Chapter VII.--The Sixth Clause.

It was suitable that, after contemplating the liberality of God, ¹ we should likewise address His clemency. For what will aliments ² profit us, if we are really consigned to them, as it were a bull destined for a victim? ³ The Lord knew Himself to be the only guiltless One, and so He teaches that we beg "to have our debts remitted us." A petition for pardon is a full confession; because he who begs for pardon fully admits his guilt. Thus, too, penitence is demonstrated acceptable to God who desires it rather than the death of the sinner. ⁴ Moreover, debt is, in the Scriptures, a figure of guilt; because it is equally due to the sentence of judgment, and is exacted by it: nor does it evade the justice of exaction, unless the exaction be remitted, just as the lord remitted to that slave in the parable his debt; ⁵ for hither does the scope of the whole parable tend. For the fact withal, that the same servant, after liberated by his lord, does not equally spare his own debtor; and, being on that account impeached before his lord, is made over to the tormentor to pay the uttermost farthing--that is, every guilt, however small: corresponds with our profession that "we also remit to our debtors;" indeed elsewhere, too, in conformity with this Form of Prayer, He saith, "Remit, and it shall be remitted you." ⁶ And when Peter had put the question whether remission were to be granted to a brother seven times, "Nay," saith He, "seventy-seven times;" ⁷ in order to remould the Law for the better; because in Genesis vengeance was assigned "seven times" in the case of Cain, but in that of Lamech "seventy-seven times." ⁸