Answers from church history on today's questions
What Christian writers said, from about AD 190 to 1917.
46 passages · 21 writers · 8 centuries
Writers describe forgiveness between people as laying aside anger, revenge, and alienation of heart, and continuing to love the offender. They describe God's forgiveness as remitting a debt, blotting it out, or loosing a chain. Aquinas and Maclaren say forgiveness removes guilt while some penalty or consequence of the sin may remain. Edwards and Strong hold that God does not forgive without satisfaction for sin, Denney says God must act in consistency with his whole character in forgiving, and Maclaren says his pardon cannot tamper with the sanctions of his law. On repentance, Calvin says forgiveness is never obtained without it but that it is not the cause of forgiveness, and Spurgeon and Ryle join the two.
15 passages · 7 writers · 300s to 1900s
Calvin, Butler, Maclaren, and Spurgeon describe forgiveness as putting away anger and keeping love for the offender.
c. 397–400 · Augustine of Hippo, Reply to Faustus the Manichaean (Contra Faustum) 19.25
For there is a just revenge due to the injured person from his assailant; so that when we pardon, we give up what we might justly claim. Thus, in the Lord’s prayer, we are taught to forgive others their debts that God may forgive us our debts. There is no injustice in asking back a debt, though there is kindness in forgiving it.
1555 · John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, part 2 Matt.18.21
I reply, there are two ways in which offenses are forgiven. If a man shall do me an injury, and I, laying aside the desire of revenge, do not cease to love him, but even repay kindness in place of injury, though I entertain an unfavorable opinion of him, as he deserves, still I am said to forgive him. For when God commands us to wish well to our enemies, He does not therefore demand that we approve in them what He condemns, but only desires that our minds shall be purified from all hatred. In this kind of pardon, so far are we from having any right to wait till he who has offended shall return of his own accord to be reconciled to us, that we ought to love those who deliberately provoke us, who spurn reconciliation, and add to the load of former offenses. A second kind of forgiving is, when we receive a brother into favor, so as to think favorably respecting him, and to be convinced that the remembrance of his offense is blotted out in the sight of God. And this is what I have formerly remarked, that in this passage Christ does not speak only of injuries which have been done to us, but of every kind of offenses; for he desires that, by our compassion, we shall raise up those who have fallen. This doctrine is very necessary, because naturally almost all of us are peevish beyond measure; and Satan, under the pretense of severity, drives us to cruel rigor, so that wretched men, to whom pardon is refused, are swallowed up by grief and despair.
1559 · John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 3.20.45
In the next part of the petition we pray to be forgiven, “as we forgive our debtors;” that is, as we spare and pardon all by whom we are in any way offended, either in deed by unjust, or in word by contumelious treatment. Not that we can forgive the guilt of a fault or offense; this belongs to God only; but we can forgive to this extent: we can voluntarily divest our minds of wrath, hatred, and revenge, and efface the remembrance of injuries by a voluntary oblivion. Wherefore, we are not to ask the forgiveness of our sins from God, unless we forgive the offenses of all who are or have been injurious to us. If we retain any hatred in our minds, if we meditate revenge, and devise the means of hurting; nay, if we do not return to a good understanding with our enemies, perform every kind of friendly office, and endeavour to effect a reconciliation with them, we by this petition beseech God not to grant us forgiveness. For we ask him to do to us as we do to others. This is the same as asking him not to do unless we do also.
1726 · Joseph Butler, Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel 9
We may therefore love our enemy, and yet have resentment against him for his injurious behaviour towards us. But when this resentment entirely destroys our natural benevolence towards him, it is excessive, and becomes malice or revenge. The command to prevent its having this effect, i. e. to forgive injuries, is the same as to love our enemies; because that love is always supposed, unless destroyed by resentment.
