The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

Matthew xvii. 21 — 25,

THE boy who, catching a poor fluttering insect, impales it, and then with curious and eager eyes watches it spin round and round, may not be of a cruel disposition. It is right by instruction, or by the rod even, to teach children kindness to the meanest thing that lives, still this barbarous and apparently cruel act may be entirely due to ignorance. The child does not know the pain it inflicts; and may just illustrate in the nursery what is so often illustrated by older people in the world, how, in miseries unrelieved, feelings wounded, and the poor neglected, more ill is done for want of thought than for want of heart. The nursery however presents a scene where, as through a rent in that veil of innocence which throws its sweetest charms over infancy, we see the bad passions of our nature. Proud and pleased as it takes its first steps across the floor to the mother, kneeling with radiant smiles and open arms to receive it, the infant totters, and falls with a lurch against chair or table. In such a case it is easier to stanch its wound than calm its anger. And yet,

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though the remedy is worse than the disease, that may be done. Revenge, says one, is sweet. There is nothing smells so sweet, said Louis XII., as the dead body of an enemy; and blowing up a spark she should have quenched, the foolish nurse or mother pretends, by beating chair or table, to avenge the wrong. The device succeeds — though it be, after a fashion, casting out devils by Beelzebub the prince of devils, and by another voice than his who spake peace to the storm of Galilee, calming the passions of that little bosom. Alas, her success in soothing anger by gratifying the passion for revenge, proves not so much the nurse’s skill, as that forgiveness is not a virtue that belongs to our fallen nature.

To say that we forgive, is easy. But when engaged as a peacemaker, how have I seen the manner give the lie to the speech, and in the clouded brow, and sullen look, and reluctant advance, and cold hand of this scene, the strongest contrast to that where his father, seeing the prodigal afar off, runs to meet him, and rushes into his arms to kiss him? It is the forgiveness of the heart which God links to the forgiveness of the heavens — that which recalls Calvary, with Jesus bending eyes of pity on his murderers, — not the death-bed of an old highland chief in the days when clans met clans in deadly feud. It is told that the minister urged him to make his peace with men as well as with God, declaring that he could not expect to be forgiven unless he forgave. ‘The word at length passed his reluctant lips; but, as if that dying chamber had been a stage, and the dying man an.actor, who, having

THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. Day

played his part, doffs his theatrical attire to resume his real character, so soon as it was spoken, he turned on his son to say, that he left him a father’s curse if he forgave them!

Foreign to nature, forgiveness is difficult even to grace, — so difficult, that he who suffers a wrong and feels no impulse to retaliate, recalls one without aught of malice, endures cruel wounds which heal without festering into corrupt, acrid humors, has, if such grace there be on earth, reached its highest pinnacle; and presents the finest image of Him, who, when reviled, reviled not again, and when his mangled form lay stretched on the cross, raised his meek eyes to pray, ‘‘ Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!’ This grace, be it observed, is not incompatible with a deep sense of our wrongs. The apathy which feels a blow no more than a stone does, an insult no more than the cold corpse which, spit upon, lifts no hand to wipe off the stain, a wound no more than the air which the arrow cleaves, or the water which kisses the prow and closes its arms around the keel that tears its bosom, does not constitute a forgiving temper. They forgive most who feel the deepest indignation at ingratitude, and on whom injuries inflict the keenest pain. On them as, in forgiving wrong, and returning good for evil, achieving the greatest victory over self, the wise man pronounces his high eulogium, ‘‘ He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.”

