Not that either the goodness or the power of God is a reason for us to stand idle. It is his will, that we should use all diligence in all things, that we should employ our utmost endeavours, as much as if our success were the natural effect of our own wisdom and strength. And then, as tho’ we had done nothing, we are to depend on him, the giver of every good and perfect gift. *_This day._ For we are to take no thought for the morrow. For this very end has our wise Creator divided life into these little portions of time, so clearly separated from each other: that we might look on every day, as a fresh gift of God, another life, which we may devote to his glory; and that every evening may be as the close of life, beyond which we are to see nothing but eternity. 13. _And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us._ As nothing but sin can hinder the bounty of God from flowing forth upon every creature, so this petition naturally follows the former; that all hindrances being removed, we may the more clearly trust in the God of love, for every manner of thing which is good. _Our trespasses._ The word properly signifies _our debts_. Thus our sins are frequently represented in scripture: every sin laying us under a fresh debt to God; to whom we already owe, as it were, ten thousand talents. What then can we answer when he shall say, _Pay me that thou owest_? We are utterly insolvent: we have nothing to pay: We have wasted all our substance. Therefore if he deal with us according to the rigour of his law, if he exact what he justly may, he must command us to be _bound hand and foot, and delivered over to the tormentors_. Indeed we are already bound hand and foot, by the chains of our own sins. These, considered with regard to ourselves, are chains of iron and fetters of brass. They are wounds wherewith the world, the flesh and the devil, have gashed and mangled us all over. They are diseases that drink up our blood and spirits, that bring us down to the chambers of the grave. But considered, as they are here, with regard to God, they are debts immense and numberless. Well therefore, seeing we have nothing to pay, may we cry unto him, that he would _frankly forgive_ us all. The word translated _forgive_, implies either to forgive a debt, or to unloose a chain. And if we attain the former, the latter follows of course; if our debts are forgiven, the chains fall off our hands. As soon as ever, through the free grace of God in _Christ_, we _receive forgiveness of sins_, we receive likewise _a lot among those which are sanctified, by faith which is in_ him. Sin has lost its power: it has no dominion over those, who _are under grace_, that is, in favour with God. As _there is now no condemnation for them that are in_ Christ Jesus, so they are freed from sin as well as from guilt. _The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in them_, and they _walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit_.