enduring love alone is sweet and blissful; it enjoys peace and the
consciousness of God's favour. By forgiving, it gives away and
annihilates the injury. It treats the injurer as if he had not
injured, and therefore feels no more the smart and sting that he had
inflicted. Forgiveness is a shield from which all the fiery darts of
the wicked one harmless rebound. Forgiveness brings heaven to earth,
and heaven's peace into the sinful heart. Forgiveness is the image
of God, the forgiving Father, and an advancement of Christ's kingdom
in the world. Your unalterable duty is clear: as surely as we are
Christians, men who have experienced great compassion, who see in
every man a brother in Christ, and are going forward to God's
righteous judgment, so surely we must forgive. Of no commandment
will the fulfilment be demanded of us with such stringency, no
divine rule so strictly enforced as this, without the slightest
exception to leave a loop-hole of hope to the transgressor. If we
forgive not those who injure us, neither will our heavenly Father
forgive us; and this would be the greatest calamity that could
befall us in time and in eternity."--_Die vergebende Liebe; oder
Gleichniss vom Schalksknecht_.

But we must carefully discriminate here, and ascertain what the Lord
means by forgiving a brother. There should not be a little, narrow,
grudging forgiveness; it should be large, loving, and free. But parallel
with forgiveness there must be faithfulness. Faithfulness to the
evil-doer himself, and to the community, comes in here to modify, not
the nature, but the outward form of forgiving.

For example, there is no virtue in simply permitting a man to wrong you
as often as he chooses,--forgiving him and doing nothing more. In the
immediately preceding context the Lord has taught that the injured
should tell the injurer his fault. Tell him faithfully in secret his
sin: if he repent, thou hast gained thy brother: if he do not listen,
tell it in the presence of two or three witnesses: if he is still
obdurate, tell it to the Church: and if he refuse to hear the Church
withdraw from his company; let him and all the world know that you do
not make light of his sin.

Again, in some kinds of injury, it becomes your duty for the sake of the
community to aid in bringing the criminal to justice. To bring the
discipline of the righteous law upon the criminal, is not revenge: to
shield him from its stro