So foreign is this grace to humanity, that we are unable not only to practise but even fully to understand it — as is shown by the question which formed the occasion of this parable. Although the law of vengeance, as expressed by the proverb, ‘‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ was the rule in Heathendom, God’s ancient people had some notion of the duty of forgiveness. The dyer’s hands are stained by the colors of his trade, and the very clothes of one who works among spices steal some of their fragrant perfume: so their familiarity with those Scriptures where God’s forgiveness is so eagerly sought and highly extolled, inspired the Jews, to some extent, with a forgiving spirit. They held forgiveness to be a duty, binding up to the third offence; but beyond that limit, let the wrongdoer beware; outside that charmed circle, man had a right to say, with God, Vengeance is mine, Iwillrepay. Now, Simon Peter had not lived these months or years with Jesus without catching something of his Master’s gentle, placable, forgiving spirit. The leaven had begun to work; and his heart, swelling with something of Jesus’s love, found the narrow limits of Jewish forgiveness too contracted for it. Though imperfect as the vision of him who, with sight but partially restored, saw men as/trees walking, he had caught a glimpse of the truth: and came to Jesus, saying, ‘‘ Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Seven times?” Hail to the dawn! ‘The night is past, and the sky shows the first bright streaks of morning. “Seven times?’ Simon has stept out in advance of the men of his age and nation; and our Lord seizes the opportunity to lead him onward and upward to higher ground — to make him better acquainted with Christian mercy, fairest of

% all the graces. ‘Not,’ is his reply, ‘“‘seven times, but seventy times seven’’ — seventy multiplied by seven. A big number: and yet we would fall far short of the lofty mark if we suppose, that forgiveness is to be confined to the limit of four hundred and ninety insults, wrongs, or robberies. Here, as elsewhere, a definite is employed to express an indefinite number: so that by this expression Jesus taught Peter, and teaches us, that mercy, like the regions of space, has no limit; and that as these stretch away before the traveler who looks out from the farthest star, so the loftiest intellect and largest heart can descry no bounds to mercy. Like our Father in heaven, we are to forgive without stint — forgiving as we expect to be forgiven. And for the purpose of illustrating and of enforcing this truth, our Lord tells the parable of the Unmerciful Servant.

THE MASTER’S TREATMENT OF HIS SERVANT.

He was reckoned with. — As the story runs, the King enters on an inquiry into the way his servants have discharged’ their trust — an incident, since the King here represents God, which reminds us that He with whom we have to do, will ere long reckon with every man — saying, ‘‘ Give an account of thy stewardship: thou shalt be no longer steward.” God will reckon with us: first, when Death, grim officer of justice, comes to seize man by the throat, and, as he drags him away into the presence of the Judge, seems to say, Pay that thou gwest ; — and, secondly, when the Archangel, sounding his loud trumpet at the gates of

Death, shall call us from our graves to see the throne set, the books opened, the world wrapped in flames, and God descending in majesty to judgment. But it is neither the hour of death nor the day of judgment which is meant here. Alas! for us, if we are noté reckoned with till then. It is too late then — too late to ask for patience; too late to hope for pardon; too late for repentance and return. ‘The door is shut.

‘In the cold grave to which we haste
There are no acts of pardon past,
But fixed the doom of all remains,
And everlasting silence reigns.”

It is to the reckoning which God holds with men in time, through His Word, and by the agencies of His Spirit and their consciences, that this parable refers. The King reckons with us, “his servants,” when he brings us to a sense of our guilt; sets our sins in dread array before us; impresses us with feelings of contrition, and alarms us with fears of judgment; and by rebukes, corrections, and convictions, pleads with us to flee to Jesus. The bar here is one at which, some time or other, we all have stood; and where, without regard to rank or office, kings and priests, and purest women, as well as the lowest criminals, have been tried. This court holds its sittings within our bosoms — the presiding judge, God’s vicegerent, is conscience — the law is the statutes of Heaven — and each man, turning king’s evidence, bears witness against himself. And though in 2 sense man himself here constitutes the whole court, — being at once prosecutor, witness, judge, and jury, and the trial is conducted under circumstances not favorable to an impartial decision, — yet in every case the verdict is, and must be, guilty. We cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that we have all sinned times and ways without number. Whose conscience does not condemn him as a debtor to the law of God? Who boasts, my hands are clean, my heart is pure? ‘The one redeeming feature in that Sanhedrim of sanctimonious hypocrites where Jesus stands facing the guilty woman, is that, when he says ‘‘ Let him who is without sin cast the first stone at her,” a sense of guilt paralyses every arm — they retreat, and she goes scatheless. ‘To say that we have not sinned, is, in fact, to sin in saying it; for we make God a liar, and our mouth proves us perverse. We have all sinned, and come short of the glory of God.

