treatment, applying itself to what is permanent in the _nature_
of the object; whereas the other treatment applies itself to what
is casual and vanishing in the _history_ (or the origin) of Protestantism.
For, after all, it would be no great triumph to Protestantism that she
should prove her birthright to revolve as a primary planet in the solar
system; that she had the same original right as Rome to wheel about the
great central orb, undegraded to the rank of satellite or secondary
projection--if, in the meantime, telescopes should reveal the fact
that she was pretty nearly a sandy desert. _What_ a church
teaches is true or not true, without reference to her independent
right of teaching; and eventually, when the irritations of earthly
feuds and political schisms shall be soothed by time, the philosophy
of this whole question will take an inverse order. The credentials of
a church will not be put in first, and the quality of her doctrine
discussed as a secondary question. On the contrary, her credentials
will be sought _in_ her doctrine. The Protesting Church will
say, I have the _right_ to stand separate, because I stand;
and from my holy teaching I deduce my title to teach. _Jus est ibi
summum docendi, ubi est fons purissimus doctrinae_. That inversion
of the Protestant plea with Rome is even now valid with many; and,
when it becomes universally current, then the _principles_,
or great beginnings of the controversy, will be transplanted from
the _locus_, or centre, where _Phil._ places them, to the very
_locus_ which he neglects.

There is another expression of _Phil.'s_ (I am afraid
_Phil._ is getting angry by this time) to which I object. He
describes the doctrines held by all the separate Protestant churches
as doctrines of Protestantism. I would not delay either _Phil._
or myself for the sake of a trifle; but an impossibility is _not_