[322:1] [The above sketch has run to great length, yet it is only part of what might be set down in evidence of the wonderful identity of type which characterizes the Catholic Church from first to last. I have confined myself for the most part to her political aspect; but a parallel illustration might be drawn simply from her doctrinal, or from her devotional. As to her devotional aspect, Cardinal Wiseman has shown its identity in the fifth compared with the nineteenth century, in an article of the _Dublin Review_, quoted in part in _Via Media_, vol. ii. p. 378. Indeed it is confessed on all hands, as by Middleton, Gibbon, &c., that from the time of Constantine to their own, the system and the phenomena of worship in Christendom, from Moscow to Spain, and from Ireland to Chili, is one and the same. I have myself paralleled Medieval Europe with modern Belgium or Italy, in point of ethical character in "Difficulties of Anglicans," vol. i. Lecture ix., referring the identity to the operation of a principle, insisted on presently, the Supremacy of Faith. And so again, as to the system of Catholic doctrine, the type of the Religion remains the same, because it has developed according to the "analogy of faith," as is observed in _Apol._, p. 196, "The idea of the Blessed Virgin was, as it were, _magnified_ in the Church of Rome, as time went on, but so were _all_ the Christian ideas, as that of the Blessed Eucharist," &c.] CHAPTER VII. APPLICATION OF THE SECOND NOTE OF A TRUE DEVELOPMENT. CONTINUITY OF PRINCIPLES. It appears then that there has been a certain general type of Christianity in every age, by which it is known at first sight, differing from itself only as what is young differs from what is mature, or as found in Europe or in America, so that it is named at once and without hesitation, as forms of nature are recognized by experts in physical science; or as some work of literature or art is assigned to its right author by the critic, difficult as may be the analysis of that specific impression by which he is enabled to do so. And it appears that this type has remained entire from first to last, in spite of that process of development which seems to be attributed by all parties, for good or bad, to the doctrines, rites, and usages in which Christianity consists; or, in other words, that the changes which have taken place in Christianity have not been such as to destroy that type,--that is, that they are not corruptions, because they are consistent with that type. Here then, in the _preservation of type_, we have a first Note of the fidelity of the existing developments of Christianity. Let us now proceed to a second. § 1. _The Principles of Christianity._