Selected quad for the lemma: love_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A55471
|
A letter to Mr. Penn with his answer
|
Popple, William, d. 1708.; Penn, William, 1644-1718.
|
1688
(1688)
|
Wing P2964; ESTC R19135
|
11,796
|
8
|
the Cause is too good to be in pain about it I ever understood That to be the natural Right of all men and that he that had a Religion without it his Religion was one of his own For what is not the Religion of a man's choice is the Religion of him that opposes it So that Liberty of Conscience is the first Step to have a Religion This is no new Opinion with me I have writ many Apologies within the last twenty years to defend it and that impartially Yet I have as constantly declared that Bounds ought to be set to this Freedom and that Morality was the best and that as often as That was violated under a pretence of Conscience it was fit the Civil Power should take place Nor did I ever once think of promoting any sort of Liberty of Conscience for any body which did not preserve the Common Protestancy of the Kingdom and the Antient Rights of the Government For to say Truth the one cannot be maintained without the other Upon the whole matter I must say I love England I ever did so and that I am not in her Debt I never valued Time Money or Kindred to serve her and do her good No Party could ever byass me to her Prejudice nor any Personal interest oblige me in her wrong For I alwaies abhor'd discounting Private Favours to the Publick Cost Would I have made my Market of the Fears and Jealousies of People when this King came to the Crown I had put Twenty Thousand Pounds in my Pocket and a Hundred Thousand into my 〈◊〉 For mighty numbers of People were then upon the Wing but I wav'd it all hop'd for better times expected the Effect of the Kings Word for Liberty of Conscience and Happiness by it and till I saw my own Friends with the Kingdom deliver'd from the Legal Bondage which Penal Laws for Religion had subjected them to I could with no Satisfaction think of leaving England though much to my Prejudice beyond Sea and at my great Expence here having in all this time never had either Office or Pension and always refusing the Rewards or Gratuities of those I have been able to oblige If therefore an Vniversal Charity if the asserting an Impartial Liberty of Conscience if doing to others as one would be done by and an open avowing and steady practising of these things in all time to all Parties will justly lay a Man under the Reflection of being a Iesuit or Papist of any Rank I must not only submit to the Character but imbrace it too and I care not who knows that I can wear it with more Pleasure than it is possible for them with any Justice to give it me For these are Corner Stones and Principles with me and I am scandalized at all Buildings that have them not for their Foundations For Religion it self is an empty Name without them A Whited-Wall a Painted Sepulcher No Life or Vertue to the Soul No good Example to one Neighbour Let us not flatter our selves We can never be the better for our Religion if our Neighbour be the worse for it Our fault is we are apt to be mighty hot upon speculative Errors and break all Bounds in our Resentments but we let practical ones pass without Remark if not without Repentance As if a mistake about an obscure Proposition of Faith were a greater evil than the breach of an undoubted Precept Such a Religion the Devils themselves are not without for they have both Faith and Knowledg but their Faith doth not work by Love nor their Knowledg by Obedience And if this be their Judgment can it be our Blessing Let us not then think Religion a litigious thing nor that Christ came only to make us good Disputants but that he came also to make us good Livers Sincerity goes farther than Capacity It is Charity that deservedly excels in the Christian Religion and happy would it be if where Vnity ends Charity did begin instead of Envy and Railing that almost ever follow It appears to me to be the way that God has found out and appointed to moderate our Differences and make them at least harmless to Society and therefore I confess I dare not aggravate them to Wrath and Blood. Our Disagreement lies in our Apprehension or belief of things and if the common Enemy of Mankind had not the governing of our Affections and Passions that Disagreement would not prove such a Canker as it is to Love and Peace in Civil Societies He that suffers his Difference with his Neighbour about the other World to carry him beyond the Line of Moderation in this is the worse for his Opinion even tho it be true It is too little considered by Christians that men may hold the Truth in Vnrighteousness that they may be Orthodox and not know what Spirit they are of So were the Disciples of our Lord they believed in him yet let a false Zeal do violence to their Judgment and their unwarrantable heat contradict the great end of their Saviours coming Love. Men may be angry for God's sake and kill People too Christ said it and too many have practised it But what sort of Christians must they be I pray that can hate in his Name who bids us love and kill for his sake that forbids killing and command love even to Enemies Let not Men or Parties think to shift it off from themselves 'T is not this Principle or that Form to which so great a Defection is owing but a degeneracy of Mind from God Christianity is not at Heart no fear of God in the inward part no aw of his Divine Omnipresence Self prevails and breaks out more or less through all Forms but too plainly Pride Wrath Lust Avarice so that though People say to God Thy will be done they do their own which shews them to be true Heathens under a mask of Christianity that believe without Works and repent without forsaking busie for Forms and the Temporal Benefits of them while true Religion which is to Visit the Fatherless and the Widdow and to keep our selves unspotted from the World goes barefoot and like Lazarus is despised Yet this was the Definition the Holy Ghost gave of Religion before Synods and Councils had the medling with it and modeling of it In those days Bowels were a good part of Religion and that to the Fatherless and Widow at large We can hardly now extend them to those of our own way It was said by him that could not say amiss Because Iniquity abounds the Love of many waxes old Whatsoever divides mans Heart from God separates it from his Neighbour and he that loves self more than God can never love his Neighbour as himself For as the Apostle said if we do not love him whom we see how can we love God whom we have not seen O that we could see some men as eager to turn People to God as they are to blow them up and set them one against another