Toleration of Intolerance
Job 19:28
But you should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?


One of the hardest things in this world is, for the tolerant to have to tolerate intolerance, for the liberal to have to endure illiberality, for the charitable to have to put up with bigotry. We can conceive of an intolerant person being vexed by the intolerance of others; but it is because their intolerance is not of the same kind as his own. To the abettors of particular theological tenets, and the adherents of particular religious systems, such terms as intolerance, illiberality, and uncharitableness, convey no meaning. With them there are no such things. According to their notions, you cannot be too intolerant, so long as you are orthodox; nor too illiberal, so long as you are correct; nor too uncharitable, so long as you are on the right side; which singularly enough, usually happens to be the strong side. Intolerance, in their eyes, is nothing but consistency. It is hard to have to tolerate intolerance. This is what the patriarch had to do, throughout and in addition to the sore calamities permitted by the Almighty to fall upon him. It was a case in which anyone might well have cried, "Save me from my friends." The book is filled with the recriminations of the friends on one side, and the remonstrances of Job on the other. But the cause pleaded by the patriarch was the cause of humanity at large, against Jewish and every other form of intolerance If you see a man bearing good fruits in his life, knowing somewhat of himself and more of God, — though he may not agree in all points with you, speak as you speak, or use the forms you use, — do not suspect him, think the worse of him, or disparage him; but say, rather, to the confusion of all who would do so, "Why should I persecute him, seeing the root of the matter is found in him?"

(Alfred Bowen Evans.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?

WEB: If you say, 'How we will persecute him!' because the root of the matter is found in me,




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