Goldwin Smith

“ At present there seems to be no key other than that which may be suggested by the connection of effort with virtue and the progress of a collective humanity.
At the same time, we may apparently dismiss belief in a great personal power of evil and in his realm of everlasting torture. The independent origin of such a power of evil is unthinkable; so is the struggle between the two powers and its end. There is no absolutely distinct line between good and evil. ”

“ That with Jesus of Nazareth there came into the world, and by his example and teaching was introduced and propagated a moral ideal which, embodied in Christendom, and surviving through all these centuries the action of hostile forces the most powerful, not only from without, but from within, has uplifted, purified, and blessed humanity is a historical fact. With the civilization of Christendom no other civilization can compare. But we have been accustomed to believe that there was a miraculous revelation of the Deity. ”

“ What the end of the colossal man is to be seems undetermined. The Positivist Church has produced very good and beautiful lives, but its power as a religion to go alone would be more clearly seen were not Christianity at its side.
Is there or is there not after all something in human nature apparently unsusceptible of physical explanation and seeming to point to the possibility of a higher state of being? Evolution may ultimately explain our general frame, emotional and intellectual, as well as physical. It may in time explain the marvels of imagination and memory. ”

“ Are these not clearly cases of human imagination set at work by a Jewish superstition? Is it possible that they should have had a place in a divine narrative of the life of the Saviour of the world? The Fourth Gospel omits them. Orthodoxy would fain persuade itself that this was to avoid unnecessary repetition.
Satan from the top of a mountain shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth. This seems to imply belief that the earth is a plane. The movement of the star of the Nativity seems to imply belief in the rotation of the heavens. ”

“ Were the Old Testament a Divine revelation it would certainly be free from error concerning the works of Deity, which plainly it is not. The narrative in Genesis of creation, compared with other primitive cosmogonies, is rational as well as sublime. ”

“ But beyond conformity to law, social or political, is there not, in the highest specimens of our race at least, a conception of an ideal of character and an effort to rise to it which seem to point to a more spiritual sphere? ”

“ Whether the whole is moving towards any end and, if it is, what that end is to be, we cannot hope to divine. When with Infinity we take into our thought Eternity, past and future, if in Eternity there can be said to be past or future, our minds are completely overwhelmed.
Is belief in a future life generally holding its ground? ”

“ When in connection with the question of American slavery attention was specially directed to the social law of Moses, no careful reader could fail to be greatly struck by its advanced humanity and civilization. Nevertheless, the morality of the Old Testament is tribal, while that of the New Testament is universal. The tribal character of the Old Testament morality is seen in the destruction of the first-born in Egypt in order to force Pharaoh to let the Chosen People go ”

“ Astronomical science is now making us distinctly feel that this world is only one, and, if magnitude is to be the measure, very far from the most important, of myriads of worlds governed by the same physical laws as ours, forming a system of which ours is a member, while the destiny of the whole system is to us utterly inscrutable ”

“ We have hitherto, largely, perhaps, under the influence of the Bible, been fancying rather than thinking that this little earth of ours was the centre of all things, the special object of interest to the Creator ”

“ It is conceivable that, now as on some former occasions, the range of discovery may have been overrated and the pendulum of opinion may consequently have swung too far. Evolution, apparently, has still a wide space to traverse, even in what may be assumed to be the material sphere. ”

“ Keepers and ministers of truth, as they are understood to be, they alone are debarred by ordination vows and tests from the free quest of truth. They are ecclesiastically bound not only to hold, but to teach and preach, as divinely revealed, what many of them must feel to have been disproved or to have become doubtful. ”

“ Is it possible to believe, in face of doubtful authenticity, contradictions as to fact, and traces of local superstition, that the New Testament any more than the Old was dictated by Deity? Inspired by the creative power, in common with the other works of creative beneficence, as a part of the general plan, the New Testament may have been. Its morality is not tribal, but universal. "God is a Spirit ”

“ The religious disturbance shows itself at the same time in the prevalence of wild superstitions, such as Spiritualism, rising out of the grave of religious faith, and attesting the lingering craving for the supernatural, somewhat like the mysteries of Isis after the fall of national religion at Rome. ”

“ Bishop Butler's grand argument for belief in the possibility of a future life goes upon the supposition that our conscious personality is distinct and separable from our perishable frame, and is in itself "indiscerptible," so that there is no reason why it should not survive the death of the body. ”

“ Hollow profession cannot fail to impair mental integrity, or, if generally suspected, to kill confidence in our guides. Read Canon Farrar's "Life of Christ" and you will see to what shifts orthodoxy puts a clerical writer who was, no doubt, a sincere lover of truth. ”

“ The writer has even seen the pastorate of a large parish assumed by one who in private society was an evident rationalist and must have satisfied his conscience by promising to himself that he would do a great deal of social good. ”

“ It is shown by a growing tendency on the part of pastors to slide from the office of spiritual guide into that of leader of philanthropic effort and social reform. It is seen, perhaps, even in the tendency to give increased prominence to musical attraction in the service. Sermons grow more secular. ”

“ To prove that it ever has survived the death of the body, or to show the mode of its survival, the Bishop does not attempt. But Butler lived long before Evolution and the general advance of physiology in these later days. ”