For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
Ver. 14. For if ye forgive men their trespasses] Our Saviour resumeth, and inculcateth the fifth petition with a repetition; because upon charity (which is chiefly seen in giving and forgiving) hangeth, after a sort, the restful success of all our suits, 2 Timothy 2:8. Malice is a leaven that swells the heart and sours the sacrifice, 1 Corinthians 5:7,8. Out with it, therefore, that we may keep the feast or holy day (εορταζωμεν); that we may (as we ought to do) keep a constant jubilee, nexus solvendo, et noxus remittendo. This flesh and blood will not easily yield to. But we are not debtors to the flesh, Romans 8:12; we owe it nothing, but the blue eye that St Paul gave it, 1 Corinthians 9:27, υπωπαιζω. When Peter heard that he might not recompense to any evil for evil, but most studiously seek his conversion and salvation, "Lord," saith he, "how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?" this he thought a mighty deal, a very high pitch of perfection. Our Saviour tells him, till seventy times seven times, that is, infinitely, and without stint: yet he alludes to Peter's seven, and, as it were, derides it, and his rashness in setting bounds to this duty and prescribing how often to him that was the wisdom of the Father.
This happens when my brother returneth and saith, It repents me. But what if he does not?
In forgiving an offender, say divines, there are three things: 1. The letting fall all wrath and desire of revenge. 2. A solemn profession of forgiveness. 3. Re-acceptance into former familiarity. The first must be done however. For the second, if he say, I repent, I must say, I remit, Luke 18:22. To the third a man is bound till satisfaction be given.
Your heavenly Father will also forgive you] Yet is not our forgiving men the cause of his forgiving us, but a necessary antecedent. The cause is only the free mercy of God in Christ. He puts away our iniquities for his own sake, Isaiah 43:25. Nevertheless, forasmuch as he hath made us this promise here, our forgiving others (saith learned Beza) seemeth to have the nature of an intervenient cause, a cause, sine qua non, of his forgiving us. (Annot. in Luk 11:4)