[b]We are no better than they
(John Newton's Letters)
Jesus, full of compassion and tenderness, wept over
His enemies, and prayed for His actual murderers! A
feeling of this kind seems essential to that new nature
which characterizes the children of God; and where it
is not in habitual exercise, it is a sufficient evidence
that the soul, if truly alive to God at all--is at least
in a lean and distempered state.
When we look at the ungodly, we are not to
hate them--but to pity them, mourn over them,
and pray for them. Nor have we any right to boast
over them; for, by nature, and of ourselves, we
are no better than they.
"For who makes you different from anyone else?
What do you have that you did not receive? And
if you did receive it, why do you boast as though
you did not?" 1 Corinthians 4:7