ST. PAUL & PROTESTANTISM "We often read the Scripture without comprehending its full meaning; however, let us not be discouraged. The light, in God's good time, will break out, and disperse the darkness; and we shall see the mysteries of the Gospel." BISHOP WILSON. "With them (the Puritans) nothing is more familiar than to plead in their causes _the Law of God, the Word of the Lord_; who notwithstanding, when they come to allege what word and what law they mean, their common ordinary practice is to quote by-speeches, and to urge them as if they were written in most exact form of law. What is to add to the Law of God if this be not?" HOOKER. "It will be found at last, that unity, and the peace of the Church, will conduce more to the saving of souls, than the most specious sects, varnished with the most pious, specious pretences." BISHOP WILSON. * * * * * ST. PAUL AND PROTESTANTISM _WITH AN ESSAY ON PURITANISM AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND_ BY MATTHEW ARNOLD FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD AND FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE _THIRD EDITION_ LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1875 (_The right of translation is reserved_) * * * * * PREFACE. (1870.) The essay following the treatise on St. Paul and Protestantism, was meant to clear away offence or misunderstanding which had arisen out of that treatise. There still remain one or two points on which a word of explanation may be useful, and to them this preface is addressed. The general objection, that the scheme of doctrine criticised by me is common to both Puritanism and the Church of England, and does not characterise the one more essentially than the other, has been removed, I hope, by the concluding essay. But it is said that there is, at any rate, a large party in the Church of England,--the so-called _Evangelical_ party,--which holds just the scheme of doctrine I have called Puritan; that this large party, at least, if not the whole Church of England, is as much a stronghold of the distinctive Puritan tenets as the Nonconformists are; and that to tax the Nonconformists with these tenets, and to say nothing about the Evangelical clergy holding them too, is injurious and unfair.