We learn thereby not to
despise learning and philosophy, but to beware of lowering the
authority and of no value at all in the Christian religion; for now,
even now, you do not stick to say that even the duty of going to God
by Christ is one of these, and such a one as, if absolutely
considered in itself, is neither good nor evil.
How, then, if God should cast you into Turkey, where Mahomet reigns
as lord? it is but reckoning that it is the religion and custom of
the country, and that which is authorized by the power that is
there; wherefore, it is but sticking to your dictates of human
nature, and remembering that coming to God by Christ is a thing of
an indifferent nature in itself, and then for peace' sake and to
sleep in a whole skin, you may comply and do as your superior
commands. Why? because in Turkey are your first sort of fundamentals
all found; there are men that have human nature and the law of
morals written in their hearts; they have also the dictates thereof
written within them, which teach them those you call the eternal
laws of righteousness: wherefore you both would agree in your
essential and immutable differences of good and evil, and differ
only about these positive laws--indifferent things. Yea, and Mahomet
also for the time, because by a custom it is made convenient, might
be now accounted worshipful; and the circumstances that attend his
worship, especially those of them that clash not with the dictates
of your human nature, might also be swallowed down.
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