1823 · Robert South, Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions, Volume 7 49
The third argument against the allowableness of Christians going to law, is that strict command that lies upon them to forgive injuries, and consequently not to prosecute them in courts of judicature, forasmuch as these two seem utterly inconsistent. But to this also I reply, that in most injuries we are to consider and distinguish two things: first, The right that is lost. Secondly, The offence done to whom it is lost. And though it may be my duty to forgive the offence done me by him that violently takes away my right; yet it follows not that I must therefore quit my right; but may, with full allowance of equity and piety, endeavour the regaining of that, while I fully remit the other. And that this is not a mere verbal distinction without a difference, is evident from hence: that supposing that somebody robs me of my goods, and I recover them all to the value of the utmost farthing; yet still after this recovery it is certain that the man has done me an injury, and reason and religion will oblige him to ask me forgiveness; which it could not do, supposing that the wrong did not continue, even after I was repossessed of what I had lost. It is clear therefore, that the prosecution of one’s right at law does yet leave a fair scope for the exercise of forgiveness; and consequently that they may not exclude or justle out one another.
1867 · George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Series One 4
No one, however, supposes for a moment that a man who has once refused to forgive his brother, shall therefore be condemned to endless unforgiveness and unforgivingness. What is meant is, that while a man continues in such a mood, God cannot be with him as his friend; not that he will not be his friend, but the friendship being all on one side—that of God—must take forms such as the man will not be able to recognize as friendship. Forgiveness, as I have said, is not love merely, but love conveyed as love to the erring, so establishing peace towards God, and forgiveness towards our neighbour.
1867 · George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Series One 4
One child, the moment the fault was committed, the father would clasp to his bosom, knowing that very love in its own natural manifestation would destroy the fault in him, and that, the next moment, he would be weeping. The father’s hatred of the sin would burst forth in his pitiful tenderness towards the child who was so wretched as to have done the sin, and so destroy it. The fault of such a child would then cause no interruption of the interchange of sweet affections. The child is forgiven at once.
1867 · George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Series One 4
God loves where he cannot yet forgive—where forgiveness in the full sense is as yet simply impossible, because no contact of hearts is possible, because that which lies between has not even begun to yield to the besom of his holy destruction. Some things, then, between the Father and his children, as between a father and his child, may comparatively, and in a sense, be made light of—I do not mean made light of in themselves: away they must go—inasmuch as, evils or sins though they be, they yet leave room for the dwelling of God’s Spirit in the heart, forgiving and cleansing away the evil. When a man’s evil is thus fading out of him, and he is growing better and better, that is the forgiveness coming into him more and more. Perfect in God’s will, it is having its perfect work in the mind of the man.
1885 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 31 (1885) 1841
Be it never forgotten that He always had the power to have executed vengeance upon any one of us if He had been pleased to do so. Some men pardon because they cannot punish—they are too weak to execute vengeance and, therefore, they refrain from it. Half the forgiveness in the world comes from a feeble hand rather than from a forgiving heart. But the Christ could have crushed His adversaries in a moment if He had willed it, and yet He freely forgave! When they said, "Come down from the Cross"—suppose He had instantly loosed the nails and leaped among them—where had they been, then? They would have begged the rocks to fall upon them and the mountains to cover them from His face if He had but manifested the glory of His power!
1891 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 37 (1891) 2207
Forgiveness means this among men. A person has grieved and wronged me. I feel hurt in my mind about it. When I forgive him, I no longer feel grieved or angry with him—I think of him as before—and we are on good terms. If my forgiveness is genuine—and in God's case it is emphatically so—then there is no resentment left.
1905–1906 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Matthew (chapters 9 to 28) 9.6
The sweeping aside of penalties? the shutting up of some more or less material hell? By no means: penalties are often left; when sins are crimes they are generally left; when sins are vices they are always left, thank God! But in so far as sin is sin, considered as being the perversion and setting wrong of my relation to Him, its consequences, which are its penalties, are swept away by forgiveness; for forgiveness, in its essence and deepest meaning, is neither more nor less than that the love of the person against whom the wrong has been done shall flow out, notwithstanding the wrong. Pardon is love rising above the ice-dam which we have piled in its course, and pouring into our hearts. When you fathers and mothers forgive your children, what does it mean? Does it not mean that your love is neither deflected nor embittered any more, by reason of their wrongdoing, but pours upon them as of old? So God’s forgiveness is at bottom—‘Child! there is nothing in my heart to thee, but pure and perfect love.’
