I say it is a new note, but it is fundamental.  When the Creed does touch the inward life, it goes straight to that which is central—­to that which is preeminently evangelical.  Without the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins you could have no good news for a sinful world; but with the assertion of this faith as the actual faith of the man, you have possibilities of service, the upspringing of altruism, the conquest of self, the enthronement of Christ, the advancement of humanity after the likeness of Jesus Christ.

A note it is which is not only fundamental but most musical, harmonious and gladdening.  In the ancient Psalms we hear it oft—­“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases.”  It recurs in the prophets:  “I, the Lord, am he that blotteth out thy sins; yea, tho they be as a thick cloud, I will blot them out.”  It is the highest note reached by the singers of the Old Testament; but it comes to us with greater resonance and sweetness from the lips of the men who have stood in the presence of Jesus Christ, and who are able to say, as they look into the faces of their fellows:  “Be it known unto you that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins from which you could not have been freed by the law of Moses.”  With emphasis, with, strength, with fulness of conviction, with gladdening rapture, these men proclaimed their faith in the forgiveness of sins, and tho the Creed of the churches travels slowly after the faith of the early Church, its last note sounds out a note of triumph:  “I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.”

It is the crown of the whole Creed.  It is the flowering of the truths that are contained in the Creed.  Let a man understand God, and let him have such a vision of the Eternal as Job had, and he is constrained to say, “I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.”  He desires first and chiefly to know that the true relation between the human spirit and God which has been broken by sin has at length been rearranged, and that sin is no longer an obstacle to the soul’s converse with a holy God, but that the ideal relation of the human spirit with the divine spirit is reestablished by the proclamation of forgiveness.  For, as you know, pardon is not the extinguishing of a man’s past; that cannot be done.  What has been done by us of good or evil abides, it endures; not God Himself can extinguish the deeds of the past.  What forgiveness does is this:  it rearranges the relations between the spirit of man and our Father, so that the sins of the past are no longer an obstacle to us in our speech with Him, our trust in Him—­our using the energies of God for the accomplishment of His purposes.  It is the restoration of the human spirit to right relations with God.  Forgiveness of sins conies, therefore, at the very start of a right life.  It is the beginning.  All else in the spiritual life succeeds upon this.