may be vain, prophets may be false, miracles may be miracles of Satan; but the signs of the Holy Spirit, truth and holiness, can never be ineffectual, can never deceive, can never be evil; where they are, and only where they are, there is God. There are states of falsehood and wickedness so monstrous, that, to use the language of Eastern mythology, the Destroyer God is greater than the Creator or the Preserver, and no good can be conceived so great as the destruction of the existing evil. But ordinarily in human affairs destruction and creation should go hand in hand; as the evergreen shrubs of our gardens do not cast their old leaves till the young ones are ready to supply their place. Great as is the falsehood of Mr. Newman's system, it would be but an unsatisfactory work to clear it away, if we had no positive truth to offer in its room. But the thousands of good men whom it has beguiled, because it professed to meet the earnest craving of their minds for a restoration of Christ's church with power, need not fear to open their eyes to its hollowness; like the false miracles of fraud or sorcery, it is but the counterfeit of a real truth. The restoration of the church, is, indeed, the best consummation of all our prayers, and all our labours; it is not a dream, not a prospect to be seen only in the remotest distance; it is possible, it lies very near us; with God's blessing it is in the power of this very generation to begin and make some progress in the work. If the many good, and wise, and influential laymen of our Church would but awake to their true position and duties, and would labour heartily to procure for the church a living organization and an effective government, in both, of which the laity should be essential members, then, indeed, the church would become a reality[11]. This is not Erastianism, or rather, it is not what is commonly cried down under that name; it is not the subjection of the church to the state, which, indeed, would be a most miserable and most unchristian condition; but it would be the deliverance of the church, and its exaltation to its own proper sovereignty. The members of one particular profession are most fit to administer a system in part, most unfit to legislate for it or to govern it: we could ill spare the ability and learning of our lawyers, but we surely should not wish to have none but lawyers concerned even, in the administration of justice, much less to have none but lawyers in the government or in parliament. What is true of lawyers with regard to the state, is no less true of the clergy with regard to the church; indispensable as ministers and advisers, they cannot, without great mischief, act as sole judges, sole legislators, sole governors. And this is a truth so palpable, that the clergy, by pressing such a claim, merely deprive the church of its judicial, legislative, and executive functions; whilst the common sense of the church will not allow them to exercise these powers, and, whilst