ere rejected by them as
apocryphal. The brightest manifestations of godliness, if exhibited
outside their own denomination, only roused their jealousy or provoked
their uncandid and malicious criticisms. The Catholic bishops acted as
if they moved within something like a charmed circle, and as if a curse
rested upon everything not under their own influence. Their proceedings
often displayed alike their folly and inconsistency. Tertullian, for
example, was a Montanist, and yet he was the writer from whom Cyprian
himself derived a large share of his theological instruction. "Give me
_the master_," the bishop of Carthage is reported to have said, when he
called for his favourite author. [648:1] Thus, an individual who,
according to Cyprian's own principles, was beyond the pale of hope, was
the teacher with whom he was daily holding spiritual fellowship! The
bigotry of the party must appear all the more intolerable when we
consider that some of those who differed from them taught the cardinal
doctrines of the gospel, as zealously and as fully as themselves. The
Novatians seceded from their communion merely on the ground of a
question of discipline, and yet the Catholics could not believe that any
grace could exist among these ancient Puritans. The Novatians in their
lives might exhibit much of the beauty of holiness, and they might shed
their blood in the cause of Christianity, [648:2] but all this availed
them nothing in the estimation of their narrow-minded antagonists. "Let
no one think," says Cyprian, "that they can be good men who leave the
Church." [648:3] "He can never attain to the kingdom who leaves her with
whom the kingdom shall be." [648:4] "He cannot be a martyr who is not in
the Church." [648:5] Every man not blinded by prejudice might well have
suspected the soundness of a theory which could only be sustained by
such brazen recklessness of assertion.

III. Nothing, however, more clearly revealed the anti-evangelical
character of the Catholic system than its interference with the claims
of the Word of God. The gospel commends itself by the light of its own
evidence. The official rank of the preacher cannot add to its truth,
neither can the corrupt motives which may prompt him to proclaim it,
impair its authority. As a revelation from heaven, it possesses a title
to consideration irrespective of any individual, or any Church; and God
honours His own communication even though it may be delivered by a very
unwort