baptism not having been successful in this particular instance, and with this particular court, (although a reason to stir up all our energies to show the Church _does_ not and _never will_ acquiesce in the decision of that court,) affords no ground to any man to affirm that it has been authoritatively condemned as an unsound defence, nay, shows not at all that it might not even be admitted, and succeed in another case. The court cannot be said to condemn all the arguments on the losing side, however it may disregard them. The court is not sitting to try the arguments of counsel, but the general merits of the case; and no one, I suppose, would say that all the arguments of every lawyer who may not gain his cause are judicially pronounced worthless or unsound. What may be justly said of them appears to be no more than that they are not accepted as of weight by that court, or, at the most, that there is an implication of some censure or contempt upon them; but certainly there is nothing to prevent individuals still believing in their soundness; nothing to prevent their being advanced again as occasion may again arise; nothing to prevent them at another time, before even the same, and, much more, before another tribunal, being weighed, being allowed, and being successful. {69} Under such sanction then it is that we claim the Catholic teaching of the universal Church, and the teaching of the Church of England prior to the reformation as _our_ dogmatic teaching still, in all points save where it may be shewn (if it may) to be since plainly and expressly contradicted or repealed. And let us observe, more particularly, to what this principle will reach. Mr. Badeley’s beautifully connected statement has given as many grounds to think we know the _Church’s_ mind upon the matter: it has also touched upon the injunction of the _State_ looking in the same direction: (to this point, however, I shall have occasion to return). But I say at once, observe to how much doctrine this principle will take us; how much, at the very outset, it will claim and secure for us. Surely, _every matter of faith embraced in the first four general councils is retained_; for no one I presume will dare to say that the Church of England at the Reformation repealed, or intended to repeal, any single article, canon, or doctrine of those four councils. “Yea, even as it were a thing unreasonable,” says Hooker, “if in civil affairs the king (albeit the whole universal body did join with him) should do any thing by their absolute supreme power for the ordering of their state at home, in prejudice of any of those ancient laws of nations which are of force throughout the world, because the necessary commerce of kingdoms dependeth on them; so in principal matters belonging to Christian religion, a thing very scandalous and offensive it must needs be thought, if either kings or laws should dispose of the affairs of God, without any