1905–1910 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Luke 15.22-23
If pardon is only the non-infliction of penalty, then it is natural enough that it should be considered sufficient by itself, and that the evildoer should not be rewarded for having been bad. But if pardon is the outflow of the love of the offended to the offender, then it can scarcely be content with simply giving the debtor his discharge, and turning him into the world penniless. However that may be with regard to men, God’s forgiveness is essentially the communication of God’s love to us sinners, as if we had never sinned at all. And, that being so, that love cannot stay its working until it has given all that it can bestow or we can receive.
1908–1909 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Psalms 99.8
Forgiveness is not a matter of conduct, then, primarily, but it is a matter of disposition, of attitude, or, to put it into a shorter word, it is a matter of the heart; and even on the lower level of the human type, we see that remission of penalty may be a part, sometimes is and sometimes is not, but is always the smallest part of it, and a derivative and secondary result of something that went before. An unconscious recognition of this attitude of mind and heart, as being the essential thing in forgiveness, brings about an instance of the process by which two words that originally mean substantially the same thing come to acquire each its special shade of meaning. What I refer to is this—when a judicial sentence on a criminal is remitted, we never hear any one speak about the criminal being ‘forgiven.’ We keep the word ‘pardon,’ in our daily conventional intercourse, for slight offences or for the judicial remission of a sentence. The king pardons a criminal; you never hear about the king ‘forgiving’ a criminal. And that, as I take it, is just because people have been groping after the thought that I am trying to bring out, viz. that the remission of penalty is one thing, and purging the heart of all alienation and hatred is another; and that the latter is forgiveness, whilst the former has to be content with being pardon.
1909 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Matthew (chapters 1 to 8) 6.12
We often ask for forgiveness; have we any definite notion of what we are asking for? When we forgive one another, he who forgives puts away alienation of heart, every cloud of suspicion from his mind, and his feeling and his conduct are as if there had never been a jar or an offence, or are more tender and loving because of the offence that is now forgiven. He who is forgiven has, on his part, a deeper shame for the offence, which looks far darker now, when it is blotted out, than it did before forgiveness. Both are eager to show love, not in order to erase the past, but because the past is erased.
1917 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 63 (1917) 3547
This is a pardon of pure good will that retains no dregs of animosity. A man forgives his child and foregoes the rod, but he may say, "I shall not forget your conduct, for in the future I cannot trust you." But when God forgives, He does not reproach. He takes the prodigal to His bosom. He does not seat him at the end of the table to remind him of his waywardness, but He kills the fatted calf for him to convince him of his welcome!
13 passages · 10 writers · 100s to 1900s
Calvin, Watson, Spurgeon, Wesley, and Flavel explain forgiveness as releasing a debt, blotting it out, or loosing a chain.
c. 190–210 · Clement of Alexandria, Who Is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved? (Quis dives salvetur) 40
Forgiveness of past sins, then, God gives; but of future, each one gives to himself. And this is to repent, to condemn the past deeds, and beg oblivion of them from the Father, who only of all is able to undo what is done, by mercy proceeding from Him, and to blot out former sins by the dew of the Spirit.
1559 · John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 3.4.25
To such false views I oppose the free forgiveness of sins, one of the doctrines most clearly taught in Scripture. First, what is forgiveness but a gift of mere liberality? A creditor is not said to forgive when he declares by granting a discharge, that the money has been paid to him; but when, without any payment, through voluntary kindness, he expunges the debt.
