Page:Delineation of Roman Catholicism.djvu/158

 IJ0 INFALLIBILIT �oM 1. include discipline. The French church never received the decrees of the Council of Trent regarding discipline, and in a part of Ireland such docrees are not received. Thus, amidst these uncertainties, there arise endless perplexities to the inquiring Romanist, especially as his church either prevents him from reading the Scriptures, o 8o restricts him in the use of them that he is left without any certain guide for his faith. The result is, that the man either sinks down into stupid acqm- eacence' with whatever the church teaches, makes hiA act of faltlz, and ' receives what the church receives, without examination; or, on the other hand, if he reasons at all with any accuracy on his religion he immediately becomes skeptical, and shordy after an infidel, either in disguise or openly, according to circumstances. Such are the bitter fruits of popish infallibility. �4. It is quite otherwise with the Protestant. He is in no doubt about his infallible direction. The word of truth contradicts not itself, and he is certain that he whom it does contradict is wrong. The word of God is able to make him wise unto salvation. VIII. We will now notice some of those difficulties and conse- quences which arise from the assumption of infallibility. 1. The t/t/s to this infallibility, and spiritual supremacy, which is connected with it, is doubtful, at best. The  of this title to be the guide and rule of faith ought to be a matter, not of authority, but of proof. He who claims obedienc.e in virtue of daleS'areal power is bound to prove his appointment. So, before we yield our aon to one who calls himself God's vicar, our judgment should be satisfied that God appoints him to that office. The Church of Rome maintains that Christ made Peter the head of his church, and gave the same power to the popes of Rome; and that to the church thus united under Peter and his successors Christ ensured infallibility in doctrine and morals. The commission on which this claim is founded is, "Thou art Peter," &c. This passage, certainly, does not maintain the above claim in plain words; for a person unacquainted with the divinity of Rome would never suppose that these words gave any ground for the claim. At best, the passage contains their claim in an ind/rsct and manner. And if our Saviour ever did, by this promise, endow the Church of Rome with the supernatural assistance for which she con- tends, it is one of the art oho/one truths in the gospel. It might be expected that Peter, in his discourses or epistles, would have removed the obscurity; and that since the grant of infallibility to him, to his peculiar church, and to his successors in the see of that church, was made the only security against the attacks of hell, he would have taken care to explain the sense of Christ's address to him. Peter, however, does not make the slightest allusion to such privileges, either for him- self or successors; nor does he ever mention Rome, but dates his epistles from Babylon. The sense, therefore, which the Roman Ca- tholic Church puts on the alleged passage is exceedingly doubtful. It will therelore follow that the divine right claimed by the pope and his church, to be the infallible rule of faith, having no other than an ob- scure and doubtful foundation, the belief of it cannot be obligatory upon Christians. For it would certainly be a very bad preservative against doubt and uncertainty to leave it doubtful and uncertain by what means, or by whom, that doubt and tmcertaintr shoukt be removed. !

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