with the
scripture. True, in this picture you see one whose great debt was all
freely forgiven by the master brought back into judgment, and made
answerable for the whole amount; but this incidental feature of a human
procedure will not bear the weight which men would fain lay on it. This
king, whose conduct is represented in the parable, is expressly called a
_man_ king. No doubt his procedure in that case is employed to
illustrate some laws of the kingdom of heaven; but this is done by
analogy. Analogy is not identity; the very essence of it lies in
coincidence in some points, with diversity in others; if the two were
identical, there were no longer an analogy. Take two pictures of a
person printed from the same negative photograph; you do not say they
are like each other, they are the same. It is most dangerous to fasten
on any point of the depicted human procedure, and found on it the
affirmation that the divine must be precisely the same.

But besides this general consideration demanding caution, there is
enough in the parable itself absolutely to refute the notion, that God
may forgive a man all his sins, and thereafter lay these very sins all
to his charge. It is indeed said in the earlier portion of the parable
that the lord of that servant forgave him the debt; but it is as clearly
indicated in the close that the debt was not forgiven. The man was cast
into prison until he should pay it all; he was held bound for all the
original debt, and was punished accordingly. If he was forgiven all that
debt, not one penny of it can afterwards be placed to his account; and
if it is afterwards placed to his account, the fact proves that it had
not been forgiven.

The meaning of the phraseology must be determined by the necessary
conditions of the fact. That word of the king, "I forgive thee," was not
a discharge; if it had been, mere justice demanded that the debt
discharged should not be charged again. The fact that it was all charged
again, proves irrefragably that it was not discharged. The meaning in
the light of the facts must be that these terms were offered by the
king. His terms are free forgiveness, bestowed in sovereign love by the
giver, and accepted in grateful love by the receiver. The servant, as is
shown by his conduct, did not accept these terms, and so there was no
transaction.

* * * * *

The key-notes of the parable are found at the beginning and the end. It
was spoken