1672 · John Flavel, The Fountain of Life Opened Up The Fountain of Life, Sermon 30. Of the Instructiveness of the Death of Christ, in his seven last Words; the
Guilt is that which pardon properly deals with. Guilt is an obligation to punishment. Pardon is the dissolving that obligation. Guilt is a chain with which sinners are bound and fettered by the law. Pardon is that Aquafortis that eats it asunder, and makes the prisoner a free man. The pardoned soul is a discharged soul, Rom. 8: 53. “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is “God that justifieth, who shall condemn? It is Christ that died.”
1692 · Thomas Watson, The Lord's Prayer 5
‘Why dost thou not take away mine iniquity?’ Job 7: 21. Hebrew, lift off. It is a metaphor taken from a man that carries a heavy burden which is ready to sink him, and another comes, and lifts it off, so when the heavy burden of sin is on us, God in pardoning, lifts it off from the conscience, and lays it upon Christ. ‘He has laid on him the iniquity of us all.’
1692 · Thomas Watson, The Lord's Prayer 5
To forgive sin, is to blot it out. ‘I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions.’ Isa 43: 25. The Hebrew word, to blot out, alludes to a creditor who, when his debtor has paid him, blots out the debt, and gives him an acquittance; so when God forgives sin, he blots out the debt, he draws the red lines of Christ’s blood over it, and so crosses the debt-book. (4) To forgive sin is for God to scatter our sins as a cloud. ‘I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions.’ Isa 44: 22. Sin is the cloud, an interposing cloud, which disperses, that the light of his countenance may break forth.
1693 · Thomas Manton, Works, vol. XX Sermons on Several Texts of Scripture, Sermons upon 1 John ii. 12-14, Sermon I. 1 John ii. 12
It is a release from the guilt of our transgressions. There is in sin reatus culpae, the fault; and reatus poenae, the guilt. God doth not make the sin to be no sin, or the fault to be no fault, but he will not charge it to our condemnation and confusion. Properly, it is the obligation to punishment which God releaseth us from. Sin is compared to a chain, as hell to a prison: Lam. i. 14, ‘The yoke of my transgression is bound by his hand; they are wreathed and come upon my neck.’ Now God, when he pardons sin, looseth this chain. So to a debt: Mat. vi. 12, ‘Forgive us our debts.’ The sinner is discharged from his obligation to punishment. It is a forgiveness of the debt, or an exemption from payment. When God pardoneth, he doth not only respite or withhold the execution, but withdraweth the obligation to punishment. It is one thing for the creditor to give a further day of payment, another to cancel the bond; one thing to loosen the chain, and another to break it. God doth not only forbear, but forgive; not only spare us for a while, but save us for ever. A reprieve only suspendeth and deferreth execution, but a pardon wholly preventeth it.
1738 · Jonathan Edwards, Five Discourses on Important Subjects Nearly Concerning the Great Affair of the Soul's Eternal Salvation 1
The debt that Christ directs his disciples to pray for the forgiveness of, can mean nothing else but the punishment that sin deserves, or the debt that we owe to divine justice, the ten thousand talents we owe our Lord. To pray that God would forgive our debts, is undoubtedly the same thing as to pray that God would release us from obligation to due punishment; but releasing from obligation to the punishment due to sin, and forgiving the debt that we owe to divine justice, is what appertains to justification.
1871 · David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on Matthew 6.12
This idea of sin had indeed come up before in this discourse—in the warning to agree with our adversary quickly, in case of sentence being passed upon us, adjudging us to payment of the last farthing, and to imprisonment till then (Mt 5:25, 26). And it comes up once and again in our Lord's subsequent teaching—as in the parable of the creditor and his two debtors (Lu 7:41, 42, &c.), and in the parable of the unmerciful debtor (Mt 18:23, &c.). But by embodying it in this brief model of acceptable prayer, and as the first of three petitions more or less bearing upon sin, our Lord teaches us, in the most emphatic manner conceivable, to regard this view of sin as the primary and fundamental one. Answering to this is the "forgiveness" which it directs us to seek—not the removal from our own hearts of the stain of sin, nor yet the removal of our just dread of God's anger, or of unworthy suspicions of His love, which is all that some tell us we have to care about—but the removal from God's own mind of His displeasure against us on account of sin, or, to retain the figure, the wiping or crossing out from His "book of remembrance" of all entries against us on this account.
