21;0 FORGIVENESS OF SIbI. it only remaining in the faculties of our souls, our re- covery by grace is but an initial renovation of the image of. God in us. Ephes. 4 : 22. It is the implanting upon our natures those . graces which may render us again like unto him. And nothing is grace or virtue but that so answers to something in God.. So then, whatever is in us of this kind, is in God absolutely, perfectly, in a manner infinitely more excellent. Let us now put these things together. God requires of us forgiveness for those that offend us: forgiveness without limitation or bounds ; this grace he bestows on his saints, sets a high price upon it, and manifests, in many ways, that he accounts it among- the most excel- lent of our endowments, one of the most lovely and praiseworthy qualifications of, any person. What then shall we now say 2 Is there forgiveness with him, or not 2 t He that -made the eye, shall henot see 2 He that planted the ear, shall he not hear i" He that thus pre- scribes forgiveness to us, that bestows the grace of it upon us, is there not forgiveness with him g To deny it, is virtually to say, though we are good, yet God is not; though we are benign and bountiful, yet he is not. He that finds this grace wrought in him in any measure, and yet fears that he shall not find it in God, doth so far exalt himself above God ; which is the natural effect of cursed unbelief.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=