Charles Dodgson Quotes
The two great principles, which have since that period stood in perpetual opposition to each other — Liberty of Opinion and Unity of Faith — which have formed the line of demarcation between the Dissenter and the Churchman, and have ever found a debatable border-ground within the Church itself, have now, upon that ground, been forced by circumstances into something like an open and regular conflict, each claiming alike the principles and the acts of the Reformed Church for its support.
Charles Dodgson, 1800–1868, English clergyman & Archdeacon of Richmond, Father of Lewis Carroll, The Controversy of Faith, 1850
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Anne was a Protestant but her father James II was a Roman Catholic. There was always suspicion about her true religious allegiance by the extremists in the Church of England. The Act of Toleration, despite its name, required the Church of England to be the established church and the sovereign’s to be the heads of the church.
While the Visigoths had some very advanced legal principles, this law, quoted in its entirety is typical of the nations that were part of the Catholic world. The church and its doctrines were immune from any possible criticism, explicit or implicit. This is the most formalized and sophisticated compendium of laws of the so-called “barbaric peoples” of Europe. The compilation was in many ways a documentation of the traditional laws of the Visigoths that had evolved over hundreds of years.
This is a particularly interesting historical quotation because it succinctly gives a history of the various horrors of religious strife in British history—a history that was very well known to the American Founding Fathers and the general American Colonial population. This history was the major driver behind the public insistence for the Bill of Rights and the 1st Amendment which erected a wall of separation between church and state with government never favoring or abetting any particular religion.
English history has been replete with Catholic-Protestant conflict and because of the British Empire, the British historians were very familiar with the Islamic conflict with Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and other religions. Toynbee was very worried about the future religious struggles and he turned out to be right. Freedom isi amenable to different interpretations and compromise. Religion also has different interpretations, but many of the religious fundamentalists see compromise as an offence to God and his word. So religion is less amenable to political, civil or social structuring and compromise.
There are no issues, moral, military, political, economic, or social that have vexed British society for as long as the issues raised by Ireland and its complex relationship with Great Britain.
Locke wrote the Charter of South Carolina in which any 7 people could assemble and form a church including:
Carroll was writing to Troy during the time of the question of Catholic emancipation in England. Here he is clearly alluding to the British form of government. Carroll never missed the opportunity to champion religious freedom as manifested in the U.S. Constitution. For an earlier example of his praise for religious freedom, see {596933}.
Pen name: Jack Nipps
At the time, almost every nation or colony had an established religion, and there came a group that believed that if there was freedom of conscience, there would be more loyalty and security. The king describes this notion as a “lively experiment” and it was, but it was successful and became the religious model for the new United States.
Despite this clear statement, later the Colonial legislature withdrew the franchise from Roman Catholics. See {624149}. Despite this temporary restriction of religious freedom, Rhode Island and Connecticut were far ahead of the other New England colonies in freedom of conscience.
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
Charles Dodgson was an Anglican cleric, scholar and author. He was the father of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll.