1872 · Thomas Watson, The Treasury of David, vol. 2 (Psalms 27-57) 32.q11
Holy David, in the front of this Psalm shows us wherein true happiness consists; not in beauty, honour, riches (the world’s trinity), but in the forgiveness of sin. The Hebrew word to forgive, signifies to carry out of sight; which well agrees with that Jer. l. 20, “In those days, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found.”
1872 · Thomas Watson, The Treasury of David, vol. 2 (Psalms 27-57) 32.q11
When the Lord pardons a sinner, he doth not pay a debt, but give a legacy. 2. God in forgiving sin, remits the guilt and penalty. Guilt cries for justice: no sooner had Adam eaten the apple, but he saw the flaming sword, and heard the curse; but in remission God doth indulge the sinner; he seems to say thus to him: Though thou art fallen into the hands of my justice, and deservest to die, yet I will absolve thee, and whatever is charged upon thee shall be discharged.
1872 · John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions 26
Well, therefore, seeing we have nothing to pay, may we cry unto him that he would “frankly forgive” us all! The word translated forgive implies either to forgive a debt, or to unloose a chain. And if we attain the former, the latter follows of course: if our debts are forgiven, the chains fall off our hands.
1891 · Andrew Murray, The New Life: Words of God for Young Disciples 14
At bottom, forgiveness is one with justification. Forgiveness is the word that looks more to the relation of God as Father. Justification looks more to His acquittal as Judge. Forgiveness is a word that is more easily understood by the young Christian.
1914 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 60 (1914) 3418
The word, remission, means the putting away of debts. Just as sin may be regarded as a debt incurred to God, so that debt may be blotted out, cancelled and obliterated. The sinner, God's debtor may cease to be in debt by compensation, by full acquittance and may be set free by virtue of such remission.
11 passages · 9 writers · 1200s to 1900s
Aquinas, Owen, South, Denney, and Maclaren say how forgiveness relates to punishment and satisfaction.
1265–1273 · Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II, q. 87, a. 6, s.c.
On the contrary, It is written (2 Kings xii. 13,14): "David said to Nathan: I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David: The Lord also hath taken away thy sin; thou shalt not die. Nevertheless because thou hast given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme . . . the child that is born to thee shall die." Therefore a man is punished by God even after his sin is forgiven: and so the debt of punishment remains, when the sin has been removed.
1653 · John Owen, A Dissertation on Divine Justice 2.13
The forgiveness of man only respects the hurt; the forgiveness of God respects the guilt. Man pardons sins so far as any particular injury hath been done himself; God pardons sin as the good of the universe is injured.
1823 · Robert South, Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions, Volume 6 27
Add to this, in the fourth place, that our sins are debts; but every creditor has absolute and free power, without any payment being made, to remit the debt, and discharge the debtor. Besides, God being absolute sovereign, has power over his own law, to pardon any breach or violation of it. Neither as a governor is he bound to see the injury done to the community by the sin revenged by the punishment. For though earthly governors are obliged to this, yet God is not, because he is not, as they are, only a trustee, but also the proprietor of all things under his government; so that there is no right of community distinct from his own. For, as both the schoolmen and civilians most truly affirm, in Deo sunt jura omnia. And then nature asserts this freedom to every one, that he may quit and recede from his own right: for indeed he is sole and absolute lord and owner of it. And thus I have proved God’s natural freedom, either in punishing or forgiving sin; but yet, as to the economy of God’s present proceedings, we must know, that God, by his own word and decree, having tied up his liberty, he cannot now forgive sin without a satisfaction. And therefore, according to the various readings of the text, propitiatio must go before condonatio; and there must be atonement before there can be forgiveness.
1867 · George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Series One 4
Would not the different evil require a different form of forgiveness? I mean, would not the forgiveness have to take the form of that kind of punishment fittest for restraining, in the hope of finally rooting out, the wickedness? Could there be true love in any other kind of forgiveness than this? A passing-by of the offence might spring from a poor human kindness, but never from divine love.
