When we reject traditions therefore, it is not as traditions, but in proportion to their evidence. If they appear inconsistent with the sacred writings, incompatible with the convictions of reason, or disagreeing with the circumstances of the age, we feel that the balance of evidence is against them. If they be merely vague and inconsequential, and not contradictory to each other or to any known truth, we hold them loosely, without firm conviction and without positive disbelief. If they be, not only consistent with, but corroborative of ascertained truth, clear in the origin, and early and extensively held, our faith in them is willing and steadfast. Of the first class are those traditions which were pleaded before the second Council of Nice, A. D. 787, on behalf of the worship of images, which we reject on all the grounds mentioned above; viz. because they are inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the sacred books; because they are incompatible with the convictions of our reason, and because they are perfectly irreconcileable with the practice of the Apostles and the discipline of the primitive Church. Of the second class are those which relate the various fate of the first followers of Christ, and which we admit in the absence of all other evidence, though on such slight grounds as to have no firm conviction of their truth. Of the third class are those by which we receive the sacred books as genuine, and which command belief from their universal prevalence, their strong inherent probability, and perfect consonance with the contents of the books themselves. It will be easily anticipated from what we have said, that we reject those traditions which corroborate the claims of the Roman Catholic Church to a special divine commission; since such traditions are in opposition to what we recognize as the spirit of the Gospel, and unsanctioned by the conduct of the Apostles, especially of Peter. Rejecting these traditions, we hold the opinion suggested by the record of the Acts of the Apostles, that their special commission expired with themselves; that apostolical ordination was a temporary institution; and that the special influence of the Holy Spirit was designed to be a temporary sanction.