doctrines. On a practical question, indeed, we find that St. Paul was sent to ask the opinion of the church of Jerusalem; yet, that very opinion was, in part, set aside and neglected, soon after, by the tacit consent of most other churches*. The natural inference from such facts is, that the analogy of God's moral government was not broken in the direct revelation which he made to the world through his own son; but, having granted us convincing proofs that the Scriptures contain the knowledge supernaturally vouchsafed to man, he has left the search thereof to human industry. Industry supposes difficulty, and difficulty implies danger. The field of moral discipline does not appear to have been changed by Christianity: the light, indeed, thrown upon it is clearer, and "the high prize of our calling" is made fully to shine in our eyes; but it nowhere appears that we are therefore to close them, and run blindly after certain men endowed with supernatural vision.

* The injunction against eating blood and suffocated animals, though given as from the Holy Ghost, was considered as of mere temporary expediency, and set aside sa soon as heathen converts formed the majority of Christians.

Such sober reasoning upon facts, could not be popular in the Christian church. An infallible judge of abstract questions was wanting, and one was soon found; for St. Peter was the chief of the apostles, and Rome the chief of cities. Nothing, therefore, appeared more natural, than that Peter should be bishop of Rome; and little proof of this fact was demanded: tradition, a mere report, was sufficient for those who wished it to be so. Yet something more was necessary to fulfil the object of the first theory or supposition; for Peter could not live for ever, and the judge of faith was to exist till the end of the world. But what could be more natural than that Peter's successors should inherit his supernatural gifts? In popular logic, what is natural, i. e. what agrees with some original supposition, is certain. Subsequent doubts, arising from a system so natural, must be settled any way, or left unsettled. Whether infallibility belonged to the Pope alone, or to the Pope and the church, and who was to be considered the church-these minutia were left for the ingenuity of divines. The Pope and Rome were all in all for the mass of Christians. The effects of un

controlled power, however, soon became visible in the monstrous corruptions of Rome herself. Here the second step of popular intellect was required, viz. to seize the happy distinction of infallibility in doctrine, and profligacy in morals. Who that loves wealth, power, and pleasure, would wish to be a sinless oracle? No: the system of spiritual supremacy was now complete: the original supposition, that the church could not resist the attacks of hell without an unerring judge of abstract questions, had been followed to its remotest consequences; he that ventured to doubt the accuracy of the whole theory was declared a heretic. The Pope might be, in his conduct, an enemy of Christ and his gospel, and nevertheless succeed in the enjoyment of whatever privileges were granted to Peter, in consequence of the love which, above the other apostles, he bore to his divine master*. He might be a monster of vice, yet he did not cease to be vicar of him who did no sin. The church, under his guidance, might be corrupt

* Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. John xxi. 15. et seq.

in "head and members;" but still she must be infallible in matters of faith.

To the solidity of this structure have your divines committed the stability of the church of Christ: unless all this be true, the gates of hell have actually prevailed against her. A moral corruption in head and members; a system which ensured the continuance of this corruption, by repeatedly defeating the efforts of those who wished for a reformation, were, if we believe them, no subject of triumph to the enemy of God and man. As long as the authority of Rome was safe, the gates of hell had still the worst of the contest: let the Pope possess the heads of Christians, and Satan was welcome to their hearts. "The followers of Luther," says Bossuet*, "assuming the title of reformers, gloried that they had fulfilled all Christendom's desires, inasmuch as a reformation had been long the desire of Catholics, people, doctors, and prelates. In order, therefore, to authorise this pretended reformation, whatsoever church-writers had said against the disorders, both

* Ubi supra.

of the people and even of the clergy, was collected with great industry. But in this lay a manifest conceit, there not being so much as one of all the passages alleged, wherein these doctors ever dreamt of altering the church's faith; of correcting her worship, which chiefly consisted in the sacrifice of the altar; of subverting the authority of her prelates, that of the Pope especially-the very scope which this whole reformation, introduced by Luther, tended to."

If there be any conceit in the matter, it is that of admitting the extreme corruption of the Christian church, with the unavailing efforts of the advocates of reform, who preceded Luther; and yet blaming the Protestants because, by making the Pope's supremacy the " very scope" of their reformation, they took the only effectual method of putting an end to the evil. The absurd notion that the unity of the church of Christ depended on unity with the bishop of Rome, tied the hands of all Christians who wanted either the knowledge or the courage to examine the airy basis of that system.

The sword and the faggot, besides, stood in the