"Such and so futile is the first pretence. But if this will not serve the turn, there is another in reserve. And notwithstanding the demonstrated impossibility of the thing, still there must be one visible head of the Church universal, the successor and vicar of Christ, for the slaking of controversies, for the determination of disputed points! We will not stop here to expose the weakness of the argument (not alas! peculiar to the sophists of Rome, nor employed in support of Papal infallibility only), that this or that must be, and consequently is, because sundry inconveniences would result from the want of it; and this without considering whether these inconveniences have been prevented or removed by its alleged presence; whether they do not continue in spite of this pretended remedy or antidote; whether these inconveniences were intended by Providence to be precluded, and not rather for wise purposes permitted to continue; and lastly, whether the remedy may not be worse than the disease, like the sugar of lead administered by the empiric, who cured a fever fit by exchanging it for the dead palsy. Passing by this sophism, therefore, it is sufficient to reply that all points necessary are so plain and so widely known, that it is impossible that a Christian, who seeks those aids which the true Head of the Church has promised shall never be sought in vain, should err therein from lack of knowing better. And those who, from defects of head or heart, are blind to this widely diffused light, and who neither seek nor wish those aids, are still less likely to be in

fluenced by a minor and derivative authority. But for other things, whether ceremonies or conceits, whether matters of discipline or of opinion, their diversity does not at all break the unity of the outward and visible Church, as long as they do not subvert the fundamental laws of Christ's kingdom nor contradict the terms of admission into his Church, nor contravene the essential characters by which it subsists and is distinguished as the Christian Catholic Church."

To these sentiments, borrowed from one of the most philosophical of our learned elder divines, I have only to add an observation as suggested by them ;—that as many and fearful mischiefs have ensued from the confusion of the Christian with the National Church, so have many and grievous practical errors, and much un-Christian intolerance, arisen from confounding the outward and visible Church of Christ with the spiritual and invisible Church, known only to the Father of all Spirits. The perfection of the former is to afford every opportunity, and to present no obstacle, to a gradual advancement of the latter. The different degrees of progress, the imperfections, errors and accidents of false perspective, which lessen indeed with our advance our spiritual advance-but to a greater or lesser amount are inseparable from all progression; these, the interpolated half-truths of the twilight, through which every soul must pass from darkness to the spiritual sunrise, belong to the visible Church as objects of hope, patience, and charity alone.

ON THE

THIRD POSSIBLE CHURCH,

OR THE

CHURCH OF ANTICHRIST.

Eccle sia Cattolica non, ma il Papismo denunciamo, perchè suggerito dal interesse, perchè fortificato dalla menzogna, perchè radicato dal più abbominevole despotismo, perchè contrario al diritto e ai titoli incommunicabili di Cristo, ed alla tranquillità d'ogni Chiesa e d'ogni Stato.-SPANZOTTI.

Thus, on the depluming of the Pope, every bird had his own feather in the partage whereof, what he had gotten by sacrilege, was restored to Christ; what by usurpation, was given to the King, the (National) Church and the State; what by oppression, was remitted to each particular Christian.-Fuller's Church History of Britain, Book v.