1891 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 37 (1891) 2207
What is this "forgiveness of sins"? Too often, in popular talk, it is supposed that the chief and main thought of the forgiven sinner is that he has escaped from Hell. Salvation means much more than this and what it further means is too much kept in the background, but yet I will begin with rescue from punishment, for if sin is pardoned, the penalty is extinguished. It would not be possible for God to forgive and yet to punish. That would be a forgiveness quite unworthy of God.
1891 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 37 (1891) 2207
Well, now, the forgiveness that costs you so much would manifest your graciousness much more than that which costs you nothing beyond a kind will and a tender heart! Oh, if it is so, that God, the Divine Ruler, the Judge of all the earth, says to guilty man, "I will pardon you, but it is imperative that My Law be carried out. And this cannot be done except by the death of My dear Son, who is One with Me, who is very God of very God, who Himself wills to stand in your place and vindicate My justice by suffering the penalty due to you"—then I say that the Grace of God is a thousandfold more clearly shown than by the free forgiveness which "modern thought" pleads for! Pardon which has cost God more than it cost Him to make all worlds—which has cost Him more than to manage all the empires of His Providence—which has cost Him His Only-Begotten Son and has cost that Only-Begotten Son a life of sorrow and a death of unutterable and immeasurable anguish—I say that this pardon is pre-eminently gracious! Love is more displayed in this, infinitely more, than by a mere word and a wave of the hand which would dismiss the sinner without any attempt at an atoning sacrifice.
1893 · Robert Rainy, The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Philippians Chapter XII. The Righteousness of Faith
Forgiveness is by no means mere immunity (least of all for Christian religion). Punishment, certainly, in the sense of the separation and evil which sin deserves, passes away. But forgiveness, in Christian religion, is forgiveness with the Forgiver in it. We meet God in the forgiveness of sins. We abide with God in the forgiveness of sins.
1905–1910 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: 2 Samuel 14.14
I believe that men are right in holding that certainly God must pardon, but I believe that they are fatally wrong in not recognising this—that the only kind of forgiveness which is possible for Him to bestow is one in which there shall be no tampering with the tremendous sanctions of His awful law; and no tendency to teach that it matters little whether a man is good or bad. The pardon, which many of us seem to think is quite sufficient, is a pardon that is nothing more noble than good-natured winking at transgression. And oh! if this be all that men have to lean on, they are leaning on a broken reed.
1907 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Numbers 14.19
The manner of the divine forgiveness. He pardoned, but He also inflicted punishment, and in both He loves equally. The worst, that is the spiritual, consequences (which are the punishments) of sin, namely separation and alienation from God, He removes in the very act of forgiveness, but His pardon does not affect the natural consequences. ‘Thou wast a God that forgavest them and tookest vengeance of their inventions,’ says a psalmist in reference to this very incident. Thank God that He loves us too wisely and well not to let us by experience ‘know that it is a bitter thing to forsake the Lord.’ It is a blessing that He does so, and a sign that we are pardoned, if we rightly use it.
1907 · Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology Chapter II. The Reconciliation Of Man To God, Or The Application Of Redemption Through
It is hard for us to understand God's feeling toward sin. Forgiveness seems easy to us, largely because we are indifferent toward sin. But to the holy One, to whom sin is the abominable thing which he hates, forgiveness involves a fundamental change of relation, and nothing but Christ's taking the penalty of sin upon him can make it possible.
1911 · James Denney, The Death of Christ 9
What it really means is that in the very act of forgiving sin — or, to use the daring word of St. Paul, in the very act of justifying the ungodly, God must act in consistency with His whole character. He must demonstrate Himself to be what He is in relation to sin, a God with whom evil cannot dwell, a God who maintains inviolate the moral constitution of the world, taking sin as all that it is in the very process through which He mediates His forgiveness to men.
