“And whosever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven.
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If we are bound to search after what our Lord means—and he speaks that we may understand—we are at least equally bound to refuse any interpretation which seems to us unlike him, unworthy of him. He himself says, “Why do ye not of your own selves judge what is right?” Some misapprehension may cause us to refuse the true interpretation, but we are none the less bound to refuse and wait for more light. To accept anything as the will of our Lord which to us is inconsistent with what we have learned to worship in him already, is to introduce discord into that harmony whose end is to unite our hearts and make them whole.
He requires of us that we should do him no injustice. He would come and dwell with us, if we would but open our chambers to receive him. How shall we receive him if, avoiding the judging of what is right, we hold this or that daub of authority or tradition hanging up on our walls to be the real likeness of our Lord? We may close our doors against the Master himself as an impostor, not finding him like the picture that hangs in our oratory. Better to refuse even the truth for a time, than, by accepting into our intellectual creed that which our heart cannot receive, not seeing its real form, to introduce hesitation into our prayers and a misery into our love. If it be the truth, we shall one day see it other than it appears now, and love it because we see it lovely; for all truth is lovely.
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