On the Lord's Prayer 23

He has plainly joined and added a law, binding us by a fixed condition and pledge, that we should ask for our debts to be forgiven us in the same way as we ourselves forgive our debtors, knowing that what we ask for our sins cannot be obtained unless we ourselves have done the same to those who sin against us. Therefore he says in another place too: "With the measure with which you have measured, it will be measured back to you." And the servant who, after all his debt had been forgiven him by his master, would not himself forgive his fellow servant, is bound again in prison: because he would not pardon his fellow servant, he lost what had been pardoned him by his master. Christ sets this forth still more strongly in his precepts with greater force of his censure: "When you stand to pray," he says, "forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven may also forgive you your sins. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive you your sins." No excuse remains for you on the day of judgment, when you are judged according to your own sentence, and whatever you have done you yourself also suffer. For God commanded us to be peacemakers and in concord and of one mind in his house, and such as he made us by the second birth, such he wishes us to persevere when reborn, so that we who are sons of God may remain in the peace of God, and that those who have one Spirit may have one heart and one mind. So God does not receive the sacrifice of one who is at variance, and bids him turn back from the altar and first be reconciled to his brother, so that God too may be appeased by peaceful prayers. The greater sacrifice to God is our peace and brotherly concord, and a people made one from the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.