he said, " Talleyrand." " Sire." " What other evidence have we of the Prince of Hatzfeld's treachery ? " " None other, sire." " Princess," said Napoleon tenderly, " put that letter in the fire yonder, and then we shall have none." The tell-tale sheet fluttered into the fire, and the last bit of evidence against the prince had perished for ever.
2. Forgiveness is founded on the nature of God : it is the outcome of His justice. " He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins."
(1) In ioYgiving us God is faithful to Himself. The supreme truth about God is that He is our Father, and if God is to be faithful He must be faithful as a Father ; and when one who is meant to be His child in likeness and in truth places himself in the position of penitent, and stands in the light of true confession, God would be untrue to His Fatherhood did He not forgive. God's forgiveness is the ever-present breath of His Fatherhood. God is a living God, Fatherhood His very inner life, and it flames all through this universe. It is no cold and merely stately thing ; it is the burning breath of His life ; and that breath comes to us first and last on this earth as the play of His Spirit in that pardon which takes us, imperfect as we are, and gives us room to live, in His presence and in His love.
(2) In forgiving our sins God is also righteous. When a man confesses his sins in the genuine sense, he has the right to be forgiven. Confession makes him another man. He is not the man he was before. Before, he was one with his sin, and his sin was the truth about him ; but now that he has used that strange power of repentance which God has made part of our being — the repentance which means changing your mind and turning right round — he has put his sin from him, and it is, in the sight of the perfect truth, his no longer. God would not be righteous did He not recognize the truth about that man. "And this is the message which we have heard from him, and announce unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." Therefore no one on earth can gauge or recognize the truth about the penitent as God does ; and, if we confess our sins, God is righteous to forgive us.
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