7 passages · 6 writers · 1500s to 1800s
Calvin, Ryle, and Spurgeon say how forgiveness relates to repentance.
1559 · John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 3.4.3
We have elsewhere observed, that forgiveness of sins never can be obtained without repentance, because none but the afflicted, and those wounded by a consciousness of sins, can sincerely implore the mercy of God; but we, at the same time, added, that repentance cannot be the cause of the forgiveness of sins: and we also did away with that torment of souls—the dogma that it must be performed as due. Our doctrine was, that the soul looked not to its own compunction or its own tears, but fixed both eyes on the mercy of God alone.
1796 · Jonathan Edwards, Remarks on Important Theological Controversies 5
If any ask, why God could not pardon the injury on repentance, without other satisfaction, without any wrong to justice; I ask the same person, why he could not also pardon the injury without repentance? For the same reason, could he not pardon with repentance without satisfaction? For all the repentance men are capable of, is no repentance at all, or is as little as none, in comparison with the greatness of the injury; for it bears no proportion to it. And it would be as dishonourable and unfit for God to pardon the injury without any repentance at all, as to do it merely on the account of a repentance that bears no more proportion to the injury, than none at all. Therefore, we are not forgiven on repentance, because it in any wise compensates, or takes off, or diminishes the desert or requisiteness of punishment; but because of the respect that evangelical repentance has to compensation already made.
1856–1869 · J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke 3.1-6
Let us notice, lastly, in this passage, the close connection between true repentance and forgiveness. We are told that John the Baptist came "preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins." The plain meaning of this expression is, that John preached the necessity of being baptized, in token of repentance, and that he told his hearers that except they repented of sin, their sins would not be forgiven.
1872 · Thomas Watson, The Treasury of David, vol. 2 (Psalms 27-57) 32.q11
Before sin is forgiven it must be repented of. Therefore repentance and remission are linked together. “That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name.” Luke xxiv. 47. Not that repentance doth in a Popish sense merit forgiveness; Christ’s blood must wash our tears; but repentance is a qualification, though not a cause.
1886 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, All of Grace 14
Repentance and forgiveness are joined together in the experience of all believers. There never was a person yet who did unfeignedly repent of sin with believing repentance who was not forgiven; and on the other hand, there never was a person forgiven who had not repented of his sin. I do not hesitate to say that beneath the copes of Heaven there never was, there is not, and there never will be, any case of sin being washed away, unless at the same time the heart was led to repentance and faith in Christ. Hatred of sin and a sense of pardon come together into the soul, and abide together while we live. These two things act and react upon each other: the man who is forgiven, therefore repents; and the man who repents is also most assuredly forgiven.
1889 · George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Third Series 7
How could it make up to me for the stealing of my watch that the man was punished? The wrong would be there all the same. I am not saying the man ought not to be punished—far from it; I am only saying that the punishment nowise makes up to the man wronged. Suppose the man, with the watch in his pocket, were to inflict the severest flagellation on himself: would that lessen my sense of injury? Would it set anything right? Would it anyway atone? Would it give him a right to the watch? Punishment may do good to the man who does the wrong, but that is a thing as different as important. Another thing plain is, that, even without the material rectification of the wrong where that is impossible, repentance removes the offence which no suffering could. I at least should feel that I had no more quarrel with the man. I should even feel that the gift he had made me, giving into my heart a repentant brother, was infinitely beyond the restitution of what he had taken from me. True, he owed me both himself and the watch, but such a greater does more than include such a less.
1889 · George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Third Series 8
God speaks, as it were, in this manner: ‘I forgive you everything. Not a word more shall be said about your sins—only come out of them; come out of the darkness of your exile; come into the light of your home, of your birthright, and do evil no more. Lie no more; cheat no more; oppress no more; slander no more; envy no more; be neither greedy nor vain; love your neighbour as I love you; be my good child; trust in your father. I am light; come to me, and you shall see things as I see them, and hate the evil thing. I will make you love the thing which now you call good and love not.
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