riginator of some portions of our
creed. Dr. Priestley, I believe, conjectures that his amanuensis played
him false, as regards his teaching upon the sacred doctrine which that
philosopher opposed. Others take exceptions to St. Luke, because he
tells us of the "handkerchiefs, or aprons," which "were brought from St.
Paul's body" for the cure of diseases. Others have gone a step further,
and have said, "Not Paul, but Jesus." Infidel, Socinian, and Protestant,
agree in assailing the Apostles, rather than submitting to the Church.

3.

Let our Protestant friends go to what quarter of Christendom they will,
let them hunt among heretics or schismatics, into Gnosticism outside the
Church, or Arianism within it, still they will find no hint or vestige
anywhere of that system which they are now pleased to call Scriptural.
Granting that Catholicism be a corruption, is it possible that it should
be a corruption springing up everywhere at once? Is it conceivable that
at least no opponent should have retained any remnant of the system it
supplanted?--that no tradition of primitive purity should remain in any
part of Christendom?--that no protest, or controversy, should have been
raised, as a monument against the victorious error? This argument,
conclusive against modern Socinianism, is still more cogent and striking
when directed against Puritanism. At least, there _were_ divines in
those early days who denied the sacred doctrine which Socinianism also
disowns, though commonly they did not profess to do so on authority of
tradition; but who ever heard of Erastians, Supralapsarians,
Independents, Sacramentarians, and the like, before the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries? It would be too bold to go to prove a negative: I
can only say that I do not know in what quarter to search for the
representatives, in the early Church, of that "Bible religion," as it is
called, which is now so much in favour. At first sight, one is tempted
to say that all errors come over and over again; that this and that
notion now in vogue has been refuted in times past. This is indeed a
general truth--nay, for what I know, these same bold speculatists will
bring it even as an argument for their not being in error, that
Antiquity says nothing at all, good or bad, about their opinions. I
cannot answer for the extent to which they will throw the _onus
probandi_ on us; but I protest--be it for us, or be it against us--I
cannot find this very religion of the