Richard Sibbes (1577–1635) on Christ’s Treatment of His Enemies

(3.) What was he to his enemies? Did he call for fire from heaven when they wronged him? Was he all on a heat? When his poor disciples, being more flesh than spirit, would have fire from heaven, ‘You know not what spirit you are of,’ saith he, Luke ix. 55. He shed tears for those that shed his blood, ‘Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem,’ &c., Mat. xxiii. 37, that afterward crucified him. And upon the cross you see there to his very enemies, ‘Father, forgive them, they know not what they do,’ Luke xxiii. 34. So then if we will be like to Christ, consider how he carried himself to God in devotion and obedience, and how in himself was fully of purity and holiness, unspotted every way; how to his friends, to all that had any goodness in them; and how to his enemies, he prayed for his very enemies.

Richard Sibbes, “The Excellency of the Gospel Above the Law,” in The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Ballock Grosart, 7 vols. (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1863), 4:263.

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