Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/21



who do not identify history with heresy will always desire to know how a Christian affirmation of the present compares with the past. Whatever validity faith may attach to the teaching of the Church of to-day, there must be reasons and reasons which demand and justify an enquiry into the doctrine of other ages. If serious discrepancies would cause perplexity, unforeseen harmonies would confirm. In any case the refusal to examine is not the product of a genuine faith. For, after all, history is, if on one side human, on another divine. Moreover, the actual development of human thought must be of profoundest living interest. This enquiry, then, must be undertaken in reference to the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. For it is, in a large portion of modern Christian life, an existing affirmation. The question is, What relation does the doctrine bear to the facts of History? And obviously, first of all, what does Scripture say?

The Ultramontane, so far as he founds the doctrine on Scripture language, finds it chiefly in the words of