Should we not say—­We know that Christ has been so doing, for centuries and for ages?  Through Abraham, through Moses, through the prophets, through the Greeks, through the Romans, and at last through Himself, He gave men juster and wider views of themselves, of the universe, and of God.  And even then He did not stop.  How could He, who said of Himself, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”?  How could He, if He be the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever?  Through the Apostles, and specially through St Paul, He enlarged, while He confirmed, His own teaching.  And did He not do the same in the sixteenth century?  Did He not then sweep from the minds and hearts of half Christendom beliefs which had been held sacred and indubitable for a thousand years?  Why should He not be doing so now?  If it be answered, that the Reformation of the sixteenth century was only a return to simpler and purer Apostolic truth—­why, again, should it not be so now?  Why should He not be perfecting His work one step more, and sweeping away more of man’s inventions, which are not integral and necessary elements of the one Catholic faith, but have been left behind, in pardonable human weakness, by our great Reformers?  Great they were, and good:  giants on the earth, while we are but as dwarfs beside them.  But, as the hackneyed proverb says, the dwarf on the giant’s shoulders may see further than the giant himself:  and so may we.

Oh! that men would approach new truth in something of that spirit; in the spirit of reverence and Godly fear, which springs from a living belief in Christ the living King, which is—­as the text tells us—­the spirit in which we can serve God acceptably.  Oh! that they would serve God; waiting reverently and anxiously, as servants standing in the presence of their Lord, for the slightest sign or hint of His will.  Then they would have grace; by which they would receive new thought with grace; gracefully, courteously, fairly, charitably, reverently; believing that, however strange or startling, it may come from Him whose ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts; and that he who fights against it, may haply be fighting against God.

True, they would receive all new thought with caution, that conservative spirit, which is the duty of every Christian; which is the peculiar strength of the Englishman, because it enables him calmly and slowly to take in the new, without losing the old which his forefathers have already won for him.  So they would be cautious, even anxious, lest in grasping too greedily at seeming improvements, they let go some precious knowledge which they had already attained:  but they would be on the look out for improvements; because they would consider themselves, and their generation, as under a divine education.  They would prove all things fairly and boldly, and hold fast that which is good; all that which is beautiful, noble, improving and elevating to human souls, minds, or bodies; all that increases the amount of justice, mercy, knowledge, refinement; all that lessens the amount of vice, cruelty, ignorance, barbarism.  That at least must come from Christ.  That at least must be the inspiration of the Spirit of God:  unless the Pharisees were right after all when they said, that evil spirits could be cast out by the prince of the devils.