Short Studies on Great SubjectsFroude, James Anthony
Religion
Short Studies on Great Subjects
Froude, James Anthony
English essays; English literature; History; Religion -- Biography
If Mr. Rogers had gone on to explain himself, he would have said,
perhaps, that where the opinions of those best able to judge are
divided, the questions at issue are doubtful. Reasonable men who are
unable to give them special attention withhold their judgment, while
those who are able, form their conclusions with diffidence and modesty.
But theologians will not tolerate diffidence; they demand absolute
assent, and will take nothing short of it; and they affect, therefore,
to drown in foolish ridicule whatever troubles or displeases them. The
Bishop of Oxford talks in the old style of punishment. The Archbishop of
Canterbury refers us to Usher as our guide in Hebrew chronology. The
objections of the present generation of 'infidels,' he says, are the
same which have been refuted again and again, and are such as a child
might answer. The young man just entering upon the possession of his
intellect, with a sense of responsibility for his belief, and more
anxious for truth than for success in life, finds, when he looks into
the matter, that the archbishop has altogether misrepresented it; that
in fact, like other official persons, he had been using merely a
stereotyped form of words, to which he attached no definite meaning. The
words are repeated year after year, but the enemies refuse to be
exorcised. They come and come again, from Spinoza and Lessing to Strauss
and Renan. The theologians have resolved no single difficulty; they
convince no one who is not convinced already; and a Colenso coming
fresh to the subject with no more than a year's study, throws the Church
of England into convulsions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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