Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 175, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1917 — NOT SEVEN TIMES [ARTICLE]

NOT SEVEN TIMES

The Breadth of the Principle of the Gospel as Laid Down by Jesus Christ “How oft shall my brother sin aginst me, and I forgive him? till seven times? I say not unto thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven.”—Matt. 18:21, 22. “How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?" What a beautifully simple rule that would have been I Forgive seven’ times I How easily the rule could have been applied! The merest tyro could have measured out his moral obligations to a nicety. “I say not unto thee, until seven times; but until seventy times seven.” Then the Master will not accept and confirm the simple rule. He rejects it. Not seven times, but seventy times seven! Now little children are governed by rules. In the government of childhood everything has to be strictly and minutely measured. Precise instructions have to be given. It is not enough to say to a child, “Be just.” You have to be more explicit. You have to break up the meat into small pieces. You have to go into details. You have to dissolve great principles into tiny rules. It is so with the whole round of a child’s life. It is governed by rules; But when childhood is left behind you get away from the minute guidance of rules into the freer guidance of principles. Simple Rules. Men have a strange fondness for simple rules. If you turn to the story of our Saviour’s life you will find what a strong partiality the Jewish, people had for the rules of their childhood. They dearly loved a rule- that was clear and manageable. They tried in a hundred ways to constrain our Master to put the Gospel of the Kingdom into a dozen simple rules. One came to him and said: “Who is my neighbor?” And he hoped that the Lord would draw a little circle and say, “All in there.” It would have been so beautifully simple to have been told that all your neighbors lived in a given area, and. that outside those limits aU the obligations of neighborliness ceased 1 But Christ gave no such rule. He told the story of tne Good Samaritan, a story which makes neighborliness not a thing which begins at this mile post and ends at another, not a thing confined within geographical or racial boundaries, but a thing illimitable as human need. He gave not a rule but a principle. And here comes Simon Peter, bothered with this matter of forgiveness, and wanting it all to be put Into a little rule, that he might know the beginning and the end of it “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?” He is back in the childhood of the race. He wants his religion to be a vast system of petty rules. “How oft? Seven times?” The Master told him it could not be expressed arithmetically; it was a finer and subtler thing. Built on the Cross. Christianity is not built upon arithmetic; it is built upon a cross. We do not count our way into glory. Christianity gives no precise and minute instructions. It does not guide us by little lamps placed at every step of the way. It guides us by great stars. I make a huge mistake if I go to the New Testament sos a rule. ' I go wisely if I go' for a principle. Ever and always it answers my request for a rule inTfie’words of the Master: “Not seven times, but seventy times seven.” Take that principle into your life, and you will make your own rules. Be loyal to the God who is loyal to you. Show him that you are worthy of his confidence when he treats you as being more than a child. Be the man God assumes you to be when he seeks to govern you by large principles and not by arbitrary rnles. “Not seven times, but seventy times seven."— Rev. J. H. Jowett D. D.