He owed an immense debt. — This is expressed by the very number here — ten thousand, or a myriad, being the highest in the Greek notation. Nor does the debt look less when narrowly examined — being such indeed as could have only been contracted by one who, representing his sovereign in some wealthy province of an Hastern empire, had squandered in boundless extravagance revenues that should have swelled the public treasury. In Roman talents this debt amounts to five millions of our money; and if we reckon by th Jewish talent, and calculate the amount in gold, and not in silver, it rises to a sum equal almost to the whole revenue of the British empire — the servant stands indebted to his master more than seventy millions sterling.

A most enormous sum! but on that account the better fitted to set before a money seeking, making, loving world, in a way suited to its understanding, our enormous guilt in the sight of God. Such is the sum of our transgressions; and representing our debt to the divine law, these figures leave us no hope of being able to pay it — laying on each man a load of guilt enough to sink not one, but ten thousand souls into perdition. That we are guilty, and as debtors to a broken law, are sinners to the extent represented here, is a conclusion so humbling to our pride and alarming to our fears, that we may be unwilling to admit it, Yet better people than we, God’s noblest saints, have spoken of the number and guilt of their sins in terms as strong. The man of whom, not partial friends, but God himself said, ‘“‘ there is none like him on the earth, a perfect and an upright man,” on seeing his own image in the mirror which God held before his face, started back with horror; and seeming viler in his own eyes than he appeared to his friends when they found him covered with ashes, and his body one loathsome sore, Job exclaimed, ‘“‘I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.’’ ‘To the same effect is Kzra’s confession when, rending his mantle, that man of the highest piety and patriotism threw himself on the ground to ery, ‘“O my God, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God, for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is gone up unto the heavens;’’ and David’s harp sounds forth the same mournful notes, when touching its strings with trembling hand, “the man after God’s own heart, lifts his weeping eyes to Heaven, saying, ‘QO Lord, for thine own name’s sake, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great!”

He was bound to pay: — Therefore, seeing “he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold and his wife and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.’ This first, as selling a man for debt, and secondly, as involving an innocent family in ruin, looks a hard sentence. It is not necessarily approved of here, and I am not called to justify it; yet, I may remark by way of explanation, that in some countries creditors were allowed to recover their claims by the sale of their debtors. Nor need we hold.up our hands in horror at this, seeing, not only that it appears right to compel a man who has obtained another’s property by fraud or wasted it by extravagance, to work till he has liquidated the debt, but that once on a time, and not so long ago, in this our own country, debtors were occasionally doomed to a fate more severe. The law allowed their creditors to throw them into jail — not fraudulent debtors only, but those also who under the loss of their fortunes had preserved their integrity — and there, amid the scum and offscourings of society, through malice of enemies or lack of friends, whilst wife and children were left to starve, the unhappy debtor was left to rot. No jail-delivery for him, till a messenger from a higher court — Death — came to set the captive free.

