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Mark Frank on Christian civility
The Revd Mark Frank (1613-1664)
ST JAMES warns in our reading at Evensong tonight (Jas 3),
THE tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature.
When we speak of Anglicanism as a via media or a religion of moderation, we should maybe bear this in mind.
IT IS none of Christ’s religion that teaches men to be uncivil; no, not to return one incivility with another: no, not “revile again though we be reviled,” says S. Peter (1 Pet 2:23), and brings Christ for an example. Others doing us wrong, nay shrewdly persecuting us too, will not authorize us to do it, to requite our very persecutors with any incivility.
A good memorandum for those who make it an especial sign of their being better Christians than others, to be rude and uncivil to their betters, to be saucy and unmannerly to any, to all that run not riot with them into the same madness and folly, sacrilege and heresy; that cannot be content to do men wrong, and rob them of their dues, but must do it with ill language and incivility.
They forget, sure, “the Lord is at hand;” that there is any such thing as a Lord, any superior above them, either at hand or afar off, either in this world or in the other. The Apostle’s επιείκεια is for moderation in this point too, civil and handsome terms, gestures, and carriage; that we should carry ourselves like men, at least, if we will not like Christians.
The Revd Mark Frank (1613-1664). Sermon for The Fourth Sunday In Advent
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