No man can ever enjoy true and lasting peace unless he is at peace with God. If he is conscious of being at enmity with God, he knows that there is an element of discord in his nature which, sooner or later, will involve him in hopeless misery. It is not the punishment that he fears so much as the condition which is the necessary result of sin unforgiven. He knows that he is guilty before God, and there is nothing so intolerable in the whole world as a sense of guilt unforgiven, carrying with it as it does, shame, remorse, terror, and in the end despair.

The instinctive cry of one who labours under this sense of guilt is to cry out, "Forgive me!" We ask forgiveness of one of our fellow-creatures whom we have offended, and when they forgive us, a weight is lifted from our heart. But they cannot forgive the guilt of sin. It is beyond the power of mortal man to take away that awful sense of guiltiness. Only God can do that. Hence that cry without which we can never enjoy true peace: "Forgive us our trespasses."

In offering this petition our first thought is not of the positive punishment that we have incurred. It is not the positive punishment endured, which will be Hell's greatest torment, but the separation from God and the consciousness of being the object of the aversion of God and of all the saints. When we pray, "Forgive us our trespasses," our first thought should be not to be freed from the punishment we have deserved, but from the anger of God, which is the worst punishment that even God Himself can inflict.