These, it may be urged, were days of miracle and sign. They were so; but it was only because prodigy and supernatural proof were the chief exigencies of those times. The supply of grace—by which word I understand aidance Divine imparted to human endeavour—was not intended to be uniform or redundant, but “by measure.” Thus the display of the co-operation declared in our text, and the contribution of the Holy Ghost, to the structure and stability of the apostolic Church, these were to be accorded in rigid proportion to time and circumstance and local need. When that Church, built upon the rock of a pure confession, and reared by the succeeding hands of apostles and saints, had survived the wrath of early persecution, and baffled the malice of Pagan antiquity, then, in the next section of her history, heresy and schisms within her walls tried her foundations, and assayed her strength. In this peril He was with her always—vouchsafed other manifestations of His presence and His power. Wise and courageous champions “for the faith once delivered to the saints” appeared on the scene, clad with faculty and function obviously from on high. The warfare of controversy produced the exposition of error and the triumph of truth. Those sound statements of the Triune Mystery and the attributes of the Second Person therein, which we confess in our Nicene and Athanasian formularies, were documents deduced from those Arian and Sabellian dissensions which they were embodied to refute. The suggestions of Pelagianism, again, in the succeeding era, tended to the more accurate definition of Scriptural doctrine on the union of Divine with human agency in the conduct of man; and the experiment of centuries afforded ample comment on the text of the apostle, that “heresies must needs be, in order that the orthodox might appear.” True it is that in the following times, under Papal encroachment, a long period of lowering superstition was permitted to threaten the primitive doctrine and distort the liturgical simplicity of the Church of Christ; yet even then the fire of the apostolic lips was not wholly quenched. The sudden impulse given to the human mind by the appeal of Luther, proved that the elements of early faith yet endured—that the former spirit was breathing still, and awaited only that summons to respond to the call. The success of that German monk, and the other lowly instruments whereby a vast work was wrought exhibited another interference of that supernatural succour promised by our text. The fortunes of our Church of England, since that reformation, have been somewhat given to change. Once her sanctuaries have been usurped, and often her walls assailed. Evil men have “gone round about our Sion, and told the towers thereof, and marked well her bulwarks,” but with hostile intent. The present