Luke 11:4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation… My first task is to show God is no cause of sin. For is there any so far gone in error as to suppose the clear fountain of all goodness can be the foul sower of sin? Can good and evil flow from the same head? Or can the Judge of all the world play booty with His clients, receive a prayer with one hand and deal a curse with the other? It is true the tongue can bless and curse with the same breath; but God, who gave it motion, making it the organ of speech and interpreter of the heart, made not the perverse language which the tongue utters. Cursings were never stamped in His mint, but cast by him who is the author of lies and forgeries. Contraries never rose from one spring, nor do the brackish and sweet waters flow from the same rock. What a monster then should that man breed in his imagination that should pronounce God the author of sin! If nature abhor to teem with opposites in one and the same womb; if the grape and the thorn, the fig and the thistle, be births which one stock bears not; if bitter and sweet be qualities which necessarily derive themselves from a different parentage; then much more are good and evil births which the God of nature never yet reconciled in His acts. And sooner shall nature run counter to herself, inverting her even course; sooner shall the congealed frost lodge with the fire, and winter become the preposterous mother of the harvest, than the true Father of Light be brought to father the spurious issue of night, sin, and error. (Archdeacon King.) Parallel Verses KJV: And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. |
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