Anger is NEVER justified. Attack has NO foundation. It is here escape
from fear begins, and will be made complete. Here is the real world
given in exchange for dreams of terror. For it is on this forgiveness
rests, and is but natural. You are not asked to offer pardon where attack
is due, and would be justified. For this would mean that you forgive a
sin by overlooking what is really there. This is not pardon. For it
would assume that, by responding in a way which is not justified, your
pardon will become the answer to attack that has been made. And thus is
pardon inappropriate, by being granted where it is not due.

Pardon is ALWAYS justified. It has a SURE foundation. You do not forgive
the unforgivable, nor overlook a real attack that calls for punishment.
Salvation does not lie in being asked to make unnatural responses which
are inappropriate to what is real. Instead, it merely asks that you
respond appropriately to what is not real by not perceiving what has not
occurred. If pardon were unjustified, you would be asked to sacrifice
your rights when you return forgiveness for attack. But you are merely
asked to see forgiveness as the natural reaction to distress which rests
on error, and thus calls for help. Forgiveness is the ONLY sane
response. It KEEPS your rights from being sacrificed.

This understanding is the only change that lets the real world rise to
take the place of dreams of terror. Fear cannot arise unless attack is
justified, and if it had a real foundation, pardon would have none. The
real world is achieved when you perceive the basis of forgiveness is
quite real and fully justified. While you regard it as a gift
unwarranted, it must UPHOLD the guilt you would “forgive.” Unjustified
forgiveness IS attack. And this is all the world can ever give. It
pardons “sinners” sometimes, but remains aware that they have sinned.
And so they do not merit the forgiveness that it gives.

This is the false forgiveness which the world employs to KEEP the sense
of sin alive. And recognizing God is just, it seems impossible His
pardon could be real. Thus is the fear of God the sure result of seeing
pardon as unmerited. No-one who sees himself as guilty can avoid the
fear of God. But he is saved from this dilemma if he can forgive. The
mind must think of its Creator as it looks upon itself. If you can see
your brother merits pardon, you have learned forgiveness is your right
as much as his. Nor will you think that God intends for you a fearful
judgement which your brother does not merit. For it is the truth that
you can merit neither more nor less than he.

Forgiveness recognized as merited will heal. It gives the miracle its
strength to overlook illusions. This is how you learn that you must be
forgiven, too. There can be no appearance that can NOT be overlooked.
For if there were, it would be necessary first there be some sin which
stands beyond forgiveness. There would be an error that is more than a
mistake; a special form of error which remains unchangeable, eternal,
and beyond correction or escape. There would be one mistake which had the
power to undo creation, and to make a world which could replace it, and
destroy the Will of God. Only if this were possible could there be some
appearances which could withstand the miracle, and not be healed by it.

There is no surer proof idolatry is what you wish than a belief there
are some forms of sickness and of joylessness forgiveness cannot heal.
This means that you prefer to keep some idols, and are not prepared, as
yet, to let all idols go. And thus you think that some appearances are
real, and not appearances at all. Be not deceived about the meaning of a
fixed belief that some appearances are harder to look past than others
are. It ALWAYS means you think forgiveness must be limited. And you have
set a goal of partial pardon and a limited escape from guilt for YOU.
What can this be except a false forgiveness of yourself, and everyone
who seems apart from you?

It must be true the miracle can heal ALL forms of sickness, or it cannot
heal. Its purpose cannot be to judge which forms are real, and which
appearances are true. If one appearance must remain apart from healing,
one illusion must be part of truth. And you could not escape all guilt,
but only some of it. You must forgive God’s Son ENTIRELY. Or you will
keep an image of yourself that is not whole, and will remain afraid to
look within, and find escape from every idol there. Salvation rests on
faith there CANNOT be some forms of guilt which you cannot forgive. And
so there cannot be appearances which have replaced the truth about God’s
Son.

Look on your brother with the willingness to see him as he is. And do
not keep a part of him outside your willingness that he be healed. To
heal is to make whole. And what is whole can have no missing parts that
have been kept outside. Forgiveness rests on recognizing this, and being
glad there cannot be some forms of sickness which the miracle must lack
the power to heal.

God’s Son is perfect, or he cannot BE God’s Son. Nor will you know him,
if you think he does not merit the escape from guilt in ALL its forms
and ALL its consequence. There is no way to think of him but this, if
you would know the truth about yourself:

“I thank you, Father, for your perfect Son, And in his glory will I
see my own.”

Here is the joyful statement that there are no forms of evil which can
overcome the Will of God; the glad acknowledgment that guilt has not
succeeded by your wish to make illusions real. And what
is this except a simple statement of the truth?

Look on your brother with this hope in you, and you will understand he
could not make an error that could change the truth in him. It is not
difficult to overlook mistakes that have been given no effects. But what
you see as having power to make an idol of the Son of God you will NOT
pardon. For he has become to you a graven image, and a sign of death. Is
THIS your Savior? Is his Father wrong about His Son? Or have YOU been
deceived in him who has been given you to heal, for YOUR salvation and
deliverance?