When Abraham sat at his tent door, according to his custom,
waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old man, stooping
and leaning on his staff, weary with age and travail, coming
towards him, who was a hundred years of age; he received him
kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, caused him to sit
down; but observing that the old man ate and prayed not, nor
begged a blessing on his meat, he asked him why he did not
worship the God of heaven. The old man told him that he
worshipped the fire only, and acknowledged no other God. At
which answer Abraham grew so zealously angry, that he threw the
old man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of
the night and an unguarded condition. When the old man was
gone, God called to Abraham, and asked him where the stranger
was. He replied, "I thrust him away, because he did not
worship thee." God answered him, "I have suffered him these
hundred years, though he dishonoured me; and wouldst thou not
endure him one night?"
Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), The Liberty of Prophesying
tags: Tolerance Tolerance ×