Matthew 5:43 You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.… 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.) Parallel Verses KJV: Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.WEB: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.' |
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