> "'The Net of Faith' is Christ's teaching.. to draw man up out of the dark depths of the sea of worldliness and his own iniquity. True faith consists in believing God's Word; but now.. men mistake the true faith for heresy, and therefore it is for the reason to point out what the true faith consists in, if anyone does not know this. It is hidden in darkness from men, and they do not recognize the true law of Christ.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/43302/pg43302-images.html
#Tolstoy #NotARiverANet #NetOfFaith #Heresy

> "Christ, by means of his disciples, would have caught all the world in his net of faith, but the greater fishes broke the net and escaped out of it, and all the rest have slipped through the holes made by the greater fishes, so that the net has remained quite empty. The greater fishes who broke the net are the rulers, emperors, popes, kings, who have not renounced power, and instead of true Christianity have put on what is simply a mask of it."
#Tolstoy #KingdomOfGod #NetOfFaith

> Soon after the appearance of my book in German, I received a letter from Prague, from a professor of the university there, informing me of the existence of a work, never yet printed, by #Helchitsky, a #Tsech of the fifteenth century, entitled "The Net of Faith." In this work, the professor told me, Helchitsky expressed precisely the same view as to true and false Christianity as I had expressed in my book "What I Believe."
#NonViolence #Tolstoy's #TolstoyWhatIBelieve or #TolstoyMyReligion

> The Quakers sent me also their pamphlets, journals, and books, from which I learnt how they had, years ago, established beyond doubt the duty for a Christian of fulfilling the command of non-resistance to evil by force, and had exposed the error of the Church's teaching in allowing war and capital punishment.
#NonResistance #NonViolence #NoResistanceByViolence #NotByForce

> Jesus' meaning is: "You have thought that you were acting in a reasonable manner in defending yourself by violence against evil, in tearing out an eye for an eye, by fighting against evil with criminal tribunals, guardians of the peace, armies; but I say unto you, Renounce violence; have nothing to do with violence; do harm to no one, not even to your enemy."
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/43794/pg43794-images.html
#TolsotyMyReligion or #TolstoyWhatIBelieve

> From infancy to manhood I learned to venerate things that were in direct contradiction to the law of Jesus,—to meet an aggressor with his own weapons, to avenge myself by violence for all offences against my person, my family, or my race. Not only was I not blamed for this; I learned to regard it as not at all contrary to the law of Jesus. All that surrounded me, my personal security and that of my family and my property—depended then upon a law which Jesus reproved... "a tooth for a tooth."