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Sunday, November 27, 2022

Tolerance and respect for other points of view (John Milton paragraph in #AREOPAGITICA)

 For if we be sure we are in the right

and do not hold the truth guiltily,

which becomes not,

if we ourselves condemn not our own

weak and frivolous teaching, and

the people for an untaught and irreligious

gadding rout, what can be more fair,

than when a man judicious, learned,

and of a conscience, for aught

we know as good as theirs as taught

us what we know, shall not privily

from house to house, which is more

dangerous, but openly by writing

publish to the world what his opinion

is, what his reasons, and wherefore

that which is not thought cannot be

sound.  Christ urged it as wherewith

to justify himself that he preached

in public (Gosp.John 18:19-20), yet 

writing is more public than preaching

and more easy in refutation, if

need be, there being so many whose

business and profession merely it is

to be the champions of truth, which

if they neglect, what can be imputed 

but their sloth or inability?

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