Rome and ourselves. This test is the divine accomplishment of
the prophet's message, or the divine blessing upon his teaching, or the
eventual success of his work, as it may be variously stated; a test
under which neither Church, Roman or Anglican, will fail, and neither is
eminently the foremost. Each Church has had to endure trial, each has
overcome it; each has triumphed over enemies; each has had continued
signs of the divine favor upon it. The passages in Scripture to which we
refer are such as the following: Moses, for instance, has laid it down
in the Book of Deuteronomy, that, "when a prophet speaketh in the name
of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the
thing which the Lord hath _not_ spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it
presumptuously." To the same effect, in the Book of Ezekiel, the
denunciation against the false prophet is: "Lo! _when the wall is
fallen_, shall it not be said unto you, _where_ is the daubing wherewith
ye have daubed it?" And Gamaliel's advice to "refrain from these men,
and let them alone, for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will
come to nought," may be taken as an illustration of the same rule of
judgment. Hence Roman Catholics themselves are accustomed to consider,
that eventual failure is the sure destiny of heresy and schism; what
then will they say to us? The English Church has remained in its present
state three hundred years, and at the end of the time is stronger than
at the beginning. This does not look like an heretical or schismatical
Church. However, when she does fall to pieces, then, it may be admitted,
her children _will_ have a reason for deserting her; till then, she has
no symptom of being akin to the false prophets who professed the Lord's
name, and deceived the simple and unlearned; she has no symptom of being
a traitor to the _faith_.

However, there is a third type of rival teaching mentioned in Scripture,
under which the dissension between Rome and England may be considered to
fall, and which it may be well to notice. Let it be observed, then, that
even in the Apostles' age very grave outward differences seem to have
existed between Christian teachers--that is, the organs of the one
Church; and yet those differences were not, in consequence, any call
upon inquirers and beholders to quit one teacher and betake themselves
to another. The state of the Corinthian Christians will exemplify what
we mean: Paul, Cephas, and Apollos were al