Matthew 6:15

(Tr. vii. 16.) For no excuse will abide you in the day of judgment, when you will be judged by your own sentence, and as you have dealt towards others, will be dealt with yourself.

Then, as I said before, meaning to signify, that of all things He most loathes and hates bearing malice, and most of all accepts the virtue which is opposite to that vice; He hath after the prayer also again put us in mind of this same point of goodness; both by the punishment set, and by the reward appointed, urging the hearer to obey this command. "For if ye forgive men," saith He, "your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not, neither will He forgive you." With this view He hath again mentioned heaven also, and their Father; to abash the hearer by this topic likewise; that he of all people, being of such a Father, should be made a wild beast of; and summoned as he is to heaven, should cherish an earthly and ordinary sort of mind. Since not by grace only, you see, ought we to become His children, but also by our works. And nothing makes us so like God, as being ready to forgive the wicked and wrong-doers; even as indeed He had taught before, when He spake of His "making the sun to shine on the evil and on the good." For this same cause again in every one of the clauses He commands us to make our prayers common, saying, "Our Father," and "Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven," and "Give us the bread, and forgive us our debts," and "lead us not into temptation," and "deliver us;" everywhere commanding us to use this plural word, that we may not retain so much as a vestige of anger against our neighbor. How great punishment then must they deserve, who after all this, so far from themselves forgiving, do even entreat God for vengeance on their enemies, and diametrically as it were transgress this law; and this while He is doing and contriving all, to hinder our being at variance one with another? For since love is the root of all that is good, He removing from all sides whatever mars it, brings us together, and cements us to each other. […]

By the word Amen, He shows that without doubt the Lord will bestow all things that are rightly asked, and by those that do not fail in observing the annexed condition, For if ye forgive men their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your sins.

"But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." God, Who is meek, hates nothing more than cruelty.

Not as if this were the only condition required; there must be repentance and faith, and new obedience; but as where other graces are in truth, there will be this, so this will be a good evidence of the sincerity of our other graces. He that relents toward his brother, thereby shows that he repents toward his God. Those which in the prayer are called debts, are here ca

But if you forgive not men their trespasses,.... On the other hand, where men are not of a forgiving temper to their fellow creatures and fellow Christians, how can they expect forgiveness at the hands of God? or what sense of pardoning grace can there be upon their minds?

But if ye forgive not - He who does not awake at the sound of so loud a voice, is not asleep but dead. A vindictive man excludes himself from all hope of eternal life, and himself seals his own damnation. Trespasses - Παραπτωματα, from παρα and πιπτω, to fall off. What a remarkable difference there is between this word and οφειληματα, debts, in Mat 6:12! Men’s sins against us are only their stumblings, or fallings off from the duties they owe us; but our’s are debts to God’s justice, which we can never discharge.

But if ye forgive not, &c.--See on Mt 6:12. Having concluded His supplementary directions on the subject of prayer with this Divine Pattern, our Lord now returns to the subject of Unostentatiousness in our deeds of righteousness, in order to give one more illustration of it, in the matter of fasting.

These verses are few in number, and soon read, but they are of immense importance. They contain that wonderful pattern of prayer with which the Lord Jesus has supplied his people, commonly called the Lord’s Prayer. Perhaps no part of Scripture is so well known as this. Its words are familiar wherever Christianity is found. Thousands, and tens of thousands, who never saw a Bible or heard the pure Gospel are acquainted with the “Our Father,” or “Paternoster.”

These verses are few in number, and soon read, but they are of immense importance. They contain that wonderful pattern of prayer with which the Lord Jesus has supplied his people, commonly called the Lord’s Prayer. Perhaps no part of Scripture is so well known as this. Its words are familiar wherever Christianity is found. Thousands, and tens of thousands, who never saw a Bible or heard the pure Gospel are acquainted with the “Our Father,” or “Paternoster.” Happy would it be for the world if this prayer was as well known in the spirit as it is in the letter. No part of Scripture is so full and so simple at the same time as this. It is the first prayer we learn to offer up when we are little children: here is its simplicity. It contains the germ of everything which the most advanced saint can desire: here is its fullness. The more we ponder every word it contains, the more we shall feel this prayer is of God. The Lord’s Prayer consists of ten parts or sentences. There is one declaration of the Being to whom we pray; there are three prayers respecting his name, his kingdom and his will; there are four prayers respecting our daily wants, our sins or weakness, and our dangers; there is one profession of our feeling towards others; there is one concluding ascription of praise. In all these parts we are taught to say “we” and “our.” We are to remember others as well as ourselves. On each of these parts a volume might be written. We must content ourselves at present with taking up sentence after sentence, and marking out the lessons which each sentence contains. The first sentence declares to whom we are to pray to: “Our Father which art in heaven.” We are not to pray to saints and angels, but to the everlasting Father, the Father of spirits, the Lord of heaven and earth. We call him Father in the lowest sense, as our Creator: as St.