When Corah and his adherents first began their complaint, it was upon the ground of religion and the Church. Even in things sacred some spirits can brook no superiors; and all supremacy, though originating in the Almighty Himself, is charged with tyranny and presumption. “Ye take too much upon you” has generally been alleged against the ministers of God by men who can pretend that _all_ the congregation are holy, that all are equally qualified for the priesthood. Corah was for equality; he could not submit to his lawful superiors. He tells them that they are not better than other people; “All the congregation were holy, every one of them.” What was the gainsaying of Corah in which St. Jude declares that those who separate themselves perish? Did he gainsay any doctrine, or any part of the divine service? No. It was the discipline and government of God’s Church that he gainsayed. Corah’s schism consisted in disobedience to the Head of the Church, and for this offence he and his party went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them. St. Augustine judges that scarcely any crime is so great as schism. Vincentius considers schism as the mother of all heresies. “Who,” says he, “ever supported any heresy before he had withdrawn from the Catholic Church, and had neglected the consent of antiquity?” And Jerome, on the other hand, observes that there never yet was any schism that did not invent some false doctrine in order to justify its separation from the Church. It were easy to bring so large a body of quotations from the early Christians upon this subject as must doubtless surprise those who have been kept in ignorance of the great cloud of witnesses against them. Enough, however, is before us to shew that the first and most eminent disciples of Christ and His Apostles steadily maintained the discipline as well as the faith once delivered to them. Heresies and schisms were permitted for the probation of their faith, but they uniformly repelled them with learning, vigour, and zeal, in no case keeping back the truth upon any pretence whatever. To believe in the Holy Catholic Church is the ninth article of what is called the Apostolic Creed.