another being to support it.  “God so loved the world, even when dead in trespasses and sins,” as to deliver up his Son to “taste death for every man.”  And being unchangeable, he could never hate them.  In our text, God commands us to forgive as he has forgiven.  How many does God forgive?  Ans.  As many as he commands you to forgive.  How many is that? All, even your enemies—­to bless and curse not.

We will now introduce the question—­If God has not forgiven a man today, will he ever forgive him?  I answer no, for he is unchangeable.  We are to apt to think that our Creator is altogether such an one as ourselves—­that he loves one day, and hates the next—­that he is in reality angry one hour, and pleased the next—­or that he holds a grudge one moment and forgives the next, if we will only ask him to do so.  But all such ideas are calculated for children—­for babes in Christ.  The scriptures come down to the weakest capacity; but this is no reason we should always continue children, but rise in knowledge to the strength of manhood.  We ought not to be “ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  Paul said to his brethren “when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you” &c.  “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

The Scriptures are calculated for every capacity—­for a child as well as a philosopher.  We must rise from one degree of glory to another.  We are not to fasten our minds down on the inventions of men, and live and die children.  No—­we must “forget the things that are behind, and reach forward to those that are before.”  As full grown men, we are not to suppose that prayer of any mortal can move the Almighty to pardon him.  But says the objector, if we sincerely ask God to do thus and so, he will certainly grant our request.  Very well, admit this for a moment.  God, you say, will answer every sincere prayer.  Now suppose two armies are to meet in battle, one from France and the other from Holland.  The hour when the engagement is to commence is precisely one month from tomorrow noon.  Every day, there are millions of sincere prayers offered to God to give them the day.  Holland, with one voice, prays for victory and for the preservation of her subjects; and France, with united supplication, prays right the contrary.  How, we ask, are all those sincere opposing petitions to be answered?  Impossible.  Again—­one denomination prays for the prosperity of its cause, and the destruction of error.  And as each believes all others to be in error, of course pray for their downfall.  If the Lord answered their petitions, all denominations, of course, of course would fall!  One man prays far rain, and another, that it may not rain.  If God answered all these petitions, he would be as changeable, not as one man, but as the whole human family together.