Church of England -- Sermons; Sermons, English -- 19th century
right; and I can trust in Him utterly to do that; for He is faithful
and just to forgive me my sins, and cleanse me from all
unrighteousness. Therefore, accuse me not, Devil! for thou hast no
share in me: I belong to Christ, and not to thee. And set not my
old sins before my face; for God has set them behind His back,
because I have renounced them, and sworn an oath against them, and
Christ has nailed them to His cross, and now they are none of mine
and none of thine, but are cast long ago into the everlasting fire
of God, and burnt up and done with for ever; and I am a new man, and
God's man; and He has justified me, and will justify me, and make me
just and right; and neither thou, nor any man, has a right to impute
to me my past sins, for God does not impute them to me; and neither
thou, nor any man, has a right to condemn me, for God has justified
me. And if it please God to humble me more (for I know I want
humbling every day), and to show me more how much I owe to Him--if
it please Him, I say, to bring to light any of my past sins, I shall
take it patiently as a wholesome chastening of my Heavenly Father's;
and I trust to all God's people, and to angels, and the spirits of
just men made perfect, that they will look on my past sins as God
looks on them, mercifully and lovingly, as things past and dead,
forgiven and blotted out of God's book, by the precious blood of
Christ, and look on me as I am in Christ, not having any
righteousness of my own, but Christ's righteousness, which comes by
the inspiration of His own Holy Spirit.'
Thus, my friends, we may answer the Devil, when he stands up to
accuse us, and confound us in the Day of Judgment. Thus we may
answer him now, when, in melancholy moments, he sets our sins before
our face, and begins taunting us, and crying, 'See what a wretch you
are, what a hypocrite, too. What would all the world think of you,
if they knew as much against you as I do? What would the world
think of you, if they saw into that dirty heart of yours?' For we
can answer him--'Whatever the world would think, I know what God
Himself thinks: He thinks of me as of a son who, after wasting his
substance, and feeding on husks with the swine, has come home to his
Father's house, and cried, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and
before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son; and I know
that that same good Heavenly Father, instead of shaming me,
reproaching me, shutting His doors against me, has seen me afar off,
and taken me home again without one harsh word, and called to all
the angels in heaven, saying, "It is meet that we rejoice and be
glad, for this My son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and
is found." And while Almighty God, who made heaven and earth, is
saying that of me, it matters little what the lying Devil may say.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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