one, and no time short of the Apostles' could be assigned, with any show of argument, for the rise of their existing doctrine. This doctrine in which they agreed was accordingly called Catholic truth, and there was plainly no room at all for asking, "Why should my own Church be more true than another's?"—But at this day, it need not be said, such an evidence is lost, except as regards the articles of the Creeds. It is a very great mercy that the Church Catholic over the world, as descended from the Apostles, does at this day speak one and the same doctrine about the Trinity and Incarnation, as it has always spoken it, excepting in one single point, which rather probat regulam than interferes with it, viz. as to the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. With this solitary exception, we have the certainty of possessing the entire truth as regards the high theological doctrines, by an argument which supersedes the necessity of arguing from Scripture against those who oppose them. It is quite impossible that all countries should have agreed to that which was not Apostolic. They are a number of concordant witnesses to certain definite truths, and while iheir testimony is one and the same from the very first moment they publicly utter it, so on the other hand, if there be bodies which speak otherwise, we can show historically that they rose later than the Apostles. This majestic evidence, however, does not extend to any but to the articles of the Creed, especially those relating to the Trinity and Incarnation. The primitive Church was never called upon, whether in Council or by its divines, to pronounce upon other points of faith, and the later Church has differed about them; especially about those on which the contest turns between Romanism and ourselves. Here neither Rome nor England can in the same sense appeal to Catholic testimony; and, this being the case, a member of the one or the other Church might fairly have the antecedent scruple rise in his mind, why his own communion should have the whole truth, why on the contrary the rival communion should not have a share of it, and the truth itself lie midway between them. This is the question of a philosophical mind, and the Church of Rome meets it with a theory, perfectly satisfactory, provided only it be established as a fact,
