and
of Protestants as regards the state and the English established church.

"If we had to deal simply with a form of worship and theology, there
would be no ground for distinguishing between the case of the Catholics
and that of the Dissenters." And practically perhaps, in the actual
condition of Europe, the question now in agitation might be permitted to
rest there. But, in fairness to the Protestant feeling, it should never
be forgotten that the Roman Catholic system presents a feature absent
from every other variety of nonconformity. It is not a religion only,
but a polity; and this in a very peculiar sense. Other systems also--as
the Presbyterian--include among their doctrines an opinion in favor of
some particular church government; which opinion, however, professing to
be derived from Scripture by use of private judgment, stands, in their
case, on the same footing with every other article of their creed. You
might differ from John Knox about synods, without prejudice to your
agreement in all else. But with the Romish church it is different. It is
not that her religion contains a polity; but that her polity contains
the whole religion. The truths she publishes exist only as in its
keeping, and rest only on its guarantee; and if you invalidate it, they
would vanish, like the promissory notes of a corporation whose charter
was proved false. Christianity, in her view, is not a doctrine,
productive of institutions through spontaneous action on individual
minds; but an institution, the perpetual source of doctrine for
individual obedience and trust. Revelation is not a mere communication
of truth, not a transitory visit from heaven to earth, ascertained by
human testimony, and fixed in historical records; but a continuous
incarnation of Deity, a permanent real presence of the Infinite in
certain selected persons and consecrated objects. The same divine
epiphany which began with the person of the Saviour has never since
abandoned the world: it exists, in all its awfulness and power, only
embodied no longer in a redeeming individual, but in a redeeming church.
The word of inspiration, the deed of miracle, the authority to condemn
and to forgive, remain as when Christ taught in the temple, walked on
the sea, denounced the Pharisee, and accepted the penitent. These
functions, as exercised by him, were only in their incipient stage; he
came,--to exemplify them indeed, but chiefly to incorporate them in a
body which should h