3d, _It keeps out wicked men_.--This is a most palpable falsehood. The history of all the past is against it. The Church, in every age since the apostles' time, hath been troubled with wicked men. The Saviour taught His disciples that, "the wheat and the tares should grow together until the harvest." "And He whose penetrating glance could trace its progress through the succession of ages, by this significant parable, in which He represented its condition, (Matt. 13,) and proclaimed, that it would consist, according to its earthly composition, of a mixture of true and false members;" "He reserved the public sifting and separation of this mass of men, so different in their dispositions from each other, to his final judgment alone." "He" has blamed that hasty and intemperate zeal of man, which, while it would separate the tares and the good seed before the proper season comes, is apt to pull up the hidden seed of the wheat with the tares. A great majority of the professed Church, at the present time, notwithstanding their organizations, are as corrupt as was the Church in the dark ages. But, 4th, _It keeps out heresies_.--If this be so, why did not the apostles keep out heresy? For we are told by some, at the present time, that they had creeds and compacts? There were some in the apostles' time who believed in circumcision. He, the apostle, inquires of the Galatians, Who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth? In writing his fifteenth chapter to the Corinthians, he inquires, "Now, if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you there is no resurrection of the dead?" These were fatal errors. Again, we inquire, If, by being organized, the Church can keep out heresy, why has not the Church kept it out? There never was a time when there was so much heresy, corruption, and wickedness as at present. Hundreds of professed Christians deny the personal coming of Christ: they teach that persons, when they die, go immediately to heaven; that people have immortal souls; that the spirits of men, after they are dead, return to this world; and that they are peeping, rapping, and muttering, which, by the way, is a _legitimate fruit of the Immortal soul theory;--a counterpart of that lie of Satan_--"THOU SHALT NOT SURELY DIE." These, together with the idea that heresy may be kept out by human machinery, are some of the leading errors of the age. But,