sforming powers of 'the sacramental principle;' while it requires
but the most moderate use of the great instrument of orthodoxy,
'mystical interpretation,' to find the duty hinted (clearly enough for
watchful faith, though obscurely to the blinded or undevout) in those
passages that speak of a 'tabernacle for the Sun,' or Deity itself being
'a Sun,' or the rising of 'the Sun of righteousness.'... Indeed, the
whole body of the righteous are promised to 'shine as the Sun' in the
heavenly kingdom,--an expression which, though it appear superficially
to refer to a period not yet arrived, the Church has correctively
developed into an assurance of their present beatification, and
consequent right to worship; while it must be at once manifest that, if
any representative emblem of the Deity may demand religious prostration
in our Churches, the analogous emblem of the 'deified,' in the great
temple of the Material Universe, may fairly expect a participation in
that honor. It is true there is an express command, 'Take heed lest,
when thou seest the Sun, ... thou shouldst be driven to worship them;'
but so there is a command, at least as distinct and imperative, against
the worship of _Images_, which, Mr. Newman instructs us, has been
repealed under the Gospel, and was never more than a mere Judaic
prohibition, 'intended for mere temporary observance in the
letter.'"[97]

If it be said that, in the case of the Church of Rome, there is not only
a process of development, but an infallible developing power, and that
this affords a guaranty, strong as the Divine promise itself, against
that risk of error which is attendant on the ordinary methods of human
teaching,--we answer, that this is a mere assumption, which requires to
be proved, and that it cannot be proved in the face of the facts which
attest the historical variations of the Romish Creed, as these are
admitted and defended by Mr. Newman himself. For some of these
variations are not consistent developments of the primitive articles of
faith, but involve either a corruption or a contradiction of these very
principles; and if her infallibility has not preserved her from the
deification of saints, what security have we that it will preserve her
from the deification of Nature? If it has already introduced a Christian
Polytheism, why may it not issue in a Christian Pantheism?

Admit the principle of development, and it may lead to the deification
of man, as well as to the worshi