Grace alone can
enable us to forgive from the heart
"Do not say, "I will do to him
just as he has done to me; I will render to the man according to
his work."
- Proverbs 24:29
And then--as to indulging personal resentment--it
is natural to say, though only in the heart--I will do as he
hath done to me. But shall we dare thus to take the sword out of
God's hands, and place ourselves upon his tribunal? "Vengeance
belongeth unto me; I will repay--saith the Lord."1 'Let wisdom
and grace be set to work to extinguish the fire from hell,
before it gets head.'* Far sweeter will be the recollection of
injuries forgotten than revenged. But
grace alone can enable us to "forgive from the heart."
And yet too often its exercise is so feebly cherished,
that natural feelings gain the ascendancy; and, if there be not
an actual recompense of evil, there is merely a negative
obedience to the rule, a refraining from the ebullition, rather
than an active exercise of the opposite principle. The wise man
sets out in this book the true rule, more lovely, more
constraining, as enforced by the divine example. Humility and
tenderness mark the self-knowing Christian, who forgives himself
little, his neighbor much.
- Charles Bridges, Proverbs
