[77]_Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thy enemy._ (God indeed had said only the former part, _Thou shalt love thy neighbour_. The children of the devil had added the latter, _and hate thy enemy_.) *_But I say unto you_, 1. _Love your enemies_. See that you bear a tender good will, to those who are most bitter of spirit against you, who wish you all manner of evil. 2. _Bless them that curse you._ Are there any whose bitterness of spirit breaks forth in bitter words? Who are continually cursing and reproaching you when you are present, and _saying all evil against you_ when absent? So much the rather do you bless. In conversing with them, use all mildness and softness of language. Reprove them, by repeating a better lesson before them, by shewing them how they ought to have spoken. And in speaking of them, say all the good you can, without violating the rules of truth and justice. 3. _Do good to them that hate you._ Let your actions shew, that you are as real in love as they in hatred. Return good for evil. _Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good._ 4. If you can do nothing more, at least _pray for them that ♦despitefully use you and persecute you_. You can never be disabled from doing this; nor can all their malice or violence hinder you. Pour out your souls to God, not only for those, who did this once, but now repent. This is a little thing. [78]_If thy brother seven times a day, turn and say unto thee, I repent_; that is, if after ever so many relapses, he give thee reason to believe, that he is really and throughly changed, _then thou shalt forgive him_, so as to trust him, to put him in thy bosom, as if he had never sinned against thee at all. But pray for, wrestle with God, for those that do not repent, that now despitefully use thee and persecute thee. Thus far forgive them, [79]_not until seven times only, but until seventy times seven_. Whether they repent or no, yea tho’ they appear farther and farther from it, yet shew them this instance of kindness: _that ye may be the children_, that ye may approve yourselves the genuine children _of your Father which is in heaven_, who shews his goodness by giving such blessings as they are capable of, even to his stubbornest enemies; _who maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. [80]For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the Publicans the same?_ Who pretend to no religion: whom ye yourselves acknowledge to be without God in the world. [81]_And if ye salute_, shew kindness in word or deed, to _your brethren_, your friends or kinsfolk _only: what do ye more than others_? Than those who have no religion at all? _Do not even the Publicans so?_ Nay, but follow ye a better pattern than them. In patience, in long-suffering, in mercy, in beneficence of every kind, to all, even to your bitterest persecutors: [82]_Be ye_, Christians, _perfect_ (in kind, tho’ not in degree) even _as your Father which is in heaven is perfect_.
III. *Behold Christianity in its native form! as delivered by its great Author! This is the genuine religion of _Jesus Christ_. Such he presents it to him whose eyes are opened. See a picture of God, so far as he is imitable by man! A picture drawn by God’s own hand! _Behold, ye despisers and wonder and perish!_ Or rather, wonder and adore! Rather cry out, Is this the religion of _Jesus_ of _Nazareth_? The religion which I persecuted! Let me no more be found even to fight against God. Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?――What beauty appears in the whole! How just a symmetry! What exact proportion in every part! How desirable is the happiness here described? How venerable, how lovely the holiness?――This is the _spirit_ of religion: the quintessence of it. These are indeed the _fundamentals_ of Christianity. O that we may not be hearers of it only! _Like a man beholding his own face in a glass, who goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was._ Nay, but let us steadily _look into this perfect law of liberty, and continue therein_. Let us not rest, until every line thereof is transcribed into our own hearts. Let us watch and pray and believe and love, and _strive for the mastery_, ’till every part of it shall appear in our soul, graven there by the finger of God: ’till we are _holy as he which hath called us is holy, perfect as our Father which is in heaven is perfect_!