rejoice that it is so, inasmuch as thereby it may be seen by all “that the excellency of the power is of God, and not of us.” Further, it needs surely no words to prove that such objections and such line of argument in denial of our priesthood, can have but one effect, if they have any, namely, to forward the interests of the Church of Rome. This, I presume, ought in consistency to be the last wish of those who use them. But so it is, and in this way. There is no more possibility of any one, who has the knowledge of what Christianity has been from the beginning, being moved by such assertions to disbelieve the great doctrines of the priesthood, the altar, and the sacrifice, as belonging, and necessarily belonging, to the Church Universal, than there is of the words of the objectors moving mountains or drying up seas. We can no more unlearn the very first elements of the appointed mode of our applying to Christ for His intercession on high for us miserable sinners,—no more believe the Catholic truths which we have drunk in to be mere human figments and superstitious inventions,—than we could return to the system of Ptolemy, and believe the earth to be the centre round which the sun and the stars revolve. Nothing, therefore, can be gained in this direction by those who propound such views. But if it should be that any, who know what the Church Universal holds and has ever held on these points, should, by weakness or inadvertence, be shaken in their belief that the Church of England maintains these doctrines and preserves this sacerdotal order,—if any should come to think that perhaps after all she has not a priesthood, and an altar, and a sacrifice, then such would no doubt begin to fail in their allegiance to her, and be afraid longer to trust their souls to her teaching or her keeping. No well-instructed, patient, humble-minded member of the Church of England can, I think, be deceived by so sophistical an argument as that which we have been considering; but, of course, all are not well instructed, nor, perchance, are all patient or humble minded, and hence it may be, there _is_ a danger. But if there be this danger, or if any defections should follow upon such defamation of our Church, those who put forth the libel must have upon their conscience the weight of having aided the Church of Rome against their Mother Church of England.