If we would be content to sink minor differences, and be satisfied that “in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him,” we should soon meet on better terms; for we do not hold at a distance from those on earth whom we expect to meet in heaven; and thanks be to God, there is no religious persuasion that cannot boast of many such as Cornelius.
St. Paul recommends to the churches that they be “kindly affectioned one towards another, in honour preferring one another:” { 5a} “by this shall men know that ye are my disciples,” says our Great Exemplar, “if ye have love one to another;” but alas! if we contemplate what is called the Christian world, where shall we find Christ’s _true_ disciples? Grievous indeed it is, as has been well observed, that that religion, which “should most correct and sweeten men’s spirits, sours and sharpens them the most.” But surely “_we_ have not so learned Christ.” Let us for a moment contemplate His conduct towards those who differed from him in religious opinions; his compassion towards them; his meek reproofs not only to the Sadducees and the Samaritans, but even to the more hardened; { 5b} and then let us turn to our own hearts and confess with shame that we have fallen miserably short of that charity without which “whosoever liveth is counted dead before God.”
So clear is the command to exercise universal benevolence, that whatever obscurity there may be in other parts of Scripture, however men, even wise ones, may differ as to the real signification of certain passages in the Bible, _here_ at least there can be no cavilling. It is intelligible to the most ignorant as well as the most learned, so that “the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein.”
Archbishop Tillotson relates of Mr. Gouge, an eminent nonconformist, that he allowed men to differ from him in opinions that were “_very dear_ to him;” and provided men did but “fear God and work righteousness,” he loved them heartily, how distant soever from him in judgment about things less necessary: “in all which,” observes the Archbishop, “he is very worthy to be a pattern to men of all persuasions.” “I abhor two principles in religion,” says William Penn in a letter to the same archbishop, “and pity them that own them. The first is obedience upon authority without conviction; and the other, destroying them that differ from me for God’s sake: such a religion is without judgment, though not without truth. Union is best, if right; if not, charity.”