Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/191

Rh "Whosoever sins you forgive they shall be forgiven unto them." Did He invest them with divine attributes? If they say yes, then the infallibility, though it be a divine attribute, may be communicated. If they say no, they may be left to the care of friends, Anglican and Greek; or if indeed they believe with neither, why should they busy themselves about the Catholic faith? A man must be a Christian at least to be heard on the subject of the Catholic religion, or, to be just, he ought to believe at least in the infallibility of the Church before he contends about the infallibility of its head. Such controversy is like a Deist objecting to the inspiration of the Bible. But leaving all these extravagances, which belong properly to the region of newspaper correspondents, we will come to the difficulties of candid and Christian minds. Some have thought that by the privilege of infallibility was intended a quality inherent in the person whereby, as an inspired man, he could at any time and on any subject declare the truth. Infallibility is not a quality inherent in any person, but an assistance attached to an office, and its operation is not to give out answers as may be required by an interrogator, nor to know or to make known new truths, or to communicate new revelations. It is an assistance of the Holy Ghost whereby Peter's faith was kept from failing either in the act of believing or in the object of his belief, and