I thought you meant that religious belief involved the substitution of the ordinances for the moral law. That no doubt came to be true in a degree with certain of the pharisees, may be true in a degree with some Christians. But it is not true with the Xtianity in which I was brought up. To Xtians of that kind God's law and the moral law are and must be identical. Hence if it could be shewn that Pacifism was in accordance with the moral law I should have to hold that all war was prohibited by Xtianity. If on the other hand, it can be shewn as I think it can that there is no such prohibition by the Xtian law I cannot admit that the moral law forbids me to support my country in a just war.


Letter to Gilbert Murray (1943), quoted in Jean Smith and Arnold Toynbee (eds.), Gilbert Murray. An Unfinished Autobiography (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1960), pp. 179-180.

Robert Cecil Quotes

I thought you meant that religious belief involved the substitution of the ordinances for the moral law. That no doubt came to be true in a degree...

I thought you meant that religious belief involved the substitution of the ordinances for the moral law. That no doubt came to be true in a degree...

I thought you meant that religious belief involved the substitution of the ordinances for the moral law. That no doubt came to be true in a degree...

I thought you meant that religious belief involved the substitution of the ordinances for the moral law. That no doubt came to be true in a degree...