“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.”

—  Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood

Letter to Gilbert Murray (1943), quoted in Gilbert Murray : An Unfinished Autobiography (1960) edited by Jean Smith and Arnold Toynbee, pp. 179-180

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Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood 30
lawyer, politician and diplomat in the United Kingdom 1864–1958

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