Another point where a word of explanation seems desirable is the objection taken on a kind of personal ground to the criticism of St. Paul's doctrine which we have attempted. 'What!' it is said, 'if this view of St. Paul's meaning, so unlike the received view, were the true one, do you suppose it would have been left for you to discover it? Are you wiser than the hundreds of learned people who for generation after generation have been occupying themselves with St. Paul and little else? Has it been left for you to bring in a new religion and found a new church?' Now on this line of expostulation, which, so far as it draws from unworthiness of ours its argument, appears to have, no doubt, great force, there are three remarks to be offered. In the first place, even if the version of St. Paul which we propound were both new and true, yet we do not, on that account, make of it a new religion or set up a new church for its sake. That would be _separating for opinions_, heresy, which is just what we reproach the Nonconformists with. In the seventh century, there arose near the Euphrates a sect called Paulicians, who professed to form themselves on the pure doctrine of St. Paul, which other Christians, they said, had misunderstood and corrupted. And we, I suppose, having discovered how popular Protestantism perverts St. Paul, are expected to try and make a new sect of Paulicians on the strength of this discovery; such being just the course which our Puritan friends would themselves eagerly take in like case. But the Christian Church is founded, not on a correct speculative knowledge of the ideas of Paul, but on the much surer ground: _Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity_; and, holding this to be so, we might change the current strain of doctrinal theology from one end to the other, without, on that account, setting up any new church or bringing in any new religion.