Before considering the bearing of this part of the parable, it may be well to advert to the fact, that this law appears, though under certain important modifications, in the Mosaic code; and that, with such perversion of Holy Scripture as the Devil employed in the Temptation of the Wilderness, men — and, sad to say, even ministers of the Gospel — have used it to defend slavery, and gloss over its abominable crimes. Nature occasionally produces strange monsters — creatures that only excite emotions of terror or disgust, and which, by a merciful law of Providence, rarely prolong their life, and never propagate their species. But in the spectacle of free men, and especially of Christian ministers, standing forth before an astonished world to justify slavery as a divine institution — in a people called Christian, holding that God made one race of human beings to be, like dogs and horses, the servants of another, and, while proposing to erect an empire on the foundations of slavery, with unblushing effrontery and unparalleled blasphemy applying to a system which the Christian world rejects, the sacred words spoken of our dying Lord, ‘the stone which the builders refused is become the headstone of the corner’’ — in this what age has produced anything so monstrous as our own? Nothing so cruel to man or insulting to his Maker is found in all history; and, done by men with Bibles in-their hands, but without a blush on their cheeks, this offers a most remarkable and. terrible illustration of the Saviour’s words, If the lrght that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness? The whole tone of God’s blessed word, its spirit of grace and love, its golden rule, “‘ As ye would that others should do unto you, do ye also to them likewise,” are as irreconcilable with slavery as with robbery, or adultery, or murder, or any one of all the crimes of which this system has ever proved the cruel patron and the prolific parent. None — not Satan himself — has more wickedly perverted the word of God than those who attempt to make Jewish servitude an excuse and a defence for modern slavery. So far, for example, as the case in hand is concerned, the debtor who was sold to meet the demands of his creditor had a right, by the laws of Moses, to kind and brotherly treatment during the whole period of servitude; and whether the debt was paid out or not, freedom came with the seventh year. In the larger number of cases the bondage was thus no longer than an apprenticeship; and in those few cases where it lasted till the return of the year of jubilee, at the first blast of the trumpet the bondsman went free — ‘‘ Then,” said God, ‘shall he depart from thee, he and his children with him, and shall return unto the family and possession of his fathers.’’ To pretend that such laws lend any countenance to American slavery, is to insult man’s understanding and profane God’s word.

Proceeding now to apply the parable, let it be observed that the servant takes no objection to the sentence. He does not challenge its justice: he only proposes to suspend its execution. Drowning men catch at straws. So did he, when, distracted with sudden terror, he cast himself at his master’s feet to say — as - if ten thousand talents, the revenue of a kingdom, had been but ten thousand pence — Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all! Did he know what he was saying? One can hardly believe it. And yet

PA Gy in undertaking such an impossible task, he was the veritable type of many a sinner. Promising to God never more to commit the sin of which their conscience. accuses them, henceforth to keep their hands clean and their hearts pure, they, as it were, undertake, without having one penny, to pay ten thousand talents. So they also do who propose to reconcile themselves to God, and wipe out the guilt of their past sins, by living henceforth lives of blameless obedience. Have patience with me, they say, and then I will pay thee all. Now, suppose that they who have always fallen will fall no more, and that henceforth they will succeed in conquering the temptations which have always conquered them, what then? Keeping out of debt does not liquidate obligations already contracted. What merchant to whom I stand indebted would grant me a discharge on my undertaking hereafter to buy with ready money -I’o vary the illustration, fancy a man found guilty of murder, on being asked to say why sentence of death should not be passed on him, standing up, and, as a good reason why he should not be hanged, gravely promising to commit no more murders, never more to shed human blood. Some might laugh; none would listen to so absurd a plea. Such, however, is the way in which some sinners propose to pay old debts; it never satisfied man, and cannot satisfy God.

Still, incalculably great though the debt be, there is a way of paying all. It is not by works of righteousness that we have done. He who consents to be a debtor to the grace, will cease to be a debtor to the law of God. Going to prison for us, to bondage for us, to death for us, Jesus, by rendering in his life a perfect obedience to the law, and in his sufferings a perfect satisfaction to the justice of his Father, has paid all. The benefits of his suretyship are ours if we - believe. Trembling at the bar, overwhelmed by proofs” of guilt, condemned, crushed, — guilty one, lift your head, look up, behold

“Where high the heavenly temple stands,
The house of God not made with hands.
A great High Priest our nature wears;
The Guardian of mankind appears;

He who for men their surety stood,

And poured on earth his precious blood,
Pursues in heaven his mighty plan,
The Saviour and the Friend of man.”

He was forgiven. — In those old historic straits which join the Mediterranean to the broad Atlantic, there is an upper current from the ocean flowing into the sea, and an under and salter current from the sea which flows out to the ocean; and in like manner the human bosom may, at one and the same time, be moved by the counter-currents of opposing passions — mercy and vengeance; anger and pity; what prompts to punish, and what to pardon. And as in yonder straits allp merely floating things, from ships of war to seaweeds, are borne onward of the upper stream, so the fate of one whose crimes excite our anger, but whose misery moves our pity, depends on which of these two passions gets the upper hand — obtains the mastery over us.

