Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

⁵ Accept then a few words. If I shall not do justice to the magnitude of the question, lay up for a time what I shall say at present, and hold me a debtor for some future time. Suppose now two men, that by the clearer force of examples ye may think upon what I have proposed to you. One of them is full of sins, has lived most wickedly for a length of time; the other of them has committed but few sins; they come both to grace, are both baptized, they enter debtors, they go out free; more has been forgiven to one, less to the other.

I ask, how much does each love? If I shall find that he loves most, to whom the most sins have been forgiven, it is to his greater advantage that he has sinned much, his much iniquity was to his greater advantage, that so his love might not be lukewarm. I ask the other how much he loves, I find less; for if I find that he too loves, as much as the other, to whom much has been forgiven, how shall I make answer to the words of the Lord, how shall that be true which the Truth has said, “To whom little is forgiven, the same loves little”?

“See,” a man says, “but little has been forgiven me, I have not sinned much; yet I love as much as he, to whom much has been forgiven.” Do you speak truth, or Christ? Has your lie been forgiven you to this end, that you should fix the charge of lying on Him who forgave you? If little has been forgiven you, you love little. For if but little has been forgiven you, and you love very much, you contradict Him who said, “To whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” Therefore I give the more credit to Him, who knows you better than you know yourself.

If you suppose that but little has been forgiven you, it is certain that you love but little. “What then,” says he, “ought I to do? Ought I to commit many sins, that there may be many which He shall be able to forgive me, that I may be able to love more?” It presses me sore, but may the Lord, who has proposed this saying of truth to us, deliver me out of this strait.