Indeed, the whole body of the righteous are promised to 'shine as the Sun' in the heavenly kingdom,--an expression which, though it appear superficially to refer to a period not yet arrived, the Church has correctively developed into an assurance of their present beatification, and consequent right to worship; while it must be at once manifest that, if any representative emblem of the Deity may demand religious prostration in our Churches, the analogous emblem of the 'deified,' in the great temple of the Material Universe, may fairly expect a participation in that honor.

It is true there is an express command, 'Take heed lest, when thou seest the Sun, ...

thou shouldst be driven to worship them;' but so there is a command, at least as distinct and imperative, against the worship of _Images_, which, Mr.Newman instructs us, has been repealed under the Gospel, and was never more than a mere Judaic prohibition, 'intended for mere temporary observance in the letter.'"[97] If it be said that, in the case of the Church of Rome, there is not only a process of development, but an infallible developing power, and that this affords a guaranty, strong as the Divine promise itself, against that risk of error which is attendant on the ordinary methods of human teaching,--we answer, that this is a mere assumption, which requires to be proved, and that it cannot be proved in the face of the facts which attest the historical variations of the Romish Creed, as these are admitted and defended by Mr.Newman himself.

For some of these variations are not consistent developments of the primitive articles of faith, but involve either a corruption or a contradiction of these very principles; and if her infallibility has not preserved her from the deification of saints, what security have we that it will preserve her from the deification of Nature?
If it has already introduced a Christian Polytheism, why may it not issue in a Christian Pantheism?
Admit the principle of development, and it may lead to the deification of man, as well as to the worship of Mary; to a sacred Calendar of Heroes, as well as of Saints.[98] It may terminate either in Infidelity or in Superstition, according to the mental temperament of the individual by whom it is adopted and applied.

"An organ of investigation being introduced, which may be employed for any purpose indifferently, the tendency of such a theory of religious inquiry will just tell according to the spirit in which it acts.