Page:True and False Infallibility of Popes.pdf/49

40 the most ancient times; Dr. Schulte says that he, while, maintaining his own view of the question, he does not accept the doctrine, still holds fast to the faith of the Fathers and to the doctrine of the ancient Catholic Church. Whom is the world to believe? Dr. Schulte, or the Pope and the Bishops? Hardly will he have the confidence to answer, 'The world is to believe me, not the Pope and the Bishops.' Yet, according to the position he has assumed in his pamphlet, he cannot bring himself to answer, 'The world must believe not me, but the Pope and Bishops.' Accordingly, all that remains for him to say is, 'Everybody is to search for himself the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers, and examine the ancient records, in order to find out the truth for himself.'

Out of compassion for the author I decline to stigmatise with its proper name such a position as this which he has assumed; his own conscience must, when he calmly weighs the matter over, tell him what a course he has entered on, and whither such principles must naturally lead him. How utterly unreal, how completely impossible in practice, such a suggestion is my readers will easily see, if they do but consider that they are thus, every one of them, required to examine Holy Scripture, the Fathers, and the ancient records of the Church, in order to know what they have to believe respecting the infallible teaching office of the Roman Pontiff; whether, having made such an investigation, they are compelled to accept this doctrine as a doctrine of the Catholic faith, and under what limitations. In order, however, to prevent any one misunderstanding my meaning, I think it right to remark,