found among the Nazarenes, or the Novatians, or the friends of Felicissimus, were rejected by them as apocryphal.  The brightest manifestations of godliness, if exhibited outside their own denomination, only roused their jealousy or provoked their uncandid and malicious criticisms.  The Catholic bishops acted as if they moved within something like a charmed circle, and as if a curse rested upon everything not under their own influence.  Their proceedings often displayed alike their folly and inconsistency.  Tertullian, for example, was a Montanist, and yet he was the writer from whom Cyprian himself derived a large share of his theological instruction.  “Give me the master,” the bishop of Carthage is reported to have said, when he called for his favourite author. [648:1] Thus, an individual who, according to Cyprian’s own principles, was beyond the pale of hope, was the teacher with whom he was daily holding spiritual fellowship!  The bigotry of the party must appear all the more intolerable when we consider that some of those who differed from them taught the cardinal doctrines of the gospel, as zealously and as fully as themselves.  The Novatians seceded from their communion merely on the ground of a question of discipline, and yet the Catholics could not believe that any grace could exist among these ancient Puritans.  The Novatians in their lives might exhibit much of the beauty of holiness, and they might shed their blood in the cause of Christianity, [648:2] but all this availed them nothing in the estimation of their narrow-minded antagonists.  “Let no one think,” says Cyprian, “that they can be good men who leave the Church.” [648:3] “He can never attain to the kingdom who leaves her with whom the kingdom shall be.” [648:4] “He cannot be a martyr who is not in the Church.” [648:5] Every man not blinded by prejudice might well have suspected the soundness of a theory which could only be sustained by such brazen recklessness of assertion.

III.  Nothing, however, more clearly revealed the anti-evangelical character of the Catholic system than its interference with the claims of the Word of God.  The gospel commends itself by the light of its own evidence.  The official rank of the preacher cannot add to its truth, neither can the corrupt motives which may prompt him to proclaim it, impair its authority.  As a revelation from heaven, it possesses a title to consideration irrespective of any individual, or any Church; and God honours His own communication even though it may be delivered by a very unworthy messenger. [649:1] “Some indeed,” says Paul, “preach Christ even of envy and strife, and some also of good-will....  What then?  Notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.” [649:2] But Catholicism taught its partizans to cherish very different feelings, for they were instructed to believe that the gospel itself was without efficacy when promulgated