Such a case was his whose story forms the groundwork of this parable. His unfaithfulness, and the enormous loss it entailed on a kind and confiding master, called for punishment, and left him no claim to forgiveness. On the other hand, there he was, a miserable wretch — by one sudden turn of Fortune’s wheel thrown from its top into the dust, where, as with every bone broken, he lies writhing, crushed by the tremendous fall; none so poor now to do him reverence; by one step he has descended from a proud position to stand, with a wife and children whom his crimes have hurried into ruin, in the auction mart — nothing before him and them but the miseries of life-long slavery. His heart is wrung with grief; he stands appalled at the prospect; from his fate, pale with terror, and a picture of despair, he shrinks back to throw himself at his master’s feet, and implore his pity. ‘‘ Have patience with me,” he cries, “cand I will pay thee all.’ Looking down on this form of abject misery, his master is moved with compassion — ‘“‘ Mercy rejoiceth against judgment.’’ He who asked but patience receives pardon. He who sought but time to toil and save to pay his debts, has them all forgiven. Seeking more than he deserved, he obtains more than he desired. His least fears are disappointed, and his greatest hopes surpassed. Without doing a turn to pay a penny of the sum, the debt of ten thousand talents is at once and. entirely cancelled.

Behold a picture of the munificent mercy which God is ready to extend to us — even to the chief of sinners!

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Intoxicated with ‘the cup of devils,’ many are insensible to their misery; having even “‘no bonds in their death,”’ they are like that degraded wretch, who stupefied with drink, lies prostrate in the gutter, and, while his family blush with shame and strangers look on with pity, feels neither cold, nor hunger, nor disgrace. But what costs many a gay and thoughtless one no care, moved God to compassion, and brought his Son to the rescue. ‘To save us from sin, and from that hell where they seek for death but cannot find it, and only find after unnumbered ages that their torments are beginning, Jesus interposed, saying, I will save them — suspend the sentence — I come to do thy will, O my God, — deliver from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom — have patience with them, and I will pay thee all!

He paid it. Making atonement for sin, “he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.’’ The debt was paid on Calvary to the uttermost farthing; and now God only awakens our convictions and alarms our consciences, reckoning with us, that he may bring sinners to acknowledge their guilt, and so prepare them to receive his mercy. Sins are not pardoned till they are acknowledged. If Justice wears a stern aspect; if we think it hard that she will not pass by the smallest sin, that she holds him who offends in one point to be guilty of all, that, like a rough and stern officer, she takes us by the throat, saying, Pay what thou owest, there is Divine love here — ‘‘a bright light in the clouds.” In dealing with us thus God seeks to bring us to a sense of our sins, that we may flee to the Saviour; breaks down that he may bind up; wounds that he may heal; kills that he may make alive. The. upbraidings of conscience, an awful sense of guilt, David’s horror when he cried, ‘‘ The terrors of death compassed me about, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me,’’ are the harbingers of forgiveness. It is as in nature, where lightnings flashing through the horrid gloom and thunders which rend the skies, are preludes of the rain that descends in copious showers on the parched and thirsty ground. Or it is as on that night of old, when a frail and lonely bark, watched by the Saviour’s eye, was battling for life in a head wind on the sea of Galilee — Jesus comes in the tempest that agitates the soul. Wrapt in the dark mantle of the night, he advances over the stormy billows; and, ere long filling the troubled heart with a holy ‘calm, his voice is heard, saying, “‘ It is I, be not afraid.”

THE SERVANT’S TREATMENT OF HIS FELLOW-SERVANT.

