This is a letter that I found interesting, from Benjamin Franklin to his parents, responding to his mother's concern that he might be straying from the One True Faith.
[Note: I added some paragraph breaks to make it more readable. Franklin was fond of paragraphs that ran a page or more.]
April 13, 1738
Honour'd Father and Mother
I have your Favor of the 21st of March in which you both seem concern'd lest I have imbib'd some erroneous Opinions. Doubtless I have my Share, and when the natural Weakness and Imperfection of Human Understanding is considered, with the unavoidable Influences of Education, Custom, Books and Company, upon our Ways of thinking, I imagine a Man must have a good deal of Vanity who believes, and a good deal of Boldness who affirms, that all the Doctrines he holds, are true; and all he rejects, are false. And perhaps the same may be justly said of every Sect, Church and Society of men which they assume to themselves the Infallibility which they deny to the Popes and Councils.
I think Opinions should be judg'd of by by their Influences and Effects; and if a Man holds none that tend to make him less Virtuous or Vicious, it may be concluded he holds none that are dangerous; which I hope is the Case with me.
I am sorry you should have any Uneasiness on my Account, and if it were a thing possible for one to alter his Opinions in order to please others, I know none whom I ought more willingly to oblige in that respect than yourselves: But since it is no more in a Man's Power to think than to look like another, methinks all that should be expected from me is to keep my Mind open to Conviction, to hear patiently and examine attentively whatever is offered to me for that end; and if after all I continue in the same Errors, I believe your usual Charity will induce you rather to pity and excuse than blame me. In the mean time your Care and Concern for me is what I am very thankful for.
As to the Freemasons, unless she will believe me when I assure her that they are in general a very harmless sort of People; and have no principles or Practices that are inconsistent with Religion or good Manners, I know no Way of giving my Mother a better Opinion of them than she seems to have at present (since it is not allow'd that Women should be admitted into that secret Society), She has, I must confess, on that Account, some reason to be displeas'd with it; but for any thing else, I must entreat her to suspend her Judgment till she is better inform'd, and in the mean time exercise her Charity.
My Mother grieves that one of her Sons is an Arian, another an Arminian. What an Arminian or an Arian is, I cannot say that I very well know; the Truth is, I make such Distinctions very little my Study; I think vital Religion has always suffer'd, when Orthodoxy is more regarded than Virtue. And the Scripture assures me, that at the last Day, we shall not be examin'd what we thought, but what we did; and our Recommendation will not be that we said Lord, Lord, but that we did GOOD to our Fellow Creatures. See Matth. 2[5].
[Stuff about the weather and family follows.]
I am Your dutiful Son
BF
2 comments:
OMG BF is so cool! I was in a discussion a few weeks ago about this: some people are convicted to their One And Only Truth, seeing other paths as "wrong," and as dead ends, especially if inspiration and knowledge arose from multiple sources.
It was a pleasure to read this. My dad was an expert on BF (he was also a prof. of American History at WSU). I say was, but in a sense I suppose he still is.
I approach those discussions thusly:
1. Do you think your understanding of God is perfect? (If they answer yes, there's no point in continuing. Otherwise . . .)
2. Do you think god accepts you, despite your imperfect understanding? (Typically, answer is yes.)
3. But you don't think that he does the same for others?
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