Apologetics

“ Christian apology has its own sphere, no less than science; and the evidence which the one desiderates is not the supreme life and power of the other. It may not on this account be the less satisfactory or the less rational when the whole life of humanity is looked at.
If we ask ourselves, in conclusion, what is the chief charm of the ‘Pensées,’ we feel inclined to answer,—their touching reality. They are the utterances of one who thought not only deeply but passionately. ”

“ Senor, between men of honor, a misunderstanding is a misunderstanding, and an apology is an apology. I lament the existence of the first; the professor, here, is witness that I lay the second at your feet. ”

“ But if it be not only the wrath of the accuser that strikes the ear, but also the truth of the accusation that stings the conscience, what does it profit me if the whole world were to exalt me with perpetual praise? ”

“ I crave your pardon for this long apology: it is an age where the objections are not feigned, and where our greatest and most costly services of God are charged on us as our greatest sins; and where at once I am accused of conscience for doing no more, and of men for doing so much. ”

“ Did I not, moreover, make it an apology for a certain absence, which some of your friends may have experienced, when you have not on a sudden made recognition of them in a casual street-meeting; and did I not strengthen your excuse for this slowness of recognition by further accounting morally for the present engagement of your mind in worthy objects? Did I not, in your person, make the handsomest apology for absent-of-mind people that was ever made? ”

“ Leave me the right to honour and revere it. Let not an act accompanied with a meanness—oh that I should say the word!—a meanness and a cruelty that give the lie to your whole life— make even a grateful remembrance of you an unworthy sin. When I kneel within the walls that divide me from the world, oh, let me think that I can pray for you as the noblest being that the world contains! ”

“ There may be, and doubtless is, in the hearts of some or many of them a real antipathy or anger against revealed truth, which it is distressing to think of. Again; in many men of science or literature there may be an animosity arising from almost a personal feeling; it being a matter of party, a point of honour, the excitement of a game, or a consequence of soreness or annoyance occasioned by the acrimony or narrowness of apologists for religion, to prove that Christianity or that Scripture is untrustworthy. ”

“ Now, to these three pretexts, let us oppose three incontrovertible truths. To the pretext of the lightness of the faults; that the more the faults which you censure are light, the more is the slander unjust: — first truth. To the pretext of the public notoriety; that the more the faults of our brethren are known, the more cruel is the slander which censures them: — second truth. To the pretext of zeal; that the same charity, which, in piety, makes us hate sinners, makes us likewise cover the multitude of their faults: — last truth. ”

“ Whether unmasked by others, or by myself, is it not equally true that I have been playing false, and am now punished for it? What do the world care for your having returned to truth? You have offended by deceiving them, and that is an offence which your repentance will not extenuate. ”

“ The thought may be shallow and poor in itself, but in such cases it comes not out of the shallows but out of the depths of a mind torn by distracting doubts in the face of the dreadful problems of life.
Out of the same depth of spiritual experience and trenchant moral analysis comes all that is true and valuable in his so-called ‘Apology.’ That the ‘Pensées’ were more or less designed to form such an Apology—to be woven into the plan of a treatise in defence of the Christian religion—seems beyond doubt. ”

“ The dark and uncertain notions, not to say the absolute disbelief, which they entertained of a future state, is the only apology that can be offered for this reasoning. But while we censure their tenets, let us not adopt their errors; errors which would be infinitely more inexcusable in us, who, from the clearer views which revelation has given us, shall not have their ignorance or their doubts to plead. ”

“ If I have rebutted all their charges, word by word, if I have refuted all their slanders, if I am beyond reproach, not only as regards their accusations but also as regards their vulgar abuse, if I have done nothing to impair the honour of philosophy, which is dearer to me than my own safety, but on the contrary have smitten my adversary hip and thigh and vanquished him at all points, if all my contentions are true, I can await your estimate of my character with the same confidence with which I await the exercise of your power ”

“ Thus we ourselves would justify, Though we the law transgress; Like him, unable to deny, Unwilling to confess. But when by faith the sinner sees A pardon bought with blood; Then he forsakes his foolish pleas, And gladly turns to God. ”

“ Herr Officer, you have acted a noble part and it would be a grief if I had not taken the occasion to accept your apology and thank you for the warning which may save the life of one who—believe me—is no longer your foe, if he had been one. I am not able to judge the greatness and loftiness of your act from your people's point of view, but I shall no longer have a mean opinion of the creed which can perform such a conversion as yours—that is, making you a true gentleman instead of leading one to believe you a heartless libertine. ”

“ What apology then, is there to be found for the man, who, in the face of all these facts, and against the convictions of a conscience, if he had one, took occasion upon the going forth of a solemn public document, to parade the absurd crudity of his own "that he held it to be a self-evident truth, that all men were created equal?" ”

“ If I perform good works, and I be praised there for, I find that I can bring an accusation against my mind whilst I flee from the love of approbation, and I can say that I do not deserve this praise, but blame belongeth to evil works, and how shall I be able to comfort my heart, because men are offended at me? ”

“ But, alas! in the matter of apology, it is not from the excess of the dose, but the timid, niggardly, miserly manner in which it is dispensed, that poor Humanity is hurried off to the Styx! How many times does a life depend on the exact proportions of an apology! ”

“ If we have offended, we must take the first step toward reconciliation and apologize; that is the only way we have of repairing the injury done, and to this we are held in conscience. If there is equal blame on both sides, then both are bound to the same duty of offering an apology. ”

“ If we speak to a stranger by mistake, we should ask pardon; and if one speaks to us, we should gracefully accept his apology, as if the mistake were most natural, not adding to his embarrassment by our manner of cold surprise. ”

“ I know how repulsive flattery must be to a nature like yours, but your lordship will pardon one who is no sycophant, who seeks neither to avert your frown nor to gain your favor, who has no sinister object in view, but simply speaks from the fulness of a grateful heart. And you will pardon me if I say that my sentiments are shared by thousands, who hate your creed but respect your character. ”

“ If he sinned through ignorance and false teaching, his punishment will not be heavy; if he hardened his heart against truth and rejected the faith from pride—but even then the Father of Mercy may pardon him. ”

“ You find your conscience does not like a lie, but that it solemnly and dreadfully reproaches the liar; and you find too, my son, that to be holy is the only way to be happy."
"Yes, mamma, I do; but do you think the Saviour will forgive me, and make me happy again?"
"Yes, I have no doubt he will pardon your sin, if you are really sorry, and resolve to be watchful in future." ”

“ Who hold the truth in unrighteousness. It is observable that upon the mention of the dishonour done to God by the idolatry of the Gentiles the apostle, in the midst of his discourse, expresses himself in an awful adoration of God: Who is blessed for ever. ”

“ What also can be more sublime than the apostles, who have not removed themselves from our infirmity? For one of them writes, “In many things we offend all;” [39] and another, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” ”

“ Acknowledging, therefore, how much he sins who denies the truth when he has once come to a knowledge of it, or who adheres to error or heresy, and esteeming more than all, the Word of God, let us celebrate his glory above all things, and live in charity with all men. ”

“ Too shortsighted to reach my full meaning, too narrow-minded to comprehend the largeness of my views, too disingenuous to admit my moral aim—they will, I fear, almost frustrate my good intentions, and pretend to discover in my work an apology for the very vice which it has been my object to condemn, and will perhaps make the poor poet, to whom anything rather than justice is usually accorded, responsible for his simplicity. ”

“ If, in laying open the real causes of our present misery, I am forced to speak with some freedom, I think it will require no apology. Reputation is the smallest sacrifice those can make us, who have been the instruments of our ruin ”

“ Then wilt thou see clearly that the praise and honour of men bring thee no profit, but rather loss, if [89] thou knowest that thou art guilty and worthy of condemnation in the sight of truth. And, just as it is useless to be honoured outwardly by men if thy conscience accuse thee within, so in like manner is it no loss to thee if men despise, blame, or persecute thee without, if within thou art innocent and free from reproach or blame. Nay, rather, thou hast then great reason to rejoice in the Lord in patience, silence, and peace. ”

“ The moral impossibility of the assumptions of these apologies is seen by all who have eyes for seeing things as they are in the fact that if God is credited with the good He must also be debited with the evil. ”

“ Now for this necessary width of the full confirmatory evidence of religion, it is impossible for the religious man, with the utmost desire to make every allowance and apology that is possible, to offer any apology at all. ”

“ I can't forgive myself, and I never shall. And yet if you could know—' He stopped short, and then added quietly, 'Well, will you accept all that as an apology? The very scrubbiest sackcloth made, and the grittiest ashes on the heap. ”

“ It becomes them, therefore, on discovering the error they have committed, humbly to entreat the forgiveness of the charitable for human infirmity, oppressed and weighed down by the fulness of the subject—carefully to abstain in future from every vague expression of commendation, and faithfully to relate a plain, honest tale of unadorned facts. ”

“ Gentlemen, if you require an apology for detaining you so long, I find ample material for that apology in the lively interest in which we must all feel in the comfort and happiness of the other sex, doomed as they are, both by the decrees of Providence and by human institutions, to drink deep of the bitter cup of suffering. ”

“ It is for thee that I am reproached, for serving thee and trusting in thee: For thy sake I have borne reproach." Those that are evil spoken of for well-doing may with a humble confidence leave it to God to bring forth their righteousness as the light. ”

“ This statement I am not prepared to contradict; but I would recommend all men, in choosing a profession, to avoid any that may require an apology at every turn—either an apology or else a somewhat violent assertion of right. ”

“ What greater example need we seek for? The wisest, perhaps the most excellent of men, chose to confess his fault, which he might have concealed, rather than leave the public the least atom of religious guilt ”

“ I might pretend not to know aught of what has been said; I might attempt some elaborate apology. It would be worse than folly from me to you. Let me tell you, that could I have shielded you from this insult with my life, I would have done it.”
“Yes, yes,” she hurriedly answered. ”

“ Begging your pardon for passing between you and the text proper, this is to say that if anything I have reported or confessed offends your sense of propriety, you are to read the offending passage a second time, whereupon you surely will discover evidences of an authorial humility incompatible with real irreverence. And if this apology sounds trite and lame, bear in mind that prefaces are written last, when a man (as when he has just parted from one of you) is completely quelled by a thought of the good things he might, or at least should, have said. ”

“ As a Christian my conscience, as a gentleman my sense of fair play, condemns his action."
"Yes—yes—I sympathize.—I am convinced you are incapable of any indiscretion, any unkindness, in the pulpit or out of it. But why, my dear Canon, apologize to us? How can this unfortunate sermon affect me or my niece? How can the scandal you hint at in any respect concern us?" ”

“ It is now, as it was of old, only too possible to read, or to hear, the most searching and also the most sweeping condemnation of human sin, and to feel a sort of fallacious moral sympathy with the sentence, a phantom as it were of righteous indignation against the wrong and the doers of it, and yet wholly to mistake the matter by thinking that the hearer is righteous though the world is wicked. ”

“ Concerning the mysterious judgments and ways of God the Apology says: "At the same time we do not deny that God does not work alike in all men, enlightening all,—for neither does He give His Word to all,—and that nevertheless He is and remains both just and merciful, and that nobody can justly accuse Him of any unfaithfulness, envy, or tyranny, although He does not, as said, give His Word to all and enlighten them. ”