Of the four men lately hanged at Kirkdale, two had. seen a man executed for murder but a few weeks before they committed the very same crime. Without sufficiently considering that ardent spirits, — maddened by which both imbrued their hands in blood, — ywhile. they weaken the reason, strengthen the passions, and, acting on these as on fire, make them burn with a fiercer heat, people are shocked at such an instance of human depravity. Such a case certainly and awfully illustrates God’s question: ‘‘ Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more’’ — for, unless checked by the restraints of grace or of providence, correction but exasperates our corruptions, and, producing no other effect on them than fire on clay, hardens rather than softens the heart. The crime of these felons who, swung from the gallows, turn slowly round and round in the wind — a ghastly spectacle, was shocking; yet this servant presents a specimen of humanity in some respects still more detestable. Kindness seems only to have made him more cruel, and generous treatment more selfish; nor do the love and mercy of his lord appear to have produced any other effect on him than the heat of the tropics on poisonous plants and venomous reptiles, — imparting to juices and fangs a deadlier virus. In proof of this, look at his treatment of his fellow-servant!

It is extremely harsh. — If we have civil rights we should use them civilly — refuse even a beggar with courtesy — be kind to all — bear ourselves to the meanest without forgetting that he is a brother, a fellow-creature, one who though less favored by fortune, may carry on his shoulders a better head, and within his bosom a kinder heart, than ours. But this ingrate could not have treated the poor man worse had he been, not his fellow-servant, but his slave; not a debtor, but a robber; not, as probably he was, a man whose infirm health, or numerous family, or unexpected misfortune, had involved him in debt, but one more extravagant in his habits and faithless to his trust than himself. All of a sudden, like. a police-officer who lights on some criminal for whom he has been hunting the streets, and haunts and hiding-places of vice, he catches his debtor by the throat, with the peremptory demand, ‘‘ Pay me that thou owest.”’

Lt is most unmerciful. — Though unable to pay the debt, his fellow-servant is too honest to deny it; nor, under feelings of irritation, natural to one treated with such insolence and severity, does he tell this man to keep off hands, and remember, that though he is his creditor, he is not his master, — but a servant as well as he, nor a man so good. Without even attempting to excuse himself, and show how innocently perhaps he fell into debt, the poor man casts himself entirely on his compassion. ‘Though the other, as a servant, was his equal, he stoops to prostrate himself before him as his superior; and, crouching at his feet, makes the.same pitiful appeal, that but a few minutes before his creditor himself had made, crying, ‘‘ Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all!’’

Regarding the generous and entire forgiveness of the king which is set forth in the first act of this parable, as illustrating the manner in which God deals with men, in the answer of this servant to his fellow what an illustration have we of David’s wisdom when, required to choose between the pestilence in God’s hand and the sword in man’s, he said: ‘* Let us fall now into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are great, and not into the hands of man.’”’ There is heat locked up in polar ice, and sparks of fire may be struck from the coldest, hardest flint — but there’s no pity in this man’s bosom.. So bad is human nature capable of

Parables.

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s tee Ly: ia becoming; no heart more merciless to man than man’s! There was no pity to be expected here — do men gather grapes of thorns? This haughty and heartless upstart could not have incurred such an enormous debt without having passed many years in the indulgence of vice; and all debauchees are selfish — a life of vice resembling those petrifying wells which turn into stone whatever is immersed in them, fairest flowers or finest fruit. The ravages of the worst diseases which vice engenders in the body present a loathsome, but yet a feeble image of the wreck it works on the noblest features of the soul. No wonder, therefore, that this man’s heart was not touched by the pitiful appeal — that the only reply to it was, a prison. ‘“‘ He would not,’ says the story, “but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt.”

