Page:Delineation of Roman Catholicism.djvu/162

 �'104 nfr&ULmUaT. even the lives of' her 'minisMrs debased by crime, they are still within her pale, and, therefore, lose no part of the power with wMch her ministr invests them?* The same principle will also affect the laity. They will claim to themselves the privileges of' Christianity wiLtrout partaking of its spirit or practising its duties, and all this by virtue of their membership in the infallible church. And in this false doctrine they are instructed by the last mentioned authority, which, speaking of persons not heretics, schismatics, and infidels, says: "However wicked and flagitious, it is certain that they still belong to the church."t 6. The infallibility claimed by the Latin Church is in.m to accomplish that for which it is intended. We cannot believe the doc- trine, because we see no good effects of it in the world, or in the church which claims it. Nor does it answer the design for which it is asserted, and it is attended with the same or greater difficulties than the doc- trines of Protestants. For notwithstanding the claims of the Church of Rome to infallibility and unity, she has long been the mother of more diversity of opinion, and more heresios in doctrine, than ever disturbed the faith and peace of the Protestant Church in her worst days. It is id, "that without a living infallible judge �ontrover.v/es cannot be ended." To this we answer, that the church which pretends to it is not agreed among themselves on several points pertaining to reli. glen. �Indeed, the doctrine of infallibility itself, as to the seat and eztent of it, is a matter of controversy among them which has never vet been decided. This is as great a controversy among them as any tmt is among Protestants. Whether infallibility resides in the pope, or the council, or both united, or the church at large, completely divides the Church of Rome. Some of them, to get rid of their infallibility, have sheltered themselves under the infallibility of universal tradition. Others of them confess that there is no way of avoiding the  circle on the common ground.' Their divines, universities, and college have been continually employed in dispute. Their different orders of clergy, as the Calvinistic Jansenists and Pelagian Jesuits, the Francis- cans and Dominicans, have been always at war with each other. The Popes, with all their authority, could never settle the differences be- tween these two contending sects. Kings, emperors, and princes haw'. been continually contending with Popes. The most silly questions. such as whether the Virgin Mar)' was conceived in original sin or not, are a theme of dispute. For about three lmndred years they were calling one another heretics respecting this, and their general councils, with all their infallibility, have never yet ventured to decide it. They have also quarrelled about things of the greatest moment. For instance; whether a king or prince may, for heres or disobedience to the church, be deposed, and his subjects be discharged of then' allegiance. Fhe popes and the greatest part of their church, since the eleventh or twelfth century, have held that they might, and have practised accord- ingly, as most nations have felt. But what traditions have taught and general councils decreed on this point is 80 various and contradictor)', that it would take a man's life to investigate, even limitedly, the points of debate: so that some Roman Catholic writers speak of the affirms- tire of this question as an article of faith, and some as an impious error. �Ctechimn, p. 95, t Idem, . 94.

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