In the following essay, Popkin reviews Newton's writings on the Bible, demonstrating how Newton analyzed the composition and nature of the Bible's books. Popkin maintains that Newton sought to present the Bible as historically accurate, and that Newton also believed the Bible contained corruptions deliberately placed there to encourage a false Trinitarian doctrine.

In the following essay, Trengove analyzes the content and scope of Newton's Observations on the Prophesies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John. Trengove goes on to discuss the implications of the theological views expressed in the work, and comments on Newton's anti-Trinitarian beliefs.

In the essay below, Beauregard asserts that Roman Catholic teachings regarding sin, repentance, and salvation are central to the plot and characterization of All's Well that Ends Well. The first half of the play is concerned with the concepts of miracle and merit and the second with pilgrimage and prayer, the critic contends, and together the two parts delineate the Catholic doctrines of grace, merit, and free will.

In the following essay, Manuel examines the nature of Newton's religious beliefs, as exposed through both his published and unpublished writings. Manuel contends that throughout Newton's life, Newton believed in a "religion of obedience to commandments" in which God the Father, not "Christ the Redeemer," played the dominant role.

In the essay below, Shafer charts what he sees as Hamlet's temporary abandonment of Christian principles for the precepts of humanism—and his ultimate reversion to orthodox religious values. In his humanistic phase, the critic proposes, Hamlet is arrogant and egotistical, elevating his own volition above God's sovereignty, but after he acknowledges the righteousness of Christian morality, he humbly submits himself to God's will and becomes an agent of divine retribution.

In the following essay, Popkin asserts that Newton, as well as other major scientists of the time (David Hartley and Joseph Priestley), conceived of divine causality in a manner that subordinated their views on natural causality and scientific achievement to their "millenarian religious views."

Hunter, Robert G. “Shakespeare's Comic Sense as It Strikes Us Today: Falstaff and the Protestant Ethic.” In Shakespeare: Pattern of Excelling Nature, edited by David Bevington and Jay L. Halio, pp. 125-32. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1978. In the following essay, originally presented in 1976, Hunter views Falstaff as the antithesis of the Protestant ethic.