At Cambridge at
an early date he was one of the 83 members of the Senate who supported
the application to permit the granting of medical degrees without
requiring an expression of assent to the religious doctrines of the
Church of England. And in 1868 he declined to sign a petition against
the abolition of religious declarations required of persons admitted
to Fellowships or proceeding to the degree of M.A. And he was opposed
to every kind of narrowness and exclusiveness. When he was appointed
to the post of Astronomer Royal, he stipulated that he should not be
asked to vote in any political election. But all his views were in the
liberal direction. He was a great reader of theology and church
history, and as regarded forms of worship and the interpretation of
the Scriptures, he treated them with great respect, but from the point
of view of a freethinking layman. In the Preface to his "Notes on the
Earlier Hebrew Scriptures" he says, "In regard to the general tone of
these notes, I will first remark that I have nothing to say on the
subject of verbal inspiration. With those who entertain that doctrine,
I can have nothing in common. Nor do I recognize, in the professedly
historical accounts, any other inspiration which can exempt them from
the severest criticism that would be applicable to so-called profane
accounts, written under the same general circumstances, and in the
same countries.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30