Page:Sermons on the Lord's Prayer.djvu/82



portion of the Lord's Prayer, when rightly understood, will be found to have a most important and practical meaning.

We must first explain the signification of the terms. The term "debts" is here used in the sense of trespasses or sins. This is plain from the parallel passage in Luke, "Forgive us our sins;" and also from the Lord's own comment on this prayer in the succeeding verse: "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Father will also forgive you." The reason that "debts" has such a meaning, seems to be this. A debt is something due to another, but not paid: hence it implies the idea of delinquency, defect, fault; and according to the greatness of the debt, is the degree of the delinquency. Now, to our Heavenly Father, the Divine Creator and Saviour, from whom we have received the gift of existence, and from whom come, directly or indirectly, all our enjoyments and blessings natural and spiritual,—we owe the deepest debt of gratitude, and, with it, worship, love, and, withal, obedience. "When, then, we do not pay these debts,