Now from these concordant proofs thus slightly sketched, it follows that the institution of the Primacy belongs to that class of facts which is most certain, and which is absolutely demonstrated. For would it be possible to find a concurrence of proofs so various in case it had never been instituted? Is it possible to imagine so many various results of a cause which never existed? So many various tokens of reality in a fiction? What are the chances for letters thrown at random forming themselves into an eloquent speech? Or a beautiful portrait coming out from a mere assemblage of colours? Or a whole discourse in an unknown tongue being elegantly rendered by a guess? If these be sheer absurdities, although a few letters have sometimes tumbled at random into a word, or a single clause been decyphered, though in ignorance of the alphabet, then we may be sure that the Primacy, attested by so vast a variety of convergent results, can no more be untrue, than effects can exist without a cause, splendour without light, or vocal harmony without sound. Accordingly an institution established by such a union of proof, carries prisoner the assent. It may indeed be disregarded by a resolution of the _will_, but can neither be passed by, nor refuted, by a judgment of the _reason_. And[18] having on the one hand this vast amount of _positive_ proof, from sources so various, in its behalf, so that without it the whole Christian history of eighteen centuries, in all its manifold blendings with secular history, becomes unintelligible, a snarl which it is impossible to arrange, when we come on the other hand to consider what its opponents allege of _positive_ on their own side, we find nothing. They content themselves with objections to this or that detached point, with historical difficulties, and obscurations of the full proof, such, for instance, as the conduct of S. Cyprian in one controversy, the occasional resistance of a metropolitan, the secular instinct of an imperial government stirring up eastern bishops to revolt, and fostering an Erastian spirit in the Church, the ambition of thoroughly bad men, such as Acacius or Photius, and the like. But what we may fairly ask of opponents, and what we never find the most distant approach to in them is, if, as they say, S. Peter's Primacy be not legitimate, and instituted by Christ for the government of the Church, what _counter system_ have they, which they can prove by ancient documents, and whereby they can solve the manifold facts of history? In all their arguments against the Primacy they are so absolutely _negative_, that the grand result, if they were successful, would be to reduce the Church to a heap of ruins, to show that she, who is entrusted with the authoritative teaching of the world, has no internal coherence either of government or doctrine, in fact, no message from God to deliver, and no power to enforce it when delivered. In the