In all things there must be order, but it must of such a kind as is possible to observe...to see a man burnt for doing as he thought right, harms the people, for this is a matter of conscience.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that order is essential, but it must allow for individual conscience and moral actions without leading to harm.
William The Silent highlights the tension between societal order and individual conscience. While order is necessary for a functioning society, it should not suppress individual beliefs and actions that are morally right. The harm caused when someone is punished for acting according to their conscience undermines the very fabric of society, as it disregards personal integrity and moral judgment.
In practice
A speaker at a community meeting could use this quote to emphasize the importance of ethical decision-making.
If you say, Well, OK, I don't believe in God. There's no evidence of God, then you're missing the stars in the sky and you're missing the sunrises and sunsets and you're missing the fact that bees pollinate all these crops and keep us alive and the way that everything seems to work together. Everything is sort of built in a way that to me suggests intelligent design.
When God wants to drive a person insane, he grants that person's every wish.
To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.
People were always sorry. Sorry they had done what they had done, sorry they were doing what they were doing, sorry they were going to do what they were going to do; but they still did whatever it is. The sorrow never stopped them; it just made them feel better. And so the sorrow never stopped.
I've had years of bizarre hallucinogenic magical experiences in which I believed I had communicated with entities that may well have been disassociated parts of my own personality or conceivably some independent entity of a metaphysical nature. Both would seem equally interesting.
Faith means wanting God and wanting to want nothing else.
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