Taylor: entering on your neighbor's privacy

Thursday, November 9, 2017
    Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433
Meditation:
    We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat. And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right.
    —2 Thessalonians 3:11-13
Quotation:
    Let us not enquire into the affairs of others that concern us not, but be busied within ourselves and our own spheres; ever remembering that to pry into the actions or interests of other men not under our charge, may minister to pride, to tyranny, to uncharitableness, to trouble, but can never consist with modesty; unless where duty, or the mere intentions of charity and relation, do warrant it... Knock therefore at the door before you enter upon your neighbor’s privacy; and remember that there is no difference between entering his house and looking into it.
    ... Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), Holy Living [1650], in The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, D.D., v. III, London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1847, p. 79,81 (see the book)
    See also 2 Thess. 3:11-13; Rom. 12:18; Col. 4:5; 1 Thess. 4:11; 1 Tim. 3:7; 5:13
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, teach me to be respectful of others’ privacy. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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