A30587:991
Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and…
Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and evils of them : with cautions that we may not be hurt by them, and endeavours to heal them / by Jeremiah Burroughs.Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and evils of them : with cautions that we may not be hurt by them, and endeavours to heal them / by Jeremiah Burroughes.
London: printed for Robert Dawlman, 1653
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The thirteenth joining Principle.
The thirteenth joyning Principle.
If I must needs err, considering what our condition is here in this world, I will rather err by too much gentleness and mildness, then by too much rigour and severity.
If I must needs erre, considering what our condition is here in this world, I will rather erre by too much gentlenesse and mildnesse, then by too much rigour and severity.
Mans nature is more propense to rigour,1 then to lenity; but the account of overmuch lenity is easier then of too much rigour. Men who are of harsh, sour spirits themselves, are ready to think that God is so too. As the Lacedaemonians because they were of a warlike disposition, they represented their Gods all armed. But God is love: there is anger and hatred in God as well as love: but God is never said to be anger or hatred, no not justice it self; but he loves that expression of himself to the children of men, God is love. If God intended that all things amongst men, either in Church or Common-wealth, should be carried with strictness of justice, he would rather have governed his Church and the World by Angels, who have right apprehensions of justice, who are themselves perfect, altogether free from those evils that are to be punished, then by men, whose apprehensions of justice are exceeding weak, unconstant, partial, as often false as true, and have much of that evil in themselves that they judge in others.