terms of reconciliation so much the harder. So long as we are not able to pacify the party, I know not whether we ought to offer our gifts unto God P.' This is straining the point too far, if it means anything more than the using all safe, prudent, and reasonable endeavours to remove causeless offences, where a person is ignorant or froward. St. Austin, who had a cooler head than Jerome, and was a more exact casuist, has given the justest and clearest account of this text that I have met with; perhaps with a design to take off such scruples as Jerome's account might have raised. As to the gift mentioned, he interprets it of prophecy, that is, doctrine, and prayers, and hymns, and the like spiritual services 9. And as to the precept, he explains it thus: if we call to mind that our brother has ought against us; that is, if we have any way injured him; for then it is that he has something against us. But, if he has injured us, then we have something against him in which case, there is no occasion to go to him for reconcilement. You would not ask pardon of the man that has done you an injury; it is sufficient that you forgive him, as you desire forgiveness at God's hands for what you have offended in. We are to go therefore to be reconciled, when it comes into our mind, that haply we may have some way injured our brother .' The sum then of all is, that if we are certain PNon dixit, Si tu habes aliquid adversus fratrem tuum, sed, Si frater tuus habet aliquid adversum te; ut durior reconciliationis tibi imponatur necessitas. Quamdiu illum placare non possumus, nescio an consequenter munera nostra offeramus Deo.' Hieron. in loc. tom. iv. p. 16. edit. Bened. 'Quodlibet enim munus offerimus Deo, sive prophetiam, sive doctrinam, sive orationem, sive hymnum, sive psalmum, et si quid tale aliud spiritualium donorum animo occurrit,' &c. Augustin. de Serm. Domini in Mont. p. 167.edit. Bened. tom. iii. rSi in mentem venerit, quod aliquid habeat adversum nos frater; id est, si nos eum in aliquo laesimus: tunc enim ipse habet adversum nos. Nam nos adversus illum habemus, si ille nos laesit: ubi non opus est pergere ad reconciliationem; non enim veniam postulabis ab eo qui tibi fecit injuriam, sed tantum dimittes, sicut tibi dimitti a Domino cupis, quod ipse commiseris. Pergendum est ergo ad reconciliationem, cum in mentem venerit, quod nos forte fratrem in aliquo laesimus.' Augustin. ibid. that we have done any man an injury in his person, estate, or good name, or that we have given just cause of offence, it is our duty and business to make reparation, and to sue first for reconcilement or if we are not certain, but probably suspect that we have been guilty that way, the same rule will still hold in proportion. But if we have good reason to judge that the person has really injured us, or has causelessly and captiously taken offence where none was given, then be it to himself: there is nothing in this text obliging an innocent person, in such a case, to make the first step towards reconcilement, or to suspend his offerings on any such scruple. There may, in some particular circumstances, be a kind of debt of charity, and Christian condescension, lying upon the injured party, to endeavour to reclaim and pacify the offender by soft and healing ways: but as that is a very nice affair, and the office such as many are not fit for, there lies no strict obligation in such a case, or at least not upon Christians at large, but upon those only who are peculiarly fitted for it. Therefore it falls not properly under the question now in hand, nor within the precept of the text, which is general, extending equally to all Christians. From the summary view here given of what the ancients thought of those words of our Lord, (besides the clearing an important case of conscience, which I chiefly aimed at,) it may be noted by the way, that the gift there mentioned was understood of spiritual sacrifice only, and the altar also of course must have been spiritual, while considered as an altar which I take notice of as a confirmation of what hath been advanced in a preceding chapter. But I proceed. 2. As making restitution for any offences we have committed, is one necessary article of sacramental preparation, so is a readiness to forgive any offences committed against us another as necessary an article, and much insisted upon by the ancient churches. This is a rule laid down by our See Bingham, xv. 8. 13. blessed Lord in his Gospel, and made an express condition of our own forgiveness, and left us, for the greater caution, as an article of the Lord's Prayer to be daily repeated. All the difficulty lies in clearing and ascertaining the true and full meaning of the forgiveness required. Our Lord in one place says, 'If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him, and if he repent, forgive him;' and so again and again, as often as he repents, forgivet. May we then revenge ourselves upon an enemy, if he does not repent? No, by no means: vengeance is God's sole right u: man has nothing to do with it. Even magistrates, who, in some sense, are revengers, or avengers, to execute wrath, yet, strictly speaking, are not appointed to dispense vengeance. They do not, they cannot award punishments in just proportion to demerits, as God can do: but they are appointed to act for the safety of the State; and what they do is a kind of selfdefence, in a public capacity, rather than a dispensing of vengeance. So that even they, properly speaking, are not commissioned to revenge: much less can any private persons justly claim any right to it. Forgiveness, if understood in opposition to revenge, is an unlimited duty, knows no bounds or measures, is not restrained to any kind or number of offences, nor to any condition of repenting but all offences must be forgiven, in that sense, though not repented of, though ever so cruelly or so maliciously carried on and persisted in. Therefore the forgiveness which our Lord speaks of, as limited to the repentance of the party offending, can mean only the receiving a person into such a degree of friendship or intimacy, as he before had: a thing not safe, nor reasonable, unless he shews some tokens of sorrow for his fault, and some signs of a sincere intention to do so no more. Forgive him in such a sense, as to meditate no revenge, to wish him well, and to pray for him, and even to do him good in a way prudent and proper: but admit him not into confidence, nor trust yourself with him, till he repents for that would be acting too far against the great law of self-preservation. Only take care, on the other hand, not to be over distrustful, nor to stand upon the utmost proofs of his relenting sincerity, but rather risk some relapses. This, I think, in the general, is a just account of Gospel-forgiveness y. But to prevent all needless scruples, I may explain it a little further, in some distinct articles: 1. Gospel-forgiveness interferes not with proper discipline, nor the bringing offenders in a legal way to public justice. An informer may prosecute, a witness accuse, a jury bring in guilty, a judge condemn, and an executioner despatch a criminal, without any proper malevolence towards the party, but in great benevolence towards mankind. 2. Gospel-forgiveness interferes not with a person's prosecuting his own just rights, in a legal way, against one that has grievously injured him in his estate, person, or good name: for a man's barely doing himself justice, or recovering a right, is not taking revenge. A person wrongs me, perhaps, of a considerable sum: I forgive him the wrong, so as to bear him no malice; but I forgive him not the debt, because I am no way obliged to resign my own property or maintenance to an injurious invader. 3. Gospel-forgiveness interferes not with a just aversion to, or abhorrence of, some very ill men; liars, suppose, adulterers, fornicators, extortioners, impostors, blasphemers, or the like: for such hatred of aversion is a very different thing from hatred of malevolence, may be without it, and ought to be so. We cannot love monsters of iniquity with any love of complacency, neither does God delight in them as such but still we may love them with a love of benevolence and compassion, as God also does 2. 4. Neither y Compare Abp. Tillotson, Serm. xxxiii. p. 392. vol. i. fol. edit. Towerson on the Sacra ments, p. 298. See Towerson on the Sacraments, pp. 298, 299. does Gospel-forgiveness interfere with any proper degrees of love or esteem. A man may love his enemies in a just degree, and yet love his friends better, and one friend more than another, in proportion to their worth, or nearness, or other circumstances. Our Lord loved all his disciples, even Judas not excepted: but he loved one more particularly, who was therefore called 'the disciple whom Jesus loved a;' and he loved the rest with distinction, and in proportionate degrees. 5. I have before hinted, that Gospel-forgiveness interferes not with rejecting enemies from our confidence, or refusing to admit them into our bosoms. We may wish them well, pray for them, and do them good; but still at a proper distance, such as a just regard for our own safety, or reasons of peace, piety, and charity may require. 6. I may add, that cases perhaps may be supposed, where even the duty of praying for them may be conceived to cease. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it b. But in this case, they are not to be considered merely as private enemies, but as public nuisances, and as offending of malicious wickedness, not against man only, but against God and religion. Indeed, charity forbids us to pass such a censure, except it be upon very sure grounds; which perhaps we can but seldom, if ever, have: but I was willing to mention this case, for the better clearing up St. Paul's conduct in this very article. It may deserve our notice, that he prayed for those who had meanly, and through human infirmity, deserted him in the day of trial, that the sin might not be laid to their charge :' in the same breath almost, speaking of Alexander, a wicked apostate, who had most maliciously opposed him and the Gospel, he says; 'The Lord reward him according to his works d.' He would not honour him so far, as to pray for his conversion or forgiveness: or he knew his case to be too desperate to admit of either. Nevertheless, he left the vengeance entirely to God, • John xiii. 23; xix. 26; xx. 2; xvi. 7, 20. с 2 Tim. iv. 16. d bI John v. 16. 2 Tim. iv. 14. |