The circumstances of the unmerciful servant greatly aggravated his guilt — Good men remember kindnesses, and forget injuries. Doing the reverse, bad men remember injuries, and forget kindnesses — in their hearts, the first are graven on a rock, and the second written in sand. But this merciless servant had not even time to forget the mercy which he himself had received; hardly recovered from his terror, his heart was still beating, as, when the storm is past, the waves continue for a while to roll, thundering on the beach. He had just left the house; he found his fellow-servant at the door; so that when he seized him by the throat, demanding payment and refusing mercy, the whole scene of his own forgiveness must have been fresh on his mind — lying there, though not like the dews that sparkle on every leaf, and bless the flowers they bathe. Himself loved, he should have loved; pitied, he should have pitied; having obtained mercy, he should have shown it. Nor was that all. In ten thousand talents, he had been forgiven much; yet in a hundred pence he refused to forgive little. What was the debt this servant owed him to the enormous debts which he had owed his master? As nothing. And by this the parable teaches us that the debts man owes to us are as nothing to those we owe to God, — that the greatest sins man commits against man are as nothing to those we have committed against God. Those are motes, but these beams; those have their type in the gnat, these in the camel; those are a mole-hill, these a towering mountain, as Hzra says, ‘‘ grown up unto the heavens; those are one hundred pence, but these, represented by ten thousand talents, are what it needed the blood of Jesus to pay, and the mercy of God to pardon.

THE RESULT.

When some ruffiian man beats a woman, or a grown lad a weeping child, without waiting to inquire into the merits of the quarrel we cry, shame! and even the lowest mob wins our esteem, and lights up its rags with some touch of glory by its promptitude in espousing the side of the weak against the strong; and thus in feelings of indignation at ingratitude, oppression, inhumanity, cruelty, our nature, when fallen into the greatest ruin, still shows some vestiges of the image of God. Under the influence of such a noble anger the other servants, when they saw this poor man seized by the throat and dragged away to prison, went straight to their master and told him of the outrage. They could not right the wrong, he could; nor were they mistaken in believing that he would. He summons the culprit to his presence. His brow grows dark, — the court is awed into silence — as in nature before a burst of thunder, the gloom grows deeper and deeper; and so soon as the culprit appears, his Lord’s pent-up indignation launches itself forth on his head, like a thunderbolt, in these words, ‘‘ O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt because thou desiredst me; shouldst thou not also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant even as I had pity on thee?’ The pardon is instantly cancelled. He is handed over to punishment; and, opening to receive one who parts with hope at its door, the prison closes on him for ever — in other words till, accomplishing an impossibility, he pays the uttermost farthing. And there we leave him, the captive of a prison — the symbol of that place ‘‘where their worm shall not die, and neither shall their fire be quenched.”

It has been said that no figure walks on all its four feet — in other words, applies in all respects to that which it is employed to illustrate. Christ, for instance, is a Rock; but a rock-is dead, while he liveth for, evermore — is a lamb; but a lamb is without reason, while he with a true body has a reasonable soul — is a lion; but a lion is savage and blood-thirsty, while he, the express image of God’s person, is ‘very pitiful and of tender mercy.” Now this remark applies especially to our Lord’s parables, from which, were we to forget that many things in the story form but its surroundings and drapery, we would draw notions the most absurd and doctrines the most unsound. That the king here might illustrate the lesson, With what measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you again, it was necessary to cancel the pardon — crushing this merciless wretch under the load of his original debt. But to infer from that part of the story that such as God has pardoned may notwithstanding be lost, were contrary to his Word and utterly destructive of the believer’s peace.

There is enough here as elsewhere to warn us that unless, living a life of faith in Jesus Christ, the branch abide in the vine, it cannot bring forth fruit, and shall be cast into the fire; that the perseverance of the saints is inconsistent with their perseverance in sin — being in fact perseverance, not in course of sin, but in a state of grace. But, type of the sinner who leaves God, this man, as the story runs, ‘‘ went out.”” Temptation met him at the door, and he fell, and by his fall teaches us that our safety lies in living near to God, on his bosom — nestled like an infant in the embraces of a mother’s arms. Nor, though people may fancy they are pardoned who are not, is the safety of Christ’s pardoned ones less secure. By convictions which are mistaken for conversions, and a reformation of the conduct which seems a renewing of the heart, Satan may beguile men, saying, Peace, when there is none to be found; yet our Lord’s words shall stand true, ‘‘ Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth give I unto you: let not your hearts be troubled, neither be ye afraid.’’ Did he ascend to heaven to prepare mansions for those who might never occupy them? If pardons once past are acts which may be repealed, how could he say of his people, ‘*They shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand: my Father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hands?’ How can angels rejoice when a sinner is converted, if his salvation still hangs in dread suspense, and neither man nor angel can tell but that the bark which, with head turned to the harbor, comes bravely through the roaring sea, may, notwithstanding, strike on the treacherous bar, and be scattered in broken fragments on the beach? Thank God, the covenant is well ordered in all things and sure — ‘ the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”’

THE LESSON.

