conceived. And
thus it may well be that the early church may have altered, in some
points, the first institutions of the apostles, and may have been guided
by God's Spirit in doing so; but the error consists in believing that
the now institutions were to be of necessity more permanent than those
which they succeeded; in supposing that either the one or the other
belong to the eternal truths and laws of Christ's religion, when they
belong, in fact, to the essentially changeable regulations of
his church.]

To such consequences are those driven who maintain the divine authority
of the system of Mr. Newman. Assuredly the thirst for "something deeper
and truer than satisfied the last century," will not be allayed by a
draught so scanty and so vapid; but after the mirage has beguiled and
disappointed him for a season, the traveller presses on the more eagerly
to the true and living well.

In truth, the evils of the last century were but the inevitable fruits
of the long ascendency of Mr. Newman's favourite principles. Christ's
religion had been corrupted in the long period before the Reformation,
but it had ever retained many of its main truths, and it was easy, when
the appeal was once made to Scripture, to sweep away the corruptions,
and restore it in its perfect form; but Christ's church had been
destroyed so long and so completely, that its very idea was all but
lost, and to revive it actually was impossible. What had been known
under that name,--I am speaking of Christ's church, be it observed, as
distinguished from Christ's religion,--was so great an evil, that,
hopeless of drawing any good from it, men looked rather to Christ's
religion as all in all; and content with having destroyed the false
church, never thought that the scheme of Christianity could not be
perfectly developed without the restoration of the true one. But the
want was deeply felt, and its consequences were deplorable. At this
moment men are truly craving something deeper than satisfied the last
century; they crave to have the true church of Christ, which the last
century was without. Mr. Newman perceives their want, and again offers
them that false church which is worse than none at all.

The truths of the Christian religion are to be sought for in the
Scripture alone; they are the same at all times and in all countries.
With the Christian church it is otherwise; the church is not a
revelation concerning the unchangeable and eternal God, but an