ST. PAUL & PROTESTANTISM
"We often read the Scripture without comprehending its fullmeaning; however, let us not be discouraged. The light, in God'sgood time, will break out, and disperse the darkness; and weshall see the mysteries of the Gospel."
Bishop Wilson.
"With them (the Puritans) nothing is more familiar than to pleadin their causes the Law of God, the Word of the Lord; whonotwithstanding, when they come to allege what word and what lawthey mean, their common ordinary practice is to quoteby-speeches, and to urge them as if they were written in mostexact form of law. What is to add to the Law of God if this benot?"
Hooker.
"It will be found at last, that unity, and the peace of theChurch, will conduce more to the saving of souls, than the mostspecious sects, varnished with the most pious, speciouspretences."
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, wasmeant to clear away offence or misunderstanding which had arisen out ofthat treatise. There still remain one or two points on which a word ofexplanation may be useful, and to them this preface is addressed.
The general objection, that the scheme of doctrine criticised by me iscommon to both Puritanism and the Church of England, and does notcharacterise the one more essentially than the other, has been removed,I hope, by the concluding essay. But it is said that there is, at anyrate, a large party in the Church of England,—the so-calledEvangelical party,—which holds just the scheme of doctrine I havecalled Puritan; that this large party, at least, if not the whole Churchof England, is as much a stronghold of the distinctive Puritan tenets asthe Nonconformists are; and that to tax the Nonconformists with thesetenets, and to say nothing about the Evangelical clergy holding themtoo, is injurious and unfair.
The Evangelical party in the Church of England we must always,certainly, have a disposition to treat with forbearance, inasmuch asthis party has so strongly loved what is indeed the most loveable ofthings,—religion. They have also avoided that unblessed mixture ofpolitics and religion by which both politics and religion are spoilt.This, however, would not alone have prevented our making them jointlyanswerable with the Puritans for that body of opinions which callsitself Scriptural Protestantism, but which is, in truth, a perversion ofSt. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. But there is this difference betweenthe Evangelical party in the Church of England and the Puritans outsideher;—the Evangelicals have not added to the first error of holding thisunsound body of opinions, the second error of separating for them. Theyhave thus, as we have already noticed, escaped the mixing of politicsand religion, which arises directly and naturally out of this separatingfor opinions. But they have also done that which we most blameNonconformity for not doing;—they have left themselves in the wa