*‘ Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” is a clause in the Lord’s prayer, which has in words its best comment in this parable, as it had a very striking one in fact in an event which I happened to witness, — and where the sentence ‘“‘so likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother, their trespasses,’ was, so far as the judgment of the unseen world is ever anticipated in this, fearfully fulfilled. Between a mother and her daughter there had sprung up a serious quarrel, One house could not hold them,

At length filial affection triumphed over pride; and swelling like a dammed up stream till it burst its barriers, nature resumed her course in the daughter’s heart. She sought reconciliation. She repaired to her early home. No welcome met her at the door. She humbled herself to her mother, on bended knees imploring her forgiveness. She appealed to the bosom that had nursed her; but might as well have knocked on a coilin — there was no response. Nor, though imploring her by the mercies of God and entreating her to forgive as she desired to be forgiven, could I, called in as a peacemaker, bend that stubborn, iron will. By-and-by, to this lonely home came another visitor. Death, who would not be denied admittance, arrived — summoning her to a bar where they shall have judgment without mercy who have shown no mercy. Called to her dying bed on a night dark, and starless, and stormy, I found the scene within darker than that without. On the floor of the dim and dreary chamber stood a group of pale, trembling, terror-stricken attendants. Death had his victim by the throat; and, with the coldest, cruellest hand of the two, despair had her by the heart. ‘The Bible was there, the offers of mercy there, but no hope — there was no delirium, but the deepest darkness — and, after setting her sins and the Saviour before her, holding up the cross and Christ crucified to her dying eye, I shall never forget, on bending down to ask if she had any hope, the shadow of a hope, the expression of that face. The candle, set in a corner of the bed, shone full on her pallid, sunken, bloodless countenance, and her answer was to throw on me such a look as painters give to the faces of the damned — gnashing her teeth the while. I would not, in any case, claim the prerogative of the judge, nor attempt to raise the curtain which conceals the future, yet no wonder, as I left the scene with shaken nerves, that voices amid the shrieks and howlings of the tempest seemed to sound out these awful words, ‘There shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.” ie

Teaching us not to make quarrels, but make them up, to be as ready to forgive others as God is to forgive us, and like him, though the offended, to make overtures of peace to the offender, this parable admits of a wider application. In attempting to heal the wounds and redress the wrongs of humanity, let us learn, from the servants who went and told their king, to tell God of the evils we cannot cure; and let those also who, given up to selfishness, are not touched by the miseries of others, learn that in other things as well as in matters of forgiveness, as they mete, it shall be meted to them. It sounds out this warning, Be pitiless and go unpitied — neglect man’s wrongs, and have your own neglected — close your heart to the appeals of misery, and find God’s heart closed against you — shut your door in the face of the wretched, and have heaven’s shut sternly in your own — live in your selfishness, and die in your sins — be deaf to the wails of earth, and wail in hell — be a curse to man, and be accursed of God! Whether it be bane or blessing which we diffuse around us, let us rest assured that there is a mysterious tide circling in the government of

God that shall, here or hereafter, bring back to us the bread which we have cast upen the waters. It shall return. As men sow, they shall reap. By an infallible.decree, they shall have judgment without mercy who have shown no mercy; while those who, Christ-like, go about doing good, forgiving such as wrong them, helping such as need, pitying such as suffer, seeking to save others from sin as well as succor them in sorrow, shall, Christ-like also, on leaving the world, go to the Father. Blessed are the merciful, says our Lord, for they shall obtain mercy. Renewed in his image and born again of his Spirit, they are children of God — and so the poet sings:

“But deep this truth impress’d my mind,
Of all his works abroad,
The heart benevolent and kind,
That most resembles God.”