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Untitled Article
to suffer many to remain in darkness , which he afterwards also enlightened ; and
therefore , their faith and worship , if it be sincere , must necessarily and unavoidably differ , according to the different root of light upon
wLich it grows . Surely babes m Christ and strong men differ much in . their apprehensions and comprehensions of the objects of faith , and much more those that are not yet born m Christ , though appointed unto regeneration , and it may be instructed like Cornelius , in some things .
And as to opinions about worship , the thoughts of men must naturally be different , as the mind of one Exceeds another in clearness of light , aiid capacity of judging ; now when the most
powerful party seeks by force and punishments to constrain the governed or conquered , to subscribe to their faith and opinions , without regard to their own light
or understandings ; doth it not , as much as is in man ' s power ^ banish all dependance upoii the spirit of God for light out of men ' s minds , and constrain them to put out the candle of God within them , that
is , the light of their own understandings , and induce them for their worldly respects and safety , to profess , a faith and practise a 'worship , which they neither do nor dare understand ? And by
continuance to contract a blindness of mind arid hardness of heart ; and is it possible to practise a design more opposite to true religion , and the propagation of it ? And it is evident that
those of false religions , under a pretence of honouring God , by forcing men to be rfcligkms , have blinded millions of thousands with
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false worships . And also , tbaft such as have professed the true religion in substance , have wickedly Opposed the further
enlightening work of the spirit of God , and caused thousands , for fear of punishment to rest satisfied in the profession of a faith and worship which they understand not , and therefore can-have no true
religion in them . And histories will tell plentifully how pernicious the quarrels , grounded only upon difference in matters of faith , have been to mankind ; an honest pen would tremble to relate the
murders and massacres , the dreadful wars and confusions , aad the ruins and desolations of countries , that have been upon this account ; and the same must be to the
world's etid > if difference in opinions about religious worship and matters of faith should be admit , ted to be a sufficient ground of quarrels : errors and differences
in mens understandings are from natural , unavoidable infirmity , which ought not to be the objects of punishments or men ' s angers ; it is not more likely , that God should make all men ' s
understandings equal in their capacity of judgiag , or give to all an equal means , or measure of knowledge , than that he should make all men ' s faces alike .
Why then , say the Levellers , should any man quarrel at another whose opinion or faith is not like to his ; more than athim , whose nose is not like to his ? Therefore , say they , let us be unanimous in seeking an establishment
of equal freedom and security to the whole people , of the best provisions for commutative and distributive justice , without partiality } and of the best means of instruct-
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g # Trinciphs of the Levellers , 1659 ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1811, page 90, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2413/page/26/
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