CHISM OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES ADDRESSED TO YOUTH.

LECTURE LXXXI.

(Concluded from page 443.) We now proceed to the fifth petition, which is "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors"-in which, according to our Catechism," we pray that God, for Christ's sake, would freely pardon all our sins; which we are the rather encouraged to ask, because, by his grace, we are enabled, from the heart, to forgive others.'

It ought to be particularly noticed that this petition is connected with that which immediately precedes it, by the copulative conjunction and thus teaching us, that we ought to pray for the forgiveness of our sins as often as we ask for our daily bread; and that without the pardon of sin there is no true enjoyment of the common bounties of God's providence.

By the word debts in this petition, we are to understand sins. This is put beyond question by the very same petition being expressed in the gospel of Luke by the words "forgive us our sins:" and sins, whether of omission or commission, are, with great proCh. Adv.-VOL. XI.

much as punishment is their due from the justice of God. The apostle declares, "that the wages of sin is death." Now we ask the forgiveness of these debts, because "neither we nor any other creature can make the least satisfaction for them," as our Lord himself shows, in the parable contained in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew, in which he teaches and illustrates at length the doctrine and duty of forgiveness. The way in which we are to ask and expect forgiveness, is pointed out in the answer before us-we are told, that in the very language of the petition, when rightly understood and properly used, 66 We pray that God, for Christ's sake, would freely pardon all our sins."

It is the prerogative of God alone to forgive sin. In every sin, although a fellow creature be the immediate object of it, God is the party whom we should consider as chiefly offended-because of his Supreme Majesty, and because every sin is a transgression of his infinitely righteous and holy law. Hence we find that when David came to confess his great sin in the matter of Uriah, he says, addressing himself to Jehovah, "against thee, thee only have I

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sinned, and done this evil in thy sight; that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest." We are therefore to apply ourselves directly to God, and to ask of him, for Christ's sake, to "acquit us both from the guilt and punishment of sin;" that is, to extend to us his pardoning grace, "through the obedience and satisfaction of Christ, apprehended and applied by faith." Christ having fully satisfied the divine law and justice in behalf of every believer, all his sins are blotted out for the merits' sake of his surety Saviour. The Saviour's righteousness, according to the express words of the holy oracle, is "unto and upon all them that believe," not only to cover and conceal all their of fences, but to ensure to them the heavenly inheritance.

In my lecture on Justification, I have shown at some length, how sin is "freely pardoned," although it is done entirely on account of the imputed righteousness of 'Christ. Here, therefore, I shall only repeat what is said by Fisher on this point, in considering the answer before us. He remarks, that "God's accepting of Christ as our surety, and his fulfilling all righteousness in our room, were both of them acts of rich, free and sovereign grace. Therefore, though the pardon of our sins be of debt to Christ, yet it is free to us:" and he very pertinently refers to Ephes. i. 7, where it is said, speaking of Christ, "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace."

The answer we consider, concludes by saying, that "we are the rather encouraged to ask" forgiveness of God, "because, by his grace, we are enabled, from the heart, to forgive others."

Larger Catechism-See the answer to the 194th question.

If we examine the discourses and sayings of our blessed Lord, as recorded in the evangelists, we shall find there is scarcely a topick on which he speaks more frequently, or more at large, than on the duty of forgiving those who have offended or injured us. Let us, therefore, examine into the nature of this duty carefully-Let us consider what it does not, and what it does require.

1. It manifestly does not require, that a man who has been offended or injured, should be insensible that such is the fact. The very duty of forgiveness necessarily implies that we know and feel that we have something to forgive. We ought indeed to be careful not to estimate an injury beyond its real magnitude, nor to dwell and muse upon it, so as to inflame our minds, or fill them with angry or revengeful emotions. This is to be carefully avoided; yet we not only may, but ought to be, sensible of an offence or injury when it has plainly and palpably been offered or inflicted.

2. We are not required to withhold from the offending party the knowledge or information that we consider him as having done us wrong. On the contrary, it is a duty expressly enjoined by our Saviour, to go to an offending brother, and tell him his fault; at first privately, and then, if we do not obtain satisfaction, to take measures to have him censured and disciplined. But all this is to be done, not vindictively, but if possible, to "gain our brother;" or, failing in this, to prevent the injury which might arise from his example.

3. Neither are we required to place confidence in one who has given us unequivocal evidence of a disposition to injure us. We ought not to put ourselves in his power, so as to enable him to repeat or add to the injury he has done us. For this we have the warrant of

But 5. Our duty positively and indispensably requires us to be ready to be reconciled to an offender. We are not to repel, but to favour and facilitate any advance or overture of the injurious party, when he seems disposed to acknowledge his fault. We are to show that we are not hard to be appeased, not difficult to be won to forgiveness. We are not to require the offender to humble himself greatly, before we meet him for reconciliation. We are not to insist on greater concessions than are equitable; but rather to accept of less than might be exacted, if rigorous justice were done-provided always, that we have evidence of real regret for his wrong doing, and a disposition to be friendly, or not hostile, in time to

come.

6. We are, from first to last, cordially to forgive the offender. We are to wish him no evil; we are to guard our hearts against all hatred, malice, and every vindictive feeling. We are to feel benevolently, to cherish unfeigned good will toward our bitterest enemy. We are to desire sincerely that he may lay aside his hostility, and become reconcilable. We are to pray earnestly that God may bring him to repentance, and for the sake of Christ, forgive him freely -forgive the injury he has done to us, and the much greater offence which he has committed against God, by his flagrant violation of the law of love, and the sacred principle of doing as he would be done by. Of all this, our adored Redeemer, you know, exhibited a most wonderful instance in his prayer for his murderers in his expiring moments: and there was a close imitation of this high example, in the first Christian mar

Yes, my young friends, I must here repeat, what was mentioned in a former lecture, that in praying God to "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," the particle as must be considered as expressing likeness and not equality. Alas! all that we do is imperfect; and if God did not remit our sins, more purely, perfectly and freely, than we remit those of our offending brethren, we should never escape condemnation. Still, this is never to be made a plea, even for the imperfection of our forgiveness. We are to mourn the imperfection, and earnestly strive to avoid it. Then we shall have the "encouragement" mentioned in the answer before us-the encouragement which is derived from evidence that we have been made partakers of the renewing and sanctifying grace of God. For it is this alone, that will ever enable any one rightly to discharge the duty which has now been explained. A duty in which we make no atonement for our sins, and can plead no merit for its performance; but which, when properly performed, gives proof that we have, by divine grace, been embued with a portion of the spirit and mind of Christ; and consequently, may cheerfully hope that we shall be made partakers of all the benefits of his great salvation.

THE CASE OF THE POET COWPER.

No occurrence in the religious world, where only an individual was concerned, has, probably, in modern times, attracted more attention, created more interest, or produced more speculation, than the case of the poet Cowper. It

has embarrassed the pious, given occasion to the infidel to reproach all religion, and furnished a topick to the enemies of evangelical truth, to declaim against it, as the source of melancholy and all its attendant miseries. The subsequent article, extracted from the Eclectic Review for August last, combats the opinion of the last class of these objectors, and is calculated to solve the difficulties of the friends of practical and ardent piety. It notices three biographies, but our extract relates almost exclusively to Cowper. The whole article is deeply interesting, but we can with difficulty spare space enough for the portion we have taken, which contains the most of what the reviewers say in explanation of Cowper's malady, and the groundless charge against the Calvinistic doctrines, which the enemies of those doctrines have made, as having led to Cowper's despair at first, and cherished it afterwards.

1. The Life of WILLIAM COWPER, Esq. Compiled from his Correspondence and other Authentic Sources of Information: contain ing Remarks on his Writings, and on the peculiarities of his in teresting Character, never before published. By Thomas Taylor. 8vo. pp. 368. Price 12s. London, 1833.

2. Essays on the Lives of CowPER, NEWTON, and HEBER; or an Examination of the Evidence of the Course of Nature being interrupted by the Divine Government. 8vo. pp. 330. London, 1830.

The last named of these volumes may be adduced in proof that the first (the latest in order of publication) was not uncalled for. Not that the malignant perversion of understanding betrayed in the attempt to refer the disease of Cowper's mind to evangelical doctrine, as the exciting cause, is to be cured by the clearest demonstration of

the utter fallacy of the notion, and its entire contrariety to the facts of the case. Enough had been written and published to undeceive any one who had through inadvertent mistake taken up this idea. Persons acquainted with the life of Cowper only through Hayley's memoirs, might, indeed, be led to suspect, that the Poet's religious notions had some share in tinging his mind with morbid melancholy. But the disclosures made in his own autobiographical memoir, and the publication of the most valuable part of his private correspondence, which Hayley had suppressed, by his kinsman, Dr. Johnson, preclude all honest mistake upon this point. The man who, after reading these, persists in ascribing Cowper's despondency and fearful sufferings in any measure to his religious opinions, discovers an infatuation scarcely less pitiable than the malady under which the Poet laboured; nay, in some respects, more so.

It is difficult to account, on any

other principle than that of the blindness of heart produced by cal religion, the loathing of all that error, for the hatred of evangelithe Scriptures term spirituality of mind, which these essays on the lives of Cowper, Newton, and Heber exhibit, combined with so much appearance of outward respect for religion itself.

fered from religious melancholy, We have seen that Cowper suf

or from that which would be so called, before he had acquired any distinct knowledge of the Christian doctrine, or manifested in his conduct any settled religious principle. In plain terms, if religion had any share in making him either melancholy or mad in the first instance, it must have been the want of it. But now his inveterate melancholy is to be ascribed to 66 exaggerated estimates of human corruption," and "exagge

rated expectations of divine grace." What was the fact? The idea with which Cowper's physical depression became at length inseparably combined, the impression in which his insanity was, as it were, concentrated, had no more connexion with his religious opinions, than had his school-boy fears, or his terror at the House of Lords. This is susceptible of the clearest demonstration. Any man without a grain of religion might have taken up the insane notion, but no religious man, not insane, could have conceived, that his Maker had commanded him to commit suicide, and then sentenced him to damnation for not obeying the command. Such was Cowper's hallucination; such the source, so far as it had any source in his opinions, of his despair. Now he did not hold a single theological tenet that was not directly at variance with this strange persuasion. And what is more, he was to a certain extent aware of this, but, like other patients, deemed himself an exception to all general rules. Sensible that the cause of his despondency must appear to his religious friends imaginary and irrational, he says, in a letter to Mr. Newton: "My friends think it necessary to the existence of Divine truth, that he who once had possession of it, should never finally lose it. I admit the solidity of this reasoning in every case but my own. And why not in my own? For causes which to them it appears madness to allege, but which rest upon my mind with a weight of immoveable conviction. If I am recoverable, why am I thus?"* In another very remarkable letter, adverting to the closely analogous case of the learned Simon Browne, who imagined that the thinking faculty within him was annihilated, Cowper uses this consistently insane language:

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"I could, were it not a subject that would make us all melancholy, point out his state of mind and my own, which would you some essential differences between prove mine to be by far the most deplorable of the two. I suppose no man would despair, if he did not apprehend something singular in the circumstances of his own story, something that discriminates it from that of every other man, and that induces despair as an inevitable consequence. You may encounter his unhappy persuasion with as many instances as you please, of persons who, like him, having renounced all hope, were yet restored; and may thence infer that he, like them, shall meet with a season of restoration; but it is in vain. Every such individual accounts himfore the blessed reverse that others have self as an exception to all rules, and thereexperienced, affords no ground of comfortable expectation to him."

Priv. Corresp. Vol. I. pp. 212, 13. The letters from which these passages are taken, were written to Mr. Newton in 1782 and 1784, when the paroxysm of his disorder had settled down into that milder insanity which is always found incurable, the madness upon one idea. In a letter to Mr. Bull, of which Hayley has printed only part, he uses language still more unequivocally betraying the hallucination under which he laboured.

"Prove to me that I have a right to pray, and I will pray without ceasing; yes, and praise too, even in the belly of this hell, compared with which Jonah's was a palace, a temple of the living God. But let me add, there is no encouragement in the Scripture so comprehensive as to include my case, nor any consolation so effectual as to reach it. I don't relate it to you, because you could not believe it. You would agree with me if you could. And yet, the sin by which I am excluded from the privileges I once enjoyed, you You would even would account no sin.

tell me it was a duty. This is strange,

you will think me mad. But I am not mad most noble Festus. I am only in despair."

Once more, in a letter to Mr. Newton, dated Jan. 1787, just before a fresh paroxysm of nervous fever, which compelled him to suspend all his poetical labours during ten months, he uses language which

* See the entire letter in Ecl. Rev. 2d Series, Vol. VI. p. 337, where it was first