enturies. Otherwise, whatever else may be improved, the laity
will take care that church discipline shall continue to slumber, and
they will best serve the church by doing so. Much may be done to spread
the knowledge of Christ's religion; new churches may be built; new
ministers appointed to preach the word and administer the sacraments;
those may hear who now cannot hear; many more sick persons may be
visited; many more children may receive religious instruction: all this
is good, and to be received with sincere thankfulness; but, with a
knowledge revealed to us of a still more excellent power in Christ's
church, and with the abundant promises of prophecy in our hands, can we
rest satisfied with the lesser and imperfect good, which strikes thrice
and stays? But, if the zeal of the lay members of our Church be directed
by the principles of Mr. Newman, then the result will be, not merely a
lesser good, but one fearfully mixed with evil--Christian religion
profaned by anti-christian fables, Christian holiness marred by
superstition and uncharitableness; Christian wisdom and Christian
sincerity scoffed at, reviled, and persecuted out of sight. This is
declared to us by the sure voice of experience; this was the fruit of
the spirit of priestcraft, with its accompaniments of superstitious
rites and lying traditions, in the last decline of the Jewish church;
this was the fruit of the same spirit, with the same accompaniments, in
the long decay of the Christian church; although, the indestructible
virtue of Christ's gospel was manifest in the midst of the evil, and
Christ, in every age and in every country, has been known with saving
power by some of his people, and his church, in her worst corruptions,
has taught many divinest truths, has inculcated many holiest virtues.

When the tide is setting strongly against us, we can scarcely expect to
make progress; it is enough if we do not drift along with it. Mr.
Newman's system is now at the flood; it is daily making converts; it is
daily swelled by many of those who neither love it nor understand it in
itself, but who hope to make it serve their purposes, or who like to
swim with the stream. A strong profession, therefore, of an opposite
system must expect, at the present moment, to meet with little favour;
nor, indeed, have I any hope of turning the tide, which will flow for
its appointed season, and its ebb does not seem to be at hand. But
whilst the hurricane rages, those expos