(for sometimes even a good
wrestler and fighter may get roughly handled): avarice, then, has
got the better of a man, good wrestler though he be, and he has done
some avaricious act. Or there has been a passing lust; it has not
brought the man to fornication, nor reached unto adultery--for when
this does take place, the man must at all events be kept back from
the criminal act. But he "hath seen a woman to lust after her"; he
has let his thoughts dwell on her with more pleasure than was right;
he has admitted the attack; excellent combatant though he be, he has
been wounded, but he has not consented to it; he has beaten back the
motion of his lust, has chastised it with the bitterness of grief,
he has beaten it back; and has prevailed. Still, in the very fact
that he had slipped, has he ground for saying, "Forgive us our
debts." And so of all other temptations, it is a hard matter that in
them all there should not be occasion for saying, "Forgive us our
debts." What, then, is that frightful temptation which I have
mentioned, that grievous, that tremendous temptation, which must be
avoided with all our strength, with all our resolution; what is it?
When we go about to avenge ourselves. Anger is kindled, and the man
bums to be avenged. O frightful temptation! Thou art losing that,
whereby thou hadst to attain pardon for other faults. If thou hadst
committed any sin as to other senses, and other lusts, hence
mightest thou have had thy cure, in that thou mightest say, "Forgive
us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." But whoso instigateth
thee to take vengeance will lose for thee the power thou hadst to
say, "As we also forgive our debtors." When that power is lost, all
sins will be retained; nothing at all is remitted.

Our Lord and Master, and Savior, knowing this dangerous temptation
in this life, when he taught us six or seven petitions in this
prayer, took none of them for himself to treat of, and to commend to
us with greater earnestness, than this one. Have we not said, "Our
Father, which art in heaven," and the rest which follows? Why after
the conclusion of the prayer, did he not enlarge upon it to us,
either as to what he had laid down in the beginning, or concluded
with at the end, or placed in the middle? For why said he not, if
the name of God be not hallowed in you, or if ye have no part in the
kingdom of God, or if the will of God be not done in you, as in
heaven, or if God guard you not,