red, nor can err in
any point;' and that 'all the constitutions of the Roman Church are to
be received as if they had been delivered by the divine voice of St
Peter.' So that there is an utter absence of proof that 'the Catholic or
Universal Church has been visibly continued through all ages in one
uniform faith, being guided and preserved from error in matters of faith
by the assistance of the Holy Spirit.' On the contrary, there is every
kind of evidence to prove that the supernatural influences of the Spirit
ceased with the close of the apostolic age; that divisions of various
kinds and degrees existed in the Christian Church, over which the
Bishops of Rome for five or six centuries exerted no pre-eminent
control, and which the decrees of Councils were of no avail to soothe
and unite. We therefore hold apostolic ordination to have been a
temporary institution, and at the time more universally understood to
be so than perhaps any other provision for the spread of the Gospel.

Of any such institution as a Church, permanent or temporary, established
by Christ, and distinct from the simple exhibition of his Gospel, we
find not the most remote hint in any records but those of the vain
imaginations of men. _A Church_ means literally an assemblage; and the
Church of Christ signifies, everywhere in the sacred writings, those who
believe in Christ. Where the term is limited, it signifies assemblages
of Christians in different places, as the Church at Corinth, the Church
at Ephesus, &c. By the universal Church it is impossible to understand
any thing but the total number of Christian believers: nor can we
conceive of any means by which it can be shown that the primitive
Christians understood otherwise, or that the term can admit of any other
interpretation. We hold, therefore, that the propositions we are about
to quote from the document to which we have before referred ('Roman
Catholic Principles,' &c.) are founded on an unauthorized and erroneous
conception of the nature of the Christian Church. 'The way or means by
which man may arrive at the knowledge of the mysteries of the Gospel'
are declared to be 'not by the reading of Scripture, interpreted
according to the private judgment of each disjunctive person or nation
in particular; but by an attention and submission to the voice of the
Catholic or Universal Church, established by Christ for the instruction
of all; spread for that end through all nations, and visibly continue