Matthew 5:43

Love your enemies.

Forgiveness of injuries

The duty of forgiveness does not forbid resentment, but the excess or abuse of it.

I. Such resentment in excess is wrong, for anger produces anger; revenge, malice, and that without limit: an aggravation of misery; and such resentment is a painful remedy to him who suffers from it, and, if not a remedy, it becomes an unmixed evil: the gratification of this passion is never innocent except when necessary.

II. Love to our enemies is a duty; for it is part of the law of general benevolence, which, however, admits resentment, though not the abuses of it. Resentment is consistent with good-will. To love our enemies is not rant, unless benevolence is so; but is as reasonable as the opposite ix mischievous.

III. Reflections adapted to beget and strengthen the temper. Self-love is apt to magnify things amiss in others and lessen them in ourselves. So is anger. Moderation, therefore, is only common sense, trying to ascertain the truth; and is perfectly reasonable. The origin of wrong done is not generally malice, but some passion in itself, and within proper limits, allowable. The object of our resentment is himself a sufferer, and therefore a fit object of compassion. We ourselves need forgiveness, and a forgiving disposition is essential to it. (Bishop Butler, D. C. L.)

Man’s nature is to be judged, not as to whether it is best in the abstract, but on a comparison with his circumstances. Here we have to consider-

I. The nature of the emotion. Sudden and deliberate. Sudden anger is an instinct, excited by violence or harm, not necessarily a wrong, and the end of this passion is the resistance or prevention of violence. Deliberate anger, or resentment, is a passion, excited by wrong or injury undeserved. Hence called indignation, which is not malice, and is stronger the more nearly the injury affects ourselves. The sense of wrong is essential to it, as is plain from the circumstances which aggravate the feeling.

II. The end for which the emotion is implanted: to prevent or remedy injury.

III. The abuses of the emotion of resentment. Sudden: passion, peevishness. Deliberate: resentment against such as innocently injure us; obstinacy in resisting evidence of innocence. Though liable to abuse, the emotion is important, as a balance against the weakness of pity, and in punishing crime. Hence fresh proofs of the reality of virtue, which has certain emotions on its side, and of the wisdom and goodness of God, who makes an instance of them, even the emotion of resentment. (Bishop Butler, D. C. L.)

The Christian’s duty to prisoners

Never, perhaps, does guilty, suffering humanity assume a form more likely to be overlooked or despised by the world at large than in the person of the imprisoned convict. But Christians may be justly expected to regard him with pity-may be justly expected to make prompt and vigorous exertions to promote his welfare. This I argue:

I. From the character of Christians. Disinterested benevolence. Deep sense of personal guilt which they maintain. Efficacy of Divine grace to work a radical change.

II. From the means of usefulness they are able to employ.

III. The commands of Jesus Christ.

IV. The Providence of God. (Beriah Green.)

In what manner are you to repress the rising of improper

dispositions:-

1. Remember your own feelings.

2. The evil in the city is permitted by God.

3. Recollect the unwearied patience of God.

4. The treatment the Saviour endured.

5. This will not make a Christian mean-spirited; were there any in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar that showed such greatness of soul as Daniel? (E. Irving.)

1. The supreme art of life, above all other arts, is the art of living together justly and charitably.

2. To get on with men will constitute the most persistent aim within the Christian disposition. (H. W. Beecher.)

On forgiveness of injuries and against revenge

This law reasonable:

I. If we consider the nature of the act here required, which is to love-the most natural, easy, and delightful of all the affections; whereas ill-will and revenge are troublesome and vexatious passions. The devising of mischief, accomplishment of it, and reflection upon it are uneasy.

II. If we consider the qualification of the object-Our enemy. The two great foundations of love are relation and likeness. Men alike and related in essential nature. The hatred of an enemy, if we make a right use of it, may prove of greater advantage to us than the civilities of our best friend; is better and less dangerous than the flatterer. Reconciled enemies often prove our best friends.

III. If we consider the excellence and generosity of the thing itself. It is the most perfect act of the most perfect of all graces-in spite of provocation.

IV. The perfection and prevalency of the examples which the gospel proposeth to us to allure to this duty.

1. The example of God Himself.

2. The example of Jesus Christ.

It is objected that the bearing of injuries like this invites more.

1. Few so bad as to make so barbarous a return for generosity.

2. Christ never intended that our goodness should be void of all prudence.

Learn:

1. Let us be careful how we make enemies, if it be thus difficult to love them.

2. How great ought our kindness to be to others.

3. The excellence of Christian religion which hath carried our duty so high.

4. The humanity of the Christian religion. (T. Tillotson.)

Prayer for enemies

I wonder how many prayers you ever sent up for those that hate you? I think it did not take the top of one sheet in the angel’s record-book to put down all the prayers that you ever made for men that hate you. (Beecher.)

Difficult to forgive a sneaking enemy

When a large house-dog comes out with an announcement of himself, a man knows what he has got to meet: but when one of those little nasty Spitz dogs that don’t bark at all, but run behind and nip, you don’t know whether to run or to stand still, whether to fight or to give it up. An enemy that is an enemy outwardly and openly, and strikes fair blows, can be met; but whisperers, backbiters, mean folks that follow you, and nip you, and sneak in and out of the fence to save themselves, we do not know how to deal with; and yet we are commanded to pray for them. (Beecher.)

The marrow of the gospel

1. The teaching of the New Testament is that love is the only religion.

2. It teaches that love is a comprehensive disposition.

3. There is no worship of God which is an equivalent or substitute for love. “If thou bring thy gift to the altar.”

4. No man can love God except through the practice of loving men.

5. Love carries with it a double capacity, of perceiving an ideal excellence, and of loving men who represent the opposite. Love goes out to men, not according to their righteousness, but according to their needs.

6. True gospel love is a love that re-creates men. (Beecher.)

Love a universal disposition

A man does not love according to Scripture, simply because he can count well, and say, “I love that person, that one.” That is not it. What kind of a candle would that be which, being set on your table, only shone on particular things-on this book, on that vase, on that mirror, on that picture, and nowhere else. A candle is put upon a candlestick, that it may give light to all in the house. Love must leave nothing out. (Beecher.)

Love attracted by need rather than by character

Is your heart a physician to cure men that need curing, no matter who they may be? (Beecher.)

Love is sometimes severe in its methods

Love is like the old surgery, which took blood, that the fever might go, and that life might come. Love is no poor moonshiney, pale light, caring for nothing. Love is a revelator; it discriminates between right and wrong. It likes the right and hates the wrong, and helps men out of the wrong into the right. (Beecher.)

Love severe in order to salvation

The mother, under ordinary circumstances, is unwilling to singe the child’s hair or scourge its skin, because she loves it so, yet, if there is some conflagration, and she sees that the way of life is through the flame, with wild strength she bears the child through in her bosom, though it be burned in every part. Such is her love for the child that she would rather see it wounded than see it perish. (Beecher.)

The enemies of Louis XII. of France

There is a story told of Louis XII. of France. He had many enemies; and when he succeeded to the throne, he caused a list of these to be drawn up, and marked against each of their names a large black cross. When this became known, the enemies of the king fled, because they thought it was a sign that he intended to punish them. The king, hearing of their alarm, recalled them, and gave them an assurance of his good will, saying that he had placed a cross beside their names to remind him of the Cross that brings pardon to all; and he urged them, by his own example, and especially by the example of Him who prayed for His enemies, to go and do likewise.

Sir Eardley Wilmot’s advice

A gentleman who had filled many high stations in public life, with the greatest honour to himself and advantage to the nation, once went to Sir Eardley Wilmot in great anger at a real injury he had received from a person high in the political world, which he was considering how to resent in the most effectual manner. After relating the particulars to Sir Eardley, he asked if he did not think it would be manly to resent it? “Yes,” said Sir Eardley, “it would doubtless be manly to resent it, but it would be Godlike to forget it.” This the gentleman declared had such an instantaneous effect upon him, that he came away quite another man, and in temper entirely altered from that in which he went.