Life & Wisdom Quote by William Gurnall

A 17th-century Puritan doesn’t argue for “tolerance” because it feels nice; he argues for it because grace is the architecture of reality. Gurnall’s line is a compact piece of moral leverage: if Christ can “bear with” the flaws of the saints, then the saints have no plausible excuse for refusing patience with each other. The wording is shrewd. “Bears with” suggests ongoing strain, not a one-time pardon. Imperfections aren’t a scandal that disproves holiness; they’re the expected friction of a sanctification process still underway.

The pivot phrase “well may” does heavy lifting. It’s not merely advice; it’s moral math. Christ’s forbearance is infinite, yours is finite, but the direction of obligation is obvious. The subtext is corrective: church conflict, pettiness, and factionalism were not abstract problems in Gurnall’s England. In the turbulence of post-Reformation Protestantism, communities that claimed to be “saints” also had a talent for biting and devouring one another over doctrine, discipline, or status. Gurnall’s sentence cuts through the spiritual vanity that fuels those fights: if you need Christ to overlook your rough edges, you don’t get to weaponize someone else’s.

It also quietly redefines what spiritual maturity looks like. Not intensity, not purity signaling, not winning theological arguments, but the Christlike stamina of staying charitable while annoyed. The quote works because it turns compassion from a personality trait into a theological requirement, and it does so with a single, bracing comparison.