the book.... Its conclusions about the meaning of the term
_God_, and about man's knowledge of God, are severely condemned; strong
objections are taken to our view of the Bible-documents in general, to
our account of the Canon of the Gospels, to our estimate of the Fourth
Gospel." To these criticisms Arnold might have added one yet more
cogent. It was felt by many of his readers, and even by some of his most
attached disciples, that the "sinuous, easy, unpolemical method" which
he vaunted, and which he applied so happily to criticism of books and
life, was not grave enough, or cogent enough, when applied to the
criticism of Religion. From first to last his method was arbitrary.
[Greek: Hantos hepha]--the Master said it. This was excellent when he
criticised literature. To say that a verse of Macaulay's was painful, or
a line of Francis Newman's hideous, was well within his province. To say
that one author wrote in the Grand Style and that another showed the
Note of Provinciality--that also was his right. To pronounce that a
passage from Sophocles was religious poetry of the highest and most
edifying type,[51] whereas the Eternal Power was displeased by "such
doggerel hymns as

_Sing Glory, Glory, Glory, to the Great God Triune,_"

this again was all very well; for matters of this kind do not admit of
argument and proof. But, when it comes to handling Religion, this
arbitrary method--this innate and unquestioning claim to settle what is
good or bad, true or false--provokes rebellion. No one was more severe
than Arnold on the folly of Puritanism in founding its doctrine of
Justification on isolated texts borrowed from St. Paul; yet no one was
more confident than he that man's whole conception of God could be
safely based on the fact that at a certain period of their history the
Jews took to expressing God by a word which signifies "Eternal."
"Rejoice and give thanks," "Rejoice evermore," are certainly texts of
Holy Writ; but he seems to think that, by merely quoting them, he has
abrogated all the sterner side of the Bible's teaching about human life
and destiny. An even more curious instance of literary self-confidence
may be cited from his treatment of the Lord's commission to the
Apostles. "It is extremely improbable that Jesus should ever have
charged his Apostles to 'baptize all nations in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost.'" But "He may perfectly well have said:
'Whosesoever sins ye remit, the