Modern religionists profess to be disciples of Christ, and talk high
of the perfect morality of the New Testament, when they certainly
do not submit their understanding to it, and are no more like to the
first disciples than bishops are like the pennyless apostles. One
critic tells me that _I know_ that the above is _not_ the true
interpretation of the apostolic doctrine. Assuredly I am aware that we
may rebuke "the world" and "worldliness," in a legitimate and modified
sense, as being the system of _selfishness_: true,--and I have avowed
this in another work; but it does not follow that Jesus and the
apostles did not go farther: and manifestly they did. The true
disciple, who would be perfect as his Master, was indeed ordered to
sell all, give to the poor and follow him; and when that severity was
relaxed by good sense, it was still taught that things which lasted
to the other side of the grave alone deserved our affection or our
exertion. If any person thinks me ignorant of the Scriptures for being
of this judgment, let him so think; but to deny that I am sincere in
my avowal, is a very needless insolence.

4. I am sensible how heavy a clog on the exercise of my judgment has
been taken off from me, since I unlearned that Bibliolatry, which I am
disposed to call the greatest religious evil of England.

Authority has a place in religious teaching, as in education, but it
is provisional and transitory. Its chief use is to guide _action_,
and assist the formation of habits, before the judgment is ripe. As
applied to mere _opinion_, its sole function is to guide inquiry. So
long as an opinion is received on authority only, it works no inward
process upon us: yet the promulgation of it by authority, is not
therefore always useless, since the prominence thus given to it may
be a most important stimulus to thought. While the mind is inactive or
weak, it will not wish to throw off the yoke of authority: but as soon
as it begins to discern error in the standard proposed to it, we have
the mark of incipient original thought, which is the thing so valuable
and so difficult to elicit; and which authority is apt to crush. An
intelligent pupil seldom or never gives _too little_ weight to the
opinion of his teacher: a wise teacher will never repress the free
action of his pupils' minds, even when they begin to question his
results. "Forbidding to think" is a still more fatal tyranny than
"forbidding to marry:" it paralyzes all the m