Page:True and False Infallibility of Popes.pdf/79

70 further introduction, brings the following proof. 'For,' says he, 'Pope Leo X. asserts in his Bull Exurge Domine of June 15, 1520, which excommunicates Luther and rejects his teaching, § 6, "Had Luther done this" (viz. come to Rome), "we should have proved to him, as clear as the light of day, that the holy Roman Popes our predecessors have never erred in their canons or constitutions. And this is an ex cathedrâ utterance! Dr. Schulte really means it, for he adds in a note, 'Can any one venture to say that the words we have just quoted are not an ex cathedrâ utterance?' Had he quoted the passage in full from which he clips this morsel, and presented it to his readers, any candid reader would have been able to judge whether such a cursory remark could, by any possibility, be erected into a dogma of the faith, i.e. a real ex cathedrâ Papal utterance. So I will bring forward the whole passage, that the reader may judge for himself. It runs as follows: 'Had he, Martin Luther, done this' (viz., as the context shows, 'had Luther come to Rome'), 'then would he assuredly, as we think, have entered into himself and acknowledged his errors; nor would he have found so many faults in the Roman Curia, which he so violently attacks, giving an undue weight to the empty words of mischievous persons; and we should have shown him clearer than the light of day that the holy Roman Popes our predecessors, whom he traduces in such unmeasured terms, have never erred in those canons and constitutions of theirs, which he studiously assails.'