A55307:71
The Samaritan showing that many and unnecessary impositions are not the oil that must…The Samaritan shewing that many and unnecessary impositions are not the oyl that must…
The Samaritan showing that many and unnecessary impositions are not the oil that must heal the church together with the way or means to do it / by a country gentleman who goes to common-prayer and not to meetings.The Samaritan shewing that many and unnecessary impositions are not the oyl that must heal the church together with the way or means to do it / by a country gentleman who goes to common-prayer and not to meetings.
London: printed for Tho. Simmons, 1682
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.
If Peace and Love may be preserved, amidst some diversity of Opinions, in the lesser things of Religion, and some variety of Practices, also (as I am very sure it may, if nothing else do hinder it) it may be hoped that the Christian world may enjoy ⟨p. 37⟩some quiet once again, and lost Charity, Love and Kindness may revive among the Disciples and Servants of the God of Love and Peace; but if nothing will satisfy the Guides and Rulers of Christendom, but Uniformity in all things; and no Liberty be given for some diversities of Practices, there will be, nor can be, any Peace or Concord upon Earth; for Christians never will agree in many things; nor is it morally possible they should, as I have evinced (I suppose) at large already.
If Peace and Love may be preserved, amidst some diversity of Opinions, in the lesser things of Religion, and some variety of Practices, also (as I am very sure it may, if nothing else do hinder it) it may be hoped that the Christian world may enjoy ⟨p. 37⟩some quiet once again, and lost Charity, Love and Kindness may revive among the Disciples and Servants of the God of Love and Peace; but if nothing will satisfie the Guides and Rulers of Christendom, but Uniformity in all things; and no Liberty be given for some diversities of Practices, there will be, nor can be, any Peace or Concord upon Earth; for Christians never will agree in many things; nor is it morally possible they should, as I have evinced (I suppose) at large already.
The truth is, the idle Dream, the fond Imagination of a possibility of making Christians of one uniform Judgment and Practice, hath filled the Christian world with variance, strife and contentions, with blood, violence, rapine, and oppression, with proscriptions and banishment: Yea hath left little more than the name of Christian Religion in most parts of the world. For that men may be of one Judgment and Practice in Religion, there must be Impositions, and these Impositions must be enforced by Laws, and the contempt or breach of these Laws must be penal, and those penalties must be sharp and severe, and severely executed, and so bring us to such a pass, or else they are only Mockings, and men will laugh at them, and differ still as much as ever.