Too much has at all times been made of individual divergences from the established creed.  The influence of a solitary preacher smitten with the love of heretical peculiarity has been grossly overrated.  The assumption is, that his own flock will, as a matter of course, follow their shepherd; that is to say, the adhesion of individual congregations to the creed of the Church depends upon its being faithfully reproduced by their regular minister.  Such is not by any means the fact; the creed of the members of a Church is not at the mercy of any passing influence.  It has been engrained by a plurality of influences; one man did not make it, and one man cannot unmake it.  Moreover, allowance should be made for the spirit of opposition found in Church members, as well as in other people.

[INDIVIDUAL DIVERGENCES UNIMPORTANT.]

It may be said that persons ought not to be subjected to the annoyance of hearing attacks upon their hereditary tenets, in which they expect to be more and more confirmed by their spiritual teacher.  This is of course, in itself, an evil.  We are not to expect ordinary men to recognise the necessity of listening to the arguments against their views, in order to hold these all the stronger.  If this height were generally reached, every Church would invite, as a part of its constituted machinery, a representative of all the heresies afloat; a certain number of its ministers should be the avowed champions of the views most opposed to its own—­advocati diaboli, so to speak.  There would then be nothing irregular in the retention of converts from its own number to these other doctrines.  It would be, however, altogether improper to found any argument on the supposition of such a state of matters.

It is an incident of every institution made up of a large collection of officials, that some one or more are always below the standard of efficiency, whence those that depend on their services must suffer inconvenience.  A great amount of dulness in preaching has always to be tolerated; so also might an occasional deviation from orthodoxy; the more so, that the severity of the discipline for heresy has a good deal to do with the dulness.

If heretical tendencies have shown themselves in a Church communion, either they are absurd, unmeaning, irrelevant—­perhaps a reversion to some defunct opinion,—­or they are the suggestion of new knowledge in theology, or outside of it.  In the first case, they will die a natural death, unless prosecution gives them importance; in the other case, they are to be candidly examined, to be met by argument rather than by deposition.  An individual heretic can always be neglected; if he is enthusiastic and able, he may have a temporary following, especially when the community has sunk into torpor.  If two or three in a hundred adopt erroneous opinions, it is nothing; if thirty or forty in a hundred have been led astray, the matter hangs dubious, and discretion is advisable.  When a majority is gained, the fulness of the time has arrived; the heresy has triumphed.