enjoin this obsequious mood of mind is prompted by a strong desire
to revive the ancient empire of priestcraft and the pretensions of
ecclesiastical despotism; to secure readmission to the human mind of
extravagant and preposterous claims, which their advocates are sadly
conscious rest on no solid foundation. They feel that reason is not with
them, it must be against them: and reason therefore they are determined
to exclude.

But the experience of the present 'developments' of Oxford teaching
may serve to show us how infinitely perilous is this course; and how
fearfully, both outraged reason and outraged faith will avenge the
wrongs done them by their alienation and disjunction. Those results,
indeed, we predicted in 1843; before a single leader of the Oxford
school had gone over to Rome, and before any tendencies to the opposite
extreme of Scepticism had manifested themselves. We then affirmed that,
on the one hand, those who were contending for the corruptions of
the fourth century could not possibly find footing there, but must
inevitably seek their ultimate resting place in Rome--a prediction which
has been too amply fulfilled; and that, on the other, the extravagant
pretensions put forth on behalf of an uninquiring faith, and the
desperate assertion that the 'evidence for Christianity' was no stronger
than that for 'Church Principles,' must, by reaction, lead on to an
outbreak of infidelity. That prophecy, too, has been to the letter
accomplished. We then said,--

"We have seen it recently asserted by some of the Oxford school that
there is as much reason for rejecting the most essential doctrines of
Christianity--nay Christianity itself--as for rejecting their "church
principles." That, in short, we have as much reason for being infidels
as for rejecting the doctrine of Apostolical succession! What other