Phases of Faith; Or, Passages from the History of My Creed

I first began to read religious books at school, and especially the Bible, when I was eleven years old; and almost immediately commenced a habit of secret prayer. But it was not...

My second period is characterized, partly by the great ascendancy exercised over me by one powerful mind and still more powerful will, partly by the vehement effort which throug...

First, I had found that the class of Christians with whom I had been joined had exploded the old Creeds in favour of another of their own, which was never given me upon authorit...

It has been stated that I had already begun to discern that it was impossible with perfect honesty to defend every tittle contained in the Bible. Most of the points which give m...

I reckon my fifth period to begin from the time when I had totally abandoned the claim of "the Canon" of Scripture, however curtailed, to be received as the object of faith, as...

After renouncing any "Canon of Scripture" or Sacred Letter at the end of my fourth period, I had been forced to abandon all "Second-hand Faith" by the end of my fifth. If asked...

Let no reader peruse this chapter, who is not willing to enter into a discussion, as free and unshrinking, concerning the personal excellencies and conduct of Jesus, as that of...

have described men's spiritual progress as often arrested at a certain stage by a want of intellectual development; which surely would indicate that I believed even intellectual...

If any Christian reader has been patient enough to follow me thus far, I now claim that he will judge my argument and me, as before the bar of God, and not by the conventional s...

This small treatise was reviewed, unfavourably of course, in most of the religious periodicals, and among them in the "Prospective Review," by my friend James Martineau. I had b...