And what that should be in
us, by which we were like to God, and might be rightly said to be
after the image of God, I was altogether ignorant.
Nor knew I that true inward righteousness which judgeth not
according to custom, but out of the most rightful law of God Almighty,
whereby the ways of places and times were disposed according to
those times and places; itself meantime being the same always and
every where, not one thing in one place, and another in another;
according to which Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and
David, were righteous, and all those commended by the mouth of God;
but were judged unrighteous by silly men, judging out of man's
judgment, and measuring by their own petty habits, the moral habits of
the whole human race. As if in an armory, one ignorant of what were
adapted to each part should cover his head with greaves, or seek to be
shod with a helmet, and complain that they fitted not: or as if on a
day when business is publicly stopped in the afternoon, one were
angered at not being allowed to keep open shop, because he had been in
the forenoon; or when in one house he observeth some servant take a
thing in his hand, which the butler is not suffered to meddle with; or
something permitted out of doors, which is forbidden in the
dining-room; and should be angry, that in one house, and one family,
the same thing is not